#13 A Kiss Day with A Sad Song

There was a time when I got up around 5 in the morning and sat down to research on the writings of Ruskin Bond and Khushwant Singh. I think I read — the night train at Deoli and other stories by Ruskin Bond and selected writings of Khushwant Singh on women, sex and love — more than ten times. Every time I went through the pages of these books, my eyes welled up with tears. Honestly, it was not the stories who made me cry, but it was their old writing style and a skill to put humor in the stories, which I failed to find in modern writers.

I too tried to write something creative, but plotting a story for novel is always been a failure at my part. So I prefer to write short stories about people I have known. I also write self-help articles as it is all about knowledge and a little about character, incidents and plotting. A weakness, I know. Another weakness, my stories are often like an old sad song— sometimes great, sometimes disastrous and quiet boring.   

            Anyway, nowadays, I wake up around 9 in the morning, rebuking and scolding my roommate in my bold desi accent for snorting whole night. A little dizzy, I would hobble to a tea shop outside my house and drink couple of tea cups, followed by kachori and samosa. People generally fail to notice anything good about me, but they always praise me for not smoking cigarette. I feel proud that belching clouds of smoke is not my cup of tea.

            As I sat down on a wooden bench, dipping biscuit in the cup of tea, I saw a woman, standing wayside the road, waiting patiently for someone. Soon a little boy draped in school uniform arrived behind her and held palu of her saaree. She turned around and grinned. No sooner the boy passed a lovely-smile; she took him in her lap and gratefully kissed him. After a minute or so, a shuddering auto-rickshaw laden by school children halted. The little boy climbed down from the woman’s lap and climbed up in the auto. As the children bade by to her, pain of separation and sadness passed across her face. Soon she disappeared in her house and a kiss day with a sad song begun.

            I ate two chapatties with egg curry in lunch cooked by my roommate, Rajish. Rajish was a scholar and recluse. He knew nothing other than sleeping, eating and studying. That might be a reason for me to take room with him. I like people who do not poke their nose in others’ life.

He came and sat down beside me, slurping a bowl full of curry. He passed a curvy smile at me, followed by few more slurping sound— the sound resembled like a couple passionately kissing each other.

All of sudden, the bowl fell over him and the whole curry smeared his clothes. He grumbled under his breath and then threw his lunch emphatically, cursing his fortune. The food strewed on the floor, mucking up the walls. Soon he cleaned everything and took his books to study, sadness remained stuck his face.

It was the time during the nightfall I took a long stroll to get some fresh air. I do it quiet often. I found nature better than my books. No doubt, books help me to live a good life but I have to accept nature gives me a good life. It was just after moving to my new room, I became an ardent lover of nature. The austere and obscure hills of Chennai were enough to enlighten my love for nature. Beauty of Bougainvillea trees is the other reason for my fondness towards nature.

As I passed by the lake, near my University, I noticed a young couple sitting in the dark, snuggling and kissing each other. The boy laid his hand in her waist and pulled her towards him, and then a long-slow kiss followed. Instead of lust kiss, it was a love kiss. She pushed his hand mildly and unlocked her lips to peck his ears, nose and neck. His hands rhythmically smoothened and caressed her contours of her body. She held his hands and independent herself from his arms in a lovely way. No sooner he tried again to kiss her, they observed me standing there. Embarrassed, they maintained a gap between themselves. Their faces, all of sudden, consumed with fear.

I wanted to reach them, to reassure them, everything is fine. No need to feel embarrassment. It was their moment, and never going to come back; live it. Full of fear, they stood up and left the place hurriedly. I felt sorry for them and made my way to back to my house.

I was disappointed with myself. It was better if I would have left the place, instead of gazing them. I had never wanted this to happen. As soon as I reached my house, sonorous sound of namaz from a masjid, at a distance, could be heard. I climbed up to my room, took out my mouth organ, and climbed the rooftop. I had never missed hearing last namaz from past one year. Prayers have always made me more positive and hopeful.

Often, I used to sit on the boundary of roof and play mouth organ, coping up with the hymns from masjid. After that I would settle myself on a chair and meditate on the trees, singing Urdu poetry in the cool evening breeze. A large tree with its small branches lured me more than any other tree surrounding my house.

The moon girt with myriads of stars shimmer above me. I felt the wind, trees, my God, gently, fervently kissing and loving me. I felt goose pimples arising over my body with a few sensations in my hands and legs. I do not know when I slept off in the lap of beautiful earth.

A little drizzling failed to wake me up. You can never predict the rainfall in South India. Sometimes it comes with a loud thunder and sometimes, it pours like a thief tiptoeing in the house. As the heavy rain tore my sleep with a loud rumble, I got up and till I climbed down my roof, I was entirely drenched and saddened.

Disheartened, I recalled an old-fashioned verse from a book of Ruskin Bond:

The pure, the bright, the beautiful,

That stirred our hearts in youth,

The impulse to a wordless prayer,

The dreams of love and truth;

The longings after something lost,

The spirit’s yearning cry,

The striving after better hopes…

Those things can never die.