Today as the sun comes up, it
would be because sleep was slow and at the supposed right time
It wouldn’t be to the last moment
hassle to resume slumber in the lectures
It wouldn’t be to kick you out of
the bed or to scream at you that your class starts in 5 minutes
It wouldn’t be to the ritualistic
coffee and toast or to the loudest room in the corridor.
A new day to an unfamiliar
silence, the sounds of life that you weren’t wont to for quite some time.
Today as the freshly mowed grass
is bathed in the blistering heat, it wouldn’t be to that open window
overlooking the campus and the best view in it
Wouldn’t be to the best room in
the hostel, with that just right cool breeze and a built in natural thermostat
Not to the road to the endless diet
journey, and yet that led to the hostel mess.
A new day with timely meals and
not four hands in one tiny lunch box.
There wouldn’t be that din of
life, of happiness and sorrows wrapped in the waft of good food and Coke
Studio
Nor the need to hide my tears in solitude
for the fear of being caught by the too attentive roommates
There wouldn’t be the dread of
the days ahead, of the incessant calls and the gravest discussions in the
dingiest room.
A new day with lesser worries and
even lesser people to grumble or laugh about it with
You have run out of excuses for
food binge, will not have ethical dilemmas over Chinese or North Indian
Who would tickle those creative
feathers for further demolishing the walls?
You wouldn’t run around booking
rooms and sending mails, all through complaining about the lack of infrastructure
Yet loving that alcove nestled
beside the lake with music from the otherwise silent smartphones
The new day has a promise of the
grown up world – of morphing relations and sleepless nights of materialism
This new day heralds for
everyone, brings in hope for some and perhaps fear for others.
But somewhere that insolent child
demands that time stops just this once, let this moment freeze for a while
In a room of 3 beds, speakers, the
multi-hued crowded walls and those ever present souls
In the laughter and nonchalant
bitching, in the shared food and fears, in what felt like a happy fraction of
life tucked in a safe corner
In the classes with those drowsy
faces, even in those DCPs with their hands up, always
In the rush of local trains, in
that mellifluous walk by the Marine Drive in the wee hours of dawn
Let those moments reel back to
where it all began
The journey we embarked to carve
out our niche, to make a mark on the sands of the slippery mistress called time
I know not if the destination
ever arrived, but I remember your laughs, your music, your dance, your
dinners,
I recall that idli, and the bhel,
the beaches, the late night series, and the not bothering about exams
And I smile.
I smile at fortune’s favour, I
sigh at the speed of the time
And I wonder where the diverging
roads might meet again.
Surely we will, the insolent
child pouts
He cares not of the tempestuous treachery
of time and fate, he doesn’t look at what life brings to each.
He holds on to those gossamer
threads of memories filled with sunshine and peace
He sleeps to the music of silence
under his friends’ loving gaze
He learns to try and hope for the
better as he looks back at his tears and joys, sublime and real.
He runs barefoot on the sun
kissed sands and hugs you for the reprieve from life
He cracks jokes on you thanking
you for never giving up on him, even when he did
And he sings along, high pitched and
noisy, to the tune that bound us all together.
As we aged a little more than
yesterday, as we set in to lose ourselves a bit more to the world
I hope that the child finds his
home by the sea, of azure waves, white clouds and golden memories
And that someday, one new day, we
all would find our way back to it too.
