It rained in the winter

Seeing you
For their traction
They do call you,
Whore, a distraction
But still,
There is a voice
Beneath my baritone
which begs them,
To think and be gone,
That she is only,
only, my satisfaction.

As she looks far away
Far from my vision,
My heart corrodes,
far from my submission.
And sweet memories erode
Of us sharing apple’s peck,
Of drawing corn fields with a speck,
Of sharing souls and sheets,
and making love together.
The heaven comes together
In midst of hell,
as she looks far away.

Seeing you truly,
heals me.
The audience broke to a round of applause, with whistles and jeers. The relatively small, mahogany -wood furnished café with lesser visitors than often gave vibes of a typical Christmas get together, rather than that of poetry club meet of our college alumni .Much of the water has been passed under the bridge since I passed out from the college, and the possibility of making a living out writing has been somewhere buried within those excel sheets and presentations, only waiting reluctantly to see the light of the day.
You ask my credentials and I’ll tell you,’’Radhika Sharma, relations manager at HW systems, India’’, but deep within, it pains to change it to just,’’Radhika Sharma, writer’’.
It was a dark, harshly cold typical Delhi winter night and certainly was not meant for driving. I mean, driving for lazy anti drivers like us. Nevertheless, it gave me at least one reason to remember Kunal, my ex-boyfriend with whom I broke up last week after a relationship of two seemingly long, tedious corporate years. Everyone from friends to my family was shocked and devastated after hearing my decision, especially those aunties whose sole motive lay in ‘fixing right boys for girls’. They, however, failed to acknowledge the fact he never accepted me the way I was, and was always against this seemingly stupid idea of’ becoming a writer’.
’Do you really think you are that good? Do you even have an idea of what you are saying?’ and all kinds of other rhetorical questions.
My grandma used to tell, ’your words can change the world, they have turned the tides in the war, so use them wisely, meri bacchi (my child)’.
After all of these years of mundane lifestyle and a dysfunctional relationship of two years, my conscience quietly asks my grandma amidst these blazing winds of harsh, selfish world of ours, just one question, does words really have the power to make a change in our world? Or that was indeed meant to be a word candy given to an 11 year old kid?
As I honked thrice for the gatekeeper to wake from his plastic chair-laden sleep paradise to open up the car parking for me, and parked my car in one of my neighbor’s space, Savita , one of the neighbor on my floor came running to me shouting ‘didi!’ all the way along. Sweating profusely, she surely made me sweat in a winter night from the anticipation of a bad news, a collective society throw out maybe. ‘Didi, Suhana has met with an accident’, she blurted.
I pranced through the hospital sections to look out for my sister, and barged into the dressing section only to find her sobbing while undergoing dressing and a visibly annoyed nurse on my intrusion into a gloomy, disinfectant-smelling world of hers. She gave me a stern, animated look to wait for Suhana outside, and as I proceeded, I met with my sister’s Samaritan, courtesy to the doctor. He was a tall and almond complexioned of an athletic but thin make up, with his stubble giving him a look of an intellectual countryside priest. Although it was fairly late enough for normal, day- working humans to get tired and sleepy, his hazel eyes seemed to tell his anticipation of his upcoming night plans, soccer match maybe.
“I don’t know how to thank ...’’,
’’Never mind, nice poem by the way!’’ He cut me short.
He continued,’’ Your poem didn’t looked like written by someone amateur, are you a writer?” I thanked almighty for this moment of cherish and just blurted weirdly,’’ It just comes out randomly.’’ We both laughed.
“I’m Sahil. And really, your poem did seem to remind me of someone whom I can’t remember. I’m sorry, I’ll have to leave for home.’’ He graced and moved quickly out of the hospital, leaving me there with a sweet taste of a candid conversation amidst the overall silent and gloomy atmosphere of a hospital, with a tubelight intentionally fluctuating to give a sense of irritation, I bet. How much I hated hospitals!
I drove back home, this time completely exhausted and just waiting for the roads to end so that I can finally crash on my bed. My sister Suhana, staying with me to study for her medical exams due next year in a reputed coaching institute, was still trying to recover from the physiological shock received from the accident on her left arm. Amidst all of this, I felt a strange déjà vu from my small encounter from Sahil. But sleep deprivation took better of me and I decided to reach home, again, and sleep. I eventually forgot about this incident in the span of next few days, thanks to my excel sheets and work targets.
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If you have seen the horrendous, long daylight traffic jams of south Delhi, you probably have an idea of what sense a metro travel makes for short detour from your office. Especially when you have to escort a younger sibling to complete his or her study goals at right place, on right time. Especially when the younger sibling is a hand-broken sister preparing for her medical exams. As left for my office again after leaving Suhana at Hauz Khas, I saw a known set of hazel eyes, a stubble and almond complexion. As I waved at him out of sheer boredom, he took a while to recognize me and once assured, asked if he could come up to me. I nodded in gratitude and tried to make way for him to come. ”Hi, how you doin’? Suhana all right?” he said, still struggling to get a hold amongst crowd.
“She’s okay, just left her at hostel. Thank you once again for getting her to hospital.”
”Ah! Never mind. At least I got to know you this way!” He smiled.
There was something so peculiar about his mannerism which I felt throughout we talked about the journey afterwards for about one hour. I always had a strange gut feeling of seeing him somewhere else before this.
‘’I am in the army and on a one month vacation, will be able to hear you only for the upcoming meet scheduled. Looking forward!” This is what he said before he left.
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I had about six hours to go for my next poetic performance, with an unprecedented sense of giving a fine performance in front of someone. It usually happens with all of us only when we try to make our loved ones happy or want a share of their affection, say your mother or anyone family. But this was a first time that I was feeling it coming for someone I don’t know, but it sure felt like an impure, yet satisfying heat coming from a fireside, like an only source of warmth amidst the harsh, selfish and mean snowfall in the moonless night.
I lazily reached for my personal drawer to draw out a personal file having my childhood written poems, intended to be read out only on special occasions. While I nostalgically searched for poems amidst sepia-tinted poster cards and my photographs with grandma getting white at edges, the rainy wind came intentionally intruding into my privacy and in a failed attempt of trying to read out the contents of the file, spread them off everywhere on the floor. Already pissed on the rain from the morning itself, I rose from the couch to collect the papers almost in a robotic fashion, and stopped over on one of the fallen picture of mine with some boy, albeit in a park, in a very playful mood.
I quickly recognized the boy, and laughed animatedly over his funny mannerisms, with whom I used to play various role-plays in the park during my summer vacations in Dehradun. We used to meet only for roughly a month every year, and we were used to be partners in crimes all together. I even wrote a poem for him to gift him at his 12th birthday. But much to my surprise, I couldn’t recall his name. As I picked it up to put back in file, I saw something which would go on to make a complete change in my life from onwards. With unbelieving eyes and a shaky hand, I read what was written over backside of the photograph.
”Bye Radhika. “
-From Sahil.
It was unnaturally raining incessantly in freaking cold times of December when my next poetry club’s meet took place. Everyone was expecting me to give another marvel at the event, and I liked this feeling of community respect. As eventually my turn came in and everyone cheered, Sahil almost appeared from nowhere, looking elegant in his blue Chinese collar-denims combo, and joined his bunch of friends in the cheer chorus as well. Then there was a pin drop silence for me to continue.
I started.

       Twilight, ’o’ twilight
          You hold 
  a saga bright ,
 of infinite treasures

treasures of night.

 Twilight , ‘o’ twilight ,

You shone us a light
Of moving against past
To hold along
As long as it may last.

Stories of night
vision of galore,
chivalry and valor
under your sight.

Eternal lust
War, love and fight.
brooks of love
raging against,
ocean of malice.
You shone on them,
your gazing light.

Twilight, ó twilight
Why dýou envisage
Lust
for a drop of tear?
Beúse o’you
we do bear
bear the sight
of raging lust
‘mong enraging hearts
tell me why
twilight ‘o’ twilight !

Endless towns,
of gospel and gowns
are as good as dead,
you may frown.

In the world
You seem to only
to emancipate and elude
so be kind.

Like yours are hard,
hard to find.
long live
long alive
twilight, ’o’ twilight.

There was still silence eluded even after I ended. And then came a huge round of applause from corners of the café, and continued for a while. But somehow, somewhere my heart was searching for appreciation that one person, who gave me respect only for what I wanted, not anything else. Amongst all of cheers, whistles and appreciation, my eyes were only looking forward to the child with whom I used to play on river banks, read poems together and feel free to do whatever I felt to do so. We didn’t share a certain thread of relation to bind ourselves in limits, we were just two kids curious enough to explore what beautiful treasures life gives us in abundance. I searched and scouted for him everywhere possible in the café premises, failing that I ran to the exit to catch him at least on his way home. I’ve missed him once, and surely can’t do that again. Not able to spot him anywhere, I came back into the café heavily exhausted, breathing deeply partly from the blaze of missing him once again and scarcity of oxygen in my chest.
As people had started to move back for their homes or their exciting next leg of their nightlife, I saw Sahil sulking behind the mass exodus in a dim setting, with a glass of scotch whiskey gleaming from the striplights. I slowly went up to him, my heart beating to its peak and an unnaturally calm mind, and stood there for a moment to make my mind believe that this was the same person who had heard my poem twice in his life.
“So, you figured it out?” a voice came somewhere beneath the dim ambience.
“Yes, m-maybe today itself.” I somehow gave an answer.
“Why did you stop coming to Dehradun? I used to wait for you every year in the park.”
I was in tears now. “My grandma passed away, so I didn’t have a reason to come.”
He rose abruptly and came near, much closer to me. His alcohol tinted warm breath started touching my neckline and carelessly played with my earrings, as mumbled earnestly into my ears,” I may not hold any existence in your life anymore, but I still have to show you places, places untraveled.”
We kissed and held on to each other, as time seemed to stop for a while and a hazy night was intoxicated from the strong vibes of passion that emanated from us. We spent the rest of the night sharing sweet memories and nostalgia mixed with love at my home.
It would certainly be ridiculous to conclude the possibility of literary winds to move a grim, mean and big world of ours, but deep beneath, I did realized that words certainly moved a small, naïve world of mine on that day, it truly did.
The audience broke to a thunderous applause and continued for while after a successful narration of my first book, having credentials,” Radhika Mehta, writer.” , as Capt. Sahil Mehta looked emotionally moved, and watched me with utmost pride, along with our two kids trotting all along the place.