That was a deserted place, very big and horrifying. At a far distance, there was a narrow path covered in fog. The sky was overcast with stars and there was also the moon, even then there was darkness all around, the stars and the moon were dim. I was walking on the narrow path the yonder end of which seems to go nowhere. There appeared another narrow path from nowhere..........she was standing far away........may be at the distance of eternity. All at once the distance between me and her vanished, and I found her bending on my shoulder and I was holding her in my arm around her back. We were walking quietly, our lips were not moving, but still, there was communication, the darkness was gone, there was light evolving from everything, the stars and the moon began to shine, and so brighten the sky and earth. We kept walking quietly on that path. The path then suddenly divided, she got herself away from me and moved to that path which just appeared from the thin air. She looked at me. Her eyes turned strange as if we were not acquainted anymore. I found her going out of my grip. I was feeling as if she was going away forever. The darkness once again spread all around, and the stars and the moon put out. I kept looking at her disappearing into the darkness helplessly and in utter dejections. I again found myself standing in the same deserted horrifying place.

Then all scenario of the dream changed and I found myself in a place covered with clouds, clouds of all colors and shapes. I saw a marble palace on the horizon. Its boundary walls were spreading far away and the beautiful conical minarets were touching the sky. It was looking very beautiful, shining white amongst the colorful clouds. A path was going spirally, sometimes touching the clouds or at another place passing in between them up to the big gate of the palace. At some place, it was hidden in the fog. There, in a window, someone was standing, perhaps the same lady I dreamed earlier. It seemed as if she was waiting for someone, someone she loves. I was stepping up on the spiral path staring at her. I felt that I had been walking on that path since the beginning of time, but the distance was the same between me and her. The beautiful enchanting face was still at the same far distance as it was before. Then she disappeared from my sight. I felt a great tremor beneath my feet. Huge holes appeared in the walls of the palace, the minarets began to raze down, and everything within the sight was destroyed. The path under my feet broke, and I found myself falling down in the space where there is nothing but darkness…………pitch darkness………the heart splitting darkness.

Then the window of my eyes opened and I found myself lying in the bed. The sunlight was already in the room. I was lying in the bed thinking about the dream. Why it has been happening to me.

I got off the bed and went to my computer to check my email as usual. There was a single message……………..from her!................just one line message,
“I am deleting you from my life”

It seemed to me that everything began to destroy as it was destroying in my dream.

Returning from your city empty handed, not even have life

otherwise I would have given my life while returning.

I have been the continuous guest of the city

Every stone in the hand of my rivals now recognize me.

The friends and well-wishers disappointed me

May they give some wounds while leaving

Now not permitted even to crawl, otherwise,

would have blossomed the flowers of my wounds

I was the burning stone of dessert, you were the river,

May you quench my thirst while leaving.

I am weeping, but do not know how to cry

People are laughing at me while passing by

I am the traveler of the path of love, may there be others,

May they remove the stones of this path for the new comers.

SHE

It was bright hot sunny day. I was standing at the shrine thinking why I was there.  Whether, I really wanted to pay the homage to the saint lying there in the grave sleeping in eternal peace.  The Saint may have known of my real purpose of visiting His Shrine.  Thinking this I felt a little shame, but I was the slave of my heart.

 All at once I felt that there was a cool shadow fell upon the surrounding, in that hot afternoon, a cloud full of cold water, came in front of the sun…….. Yes she had come! She put her delicate feet in to the entrance of the Shrine. I didn’t know where all the heat of the weather disappeared. I felt that breeze coming from the sea has surrounded the Shrine. I could never understand that just appearance of a personality like her could change the entire surrounding.  Was it a real change or just my feeling, which I always felt in her presence? Was she real or just my imagination?

 Now she was moving slowly, I felt as she was floating on water, towards the grave of the Saint, knelt down and raised both of her beautiful hands; the wings of a dove touched each other.  She was quiet, staring at the grave, and I was staring at her. I saw, I really saw, her eyes were dampening, and those pearls white glittering pearls came out of the lake of her eyes sliding down her rose like cheeks. I staggered forward just wanted to collect those pearls on my lips or at least in my hands, but stopped just as there was an unseen barrier between me and her.  I waited unmoved for her to come out of her prays.

 I didn't' know what was she praying for, but I know she herself was the reward of prays.  She was before me, but too far from my reach. I had firmly decided that I will talk to her now and ask what was her desire that brought her to the Shrine? Whereas, she herself was my desire, for which I would prostrate for my entire life. She was heavenly beautiful.  She was herself a pray, why she was wasting her time in prays. I couldn't realize how long I was staring her spell bound.

 I was awakened when I saw her standing on her feet and moved back towards the exit of the Shrine I rushed to the door and stood there before she comes. I desperately wanted to talk to her. When she came near I stepped forward she abruptly stopped and looked at me, “what!" "Oh you again" She gave me a long slow look, as if she were deciding something, and then she allowed herself to blush, the color suffusing her cheeks. Her lips trembled very slightly. I stretched my hand towards her. She took the bowl of water from my hand and drank it. Thanks! "You always give me water whenever I come here, why?" She asked me as usual with the sweetest smile on her rose petal lips. I couldn't reply. My throat was choked. She turned and stepped down the stairs of the Shrine. I was standing there motionless, with my eyes fixed upon her. She disappeared just she stepped down the last step of the stairs. Or was it my illusion? I was standing there with frozen sight exact on the spot where I saw her disappeared.

And then a moment comes

you are not afraid of any thing,

sitting alone does not bother you

no tears come in to the eyes, 

lips always blossom with smile

Because you have become 

HABITUAL of all the sadness

never care anyone

whether they talk or none.

Tell her I can’t live without her

Lots of love I have, but can’t tell her

I have burden of sadness,

But do not want to open to her

Can bear the hardship of life,

But your indifference for me is intolerable

Always keep my eyes damp

Doesn’t know how to drop out the tear

How the problem of my love be solved

I am unable to tell, you’re not ready to hear

It punishes me again and again

Want to live, where doesn’t know, how to live there

There is nothing all round, but sadness

Looked for one, found you, forgot all sadness

You came, again left me leaving

Again, was in my fate the sadness

What a sadness you gave me

Forgot all other sadness

Why not tell the story of sadness

While remain none but sadness

Surprised, why it is called love

It is nothing but infect a sadness

All advise me I would forget you

There are others, but again sadness

I am not insane to leave your sadness

This is the only happiness for me to have your sadness

Neither she comes to see me, nor ask to come to her

How the hope to see her would steer

Never ever love beyond limit 

The loved one will leave forever

You would understand the meaning of deception

Might you find the deceiver ever

The moon is asking the reason of waking

May any of your dreams break never

All the relations are material relations

No friends, nobody’s mine, a support neither.

I got frightened of love, when frightened then I saw you

My heart died of love, when it died then I saw you

When I was suffocating of loneliness, where were you

My heart got full of sadness, when it was full of sadness then I saw you

Once again frustration,  love, and deception, no not now

I had decided, when decided then I saw you

I considered myself the meanest in love,

When I put blamed on myself, then I saw you

Thought borrowed

Love comes suddenly and fills you entirely.  Right now, you are afraid even to move, for fear that she will leave if you step forward. She is with you; it is never too hard - a few minutes; maximum ... but her presence is enough to make you happy. To love someone is like letting to prevail the mystery of sensing the warmth, the mystery of touch.  But let her (your imagination) free, free to go, free to spread, because love in fact bring freedom of thought, freedom of imagination to move in vast, so let your lover free to spread in the vastness of imagination.  Let the love float. There may be thousands of lovers, but rarely there is one who is set on the level of a beloved.  How nice it is to make you feel complete that there is someone in a corner of this earth who thinks about you, cares about you in his solitude.  Your memory spreads a sweet smile on his face.  

If people ask about me,

say nobody important

Just a friend, but not very fast

A companion not long last

A dream incomplete, a flower but dried,

A love, unconfessed and hide

He is an acquaint stranger, a relationship unknown

A reality but not known

He is a crazy lover,

Love has got him over.

Just make some excuses,

Tell them, a companion who if not near

Make me feel like recluses

If people ask about me,

Just make some excuses

Sleepless nights in the sad season

Scattered every moment, changed every path

Who will come in this sad season?

Somebody would go there

and reduced her distances

scatter my memories in her street

tell you how someone scatter

the pearl of love towards you,

somebody would go and invite you in my words

the words full of love and emotions

The twilight was in the offing, (it had already started getting dark), when I started driving to the beach.   I moved towards the rock where I was used to sitting.  No, I do not get scared if the darkness even prevails the atmosphere, I rather feel close to the Nature.  That day I was in gloom, (without any reason, and it is usual for me, I do not need any reason to be sad or happy).  I heard the wind blowing as if it had started crying seeing me in gloom.  I wanted to sit on the rock and to watch the white stripe on the horizon.  It had not gotten dark yet.  As the sheet of the darkness was getting thicker, the stars became brighter and brighter.  I stared at the stars, as I wanted to find a special one, the one belonged to me, the one created for me. 

"Why isn’t there any one for me.  My heart is full of love, full of warmth but inside I am still lonely.  Why I am lonely in the crowd of all human species wandering on the beach, and now drifting away because it is getting dark.  Maybe they are afraid of darkness, but why I like it.  May be because it hides me from the eyes of the onlookers." 

It was getting cold and before I started freezing, I stood up and moved where my car was parked.  I immediately got into the car, the atmosphere inside started to warming me up.  I started feeling relaxed.  I did not know when I reached home, fell on the bed and got asleep.

O love! Look at me. 

How you have ruined me!! 

For me, you are my beginning and so as my end!!! 

Though people know but they don’t understand me, like I am famous, but unknown too. 

You were not in my fate, but I do have a fate, I found wisdom, like I am failed, but even successful. 

I still commit the sin……….sin to love like I am sinful, but I am innocent.too.

I am once again in that street where I first met you, came with a hope to see you.  It is one of the busiest places in the whole city.  I remember the smile on your beautiful lips.  Even today the slight trembling of your lower lip tickles my entire self.  I remember you were strolling in the street, which was looking narrow and so small because of heavy rush of traffic and large number of people, who were passing through it.  The street is in the center of the city, and you were the center of my attention.  The name of the area is Saddar, an Arabic name means center/heart and/or brain.  O my love, I didn’t see center, or the heart and/or brain, you were my center, my heart and/or my brain, but who were you, who just threw a single glance and a slight smile, then lost in the crowd leaving me standing alone in the rush of passersby where I am still standing with the hope to see you again.

 I am sitting dumb and numb, with a blank paper before me, just your name written  on it. Staring at your name. The life seems confined in it.  It seems like a confused poem, or words, are stuck, want to come out, but can’t set on the paper, floating in the air like stars or butterflies.  I am looking at your name written on the paper and thinking the poem has completed, there will be no better poem than this.

 In the distance, he vaguely sees a girl smiling................his daughter. He recalls his daughter  saying. "I love you papa!" She was repeatedly saying this and tears were rolling down on her cheeks. Her mother was dragging her out.... She was leaving.

He remembered what happened last evening.  He was off from his work, looking very happy to tell his wife back at home about his promotion.  He stopped to purchase some gift for his wife and daughter.  When he was coming out of the shop a man in poor, filthy dress interrupted him. "Why you are looking so happy............nobody loves you.  Here is non-who loves other, except selves."  He got angry, "you are mad, everybody loves me my wife, my friends, every one!" "Do you want to hear them inside” The man said to him with a loud laugh.  Then he hugged him tight. He tried to get rid of the man, but his grip was very strong.  Few moments later he released him and ran away.  When the old man was gone, he felt a change in him, he heard people talking. Everyone was going to their respective destination quietly, but he was hearing their inside.

"Am I’ve gone crazy?”.  He was thinking standing there and staring at the people passing.  He heard a lady who was passing by him, though she was quiet, he heard her inside.  He got upset and rush to go back to his home.  

"I am home honey!" He called his wife while entering the house.  

"He has come back, showing his love, what I will do with his love when he doesn't have enough to provide the comfort I want."   He heard his wife inside when she was hugging and kissing him.  "I love you darling.  Waiting for you."  Inside voice: "I was sleeping, interrupted my sleep!"  He got shocked hearing her inside. 

"What are you saying, do you not love me." He said in with a great shock.  "What! how do you kn..........say that I do love you, darling."  "that was my mistake to marry him..................I thought he would be a rich man.........but..............."

Then the argument was igniting, and they were calling each other liar......................his daughter was standing at the door, first smiling, ...............then got frightened...............she was looking worried.

"You get out of my house and leave at once...........and take this girl with you." He was very upset.  His wife also got upset thinking that he had gone mad, "but how could he know what I was thinking, really gone mad, I can't live with him.  She was dragging her daughter out of the house.  The little girl was crying.......I love you papa...............I really love you papa.............I don't want to go!"  But he didn't listen.

He remembered that when his daughter was calling him......."I love you, papa.........he heard her inside saying the same "I love you papa..............I really love you."   

The ability to hear people inside is no more when he wakes up next day, and he realized that still there is true and pure love inside and outside, so the life is not hopeless at all.

 He knew where he can find his wife and daughter, and he was driving fast to reach there before it is too late.

I am common among uncommons
Sometimes I touch the sky
Sometimes confine in myself
Sometimes I love company, party
Sometimes love to be deserted
Sometimes I express my desires
Sometimes deny even what I require
Sometimes I like all laughters 
Sometimes want to be quiet
I am frank, but different,
I am common among uncommons

Fog is floating over the lakes, birds are flying above the cliffs, moving back to their dwellings, to the town, towards the jungles.  The shepherds are taking their herds to their settlers.  O, my dejected heart where I would go?  O, the sad evening, tell me where I would move to settle?

What I understood as ‘love, it was a ‘relation of no relation”.  The relation I had, was the relation of ‘parting’.  I am not feeling discarded because I could not have your love.  The sadness is, there was no one between us.

It was a glorious evening; the sun was setting slowly.  It seemed to be hesitated going in the process of setting, as if it didn’t like to end the day.  It was teetering on the horizon, throwing ribbons of pink and mauve across the sky like life ropes, and the air was sweet with jasmine. In such attractive environment, I and him were strolling by the side of country road.  He bought an ice cone for me.  I was talking with him while licking the ice cream time to time. Abruptly he asked me, “Naina…………,” he used to call me Naina, because he was in love with my kajaled (black) eyes more than me, “Naina, do you know how love is ‘valued’?”  I being straight forward, didn’t give heed to his question, “What do you mean, it is just in assessable!”.  He smiled at my silliness, downed his gaze, then he said in a very soft tone, as was seeing somewhere else, “the value of love is assessed how a beloved or a lover is devoted, honest and faithful in their love. As much as the devotion, dedication, honesty and faithfulness is there in love, the love will be as valuable.  These qualities are the soul of love. How much the soul is pure the love will also be pure, without them the love is dead soulless.  I was staring at him without blinking, I who never take all these emotions seriously, just understood, I was standing low, and how he was higher.  “Hey, your Ice cream is melting.” He was shaking my shoulder, I looked at my ice cream, it was melting, so was my heart.   

The tear stuck in my eye is you

Which has blurred my vision is you

Who stole my sleeps is you

Who burns my emotion is you

Whose memory pinches me is you

You are not aware how I was looted by you.

Many pages of life I have turned, unaware, is you and you,

How thorns of memories pinned my soul not aware is you only you

Who cannot feel my pain is you

Unaware of my suffering is you

Who has lost his heart, is me, not you

How deep I was in love, not knowing, is you

Many fables related to you because of me

Many dawns will remember me

Many dusks are now memento

But now who turned away, is you

I gathered the memories who scattered them, is you.

In collecting all, it takes years so as changed my moments

This has become my habit remembering you, you and you.

Which bring tears in my eyes, how delicate the love is

I realized after meeting you

The rustle of the wind makes me feel as you have come,

When I turn to see, there is the rustling mere

The tear., stuck in my eyes, blurring my vision, is YOU.