Blotted memories :- (Nostalgic)
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             A night before the exams ....It was half past ten when i finished the 
studies  , stacked the books neatly on my table and went for a stroll 
down the curvilinear narrow lane which runs down in front of my home . 
As i zigged to the right , glowing with a undignified feeling , as 
though after a good meal , then and there a realization of loneliness 
struck me suddenly . There was no one to share a feeling , which caused 
me to vacillate in the air of anxiety. I had no one. For the first time ,
 i wished her presence and i could do nothing but to remain stranded on a
 lonely island of despair and misery. It has been almost two years . 
Compulsion to travel along the trajectory of higher education drifted me
 apart from her and created chasm in our bond of love. 
                     
 I had no where to go that night, save to the little boarding house on 
East  Kolkata Street , where i would have to climb three flights of 
stairs to my clean,airless little room . I had met people in kolkata, 
many people,many girls of all sorts and traits.But i wished to see none 
of them . And then i thought of Gurveen and the image of her angelic face shimmered in the moonlight .
             
 I had sent her a greeting card on the night of my graduation from 
school and forgotten her ever since.  Now i wanted to see her; the 
desire was intense and immediate with the first sound of her name in 
memory. During my school days ,I used to leap into the bus for
 the long ride to her home which flung to other part of the city. 
Excitement of meeting her brimmed over my mind as the bus lurched 
forward ; i cursed the traffic lights whenever they turned to red .It 
had always been like this where Gurveen was concerned.
           
 The door on the top floor of a ostentatious two storyed brown coloured 
 house would open on my arrival. "Hello, Siddhant," she said, as if she 
had seen me yesterday .She stood before me, too small, too thin for her 
clothes. The short black skirt flared out from the 
slim band of her waist; the boyish shirt collar hung loosely, pulled to 
one side, revealing the knob of a thin collarbone; the sleeves were too 
long over the fragile hands. She looked at me, her head bent to one 
side; her chestnut hair was gathered carelessly at the back of her neck,
 but it looked as though it were bobbed, standing, light and fuzzy, as a
 shapeless halo about her face. Her eyes were gray, wide and 
nearsighted; her mouth smiled slowly,delicately, enchantingly, her lips 
glistening.
               Her normal expression and sense of worry on seeing me at first were " You
 have turned so thin, why don't you take care of your health !. I don't 
want my love to look haggard and lean as if you are deprived of good 
food" . And the next obvious question to be thrown was "Tell me 
what will you prefer pasta or sandwich?" She would eagerly wait for my 
response and thereafter plunge herself in making pasta. And within 
minutes rustled up with two platters of pasta enriched with piquant love
 and tartare sauce. She felt contented to see me, while i hogged and 
slurped it down my throat . We talked long hours of our favorite 
ice-cream parlor at welkin street , where we spent so many summer 
evenings together--and i was thinking dimly that it made no sense at 
all; i always had more pertinent things to tell and to ask her; people 
did not talk like that when they hadn't seen each other for weeks.
As
 i rose from the chair to take a leak , the clock had struck half past 
three in the morning , realizing that tomorrow i had my exams i stopped 
painting, my colourful memories and continued to rejoice the pangs
 of relishing, scoops of  Choclate ice-cream with Gurveen at Welkin 
Street in my dreams .
marvellous!!!!
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work!
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