Waiting

WAITING

            By Kuchanna


I was quite desperate. Not that it didn’t happen earlier but today it was different. This waiting never seems to end! But I could not take chances now. After all, I had been waiting for so long.

An inclination was enough. To yield to temptation was such confusion; thrilling, stunning and soothing- all at a time. So, she stormed in and shattered my many 'sleepful' nights. In the bright evening sun her face shone a little more perhaps.

It is already fifteen years! I tried to recollect who was her favourite singer. Talath or Mukesh or Kishore? Probably the last, no girl of her exuberance would like that melancholic Mukesh or haunting Talath. Anyway, that doesn’t really matter anymore. After all, she is blissfully married and looks so graceful now.

But I must know if she is likely to come this way again. Waiting was a matter of principle! I tried to convince myself that she could, after all, be herself (like me!) But ‘doubt’, the traitor, wouldn’t leave me in peace. No, she could at best be her facsimile, a shadow if not a projection of my own mind.

The point is to unfathom, discover, peel off and bare it to myself. The aim is to see and to realize. She should reveal herself like truth.

I wondered why I was trying to be poetic! To turn away from the stark reality that I cannot face, to shield myself with the beauty of my own creativity?

I mused and thought of the setting sun and curiously pondered over the golden beams that once made her warm orange coloured 'saree' glitter. Yes, that was the colour I like most.

Birds from some alien land flew past across the tainted blue sky in symmetrical formations. I sat alone basking in the lingering warmth of the evening sun until the chill crept in. Suddenly I realized that it was dark.