तुम हो ग़म को छुपाये
मैं हु सर को झुकाये
तुम भी चुप हो
मैं भी चुप हूँ
कौन किस्से समझाए
अब दूरियां
इतनी हैं तो
मिलना यहाँ
कल हो ना हो
~ Javed Akhtar
~~ Kal Ho Na Ho
It was terrible to be alone when everyone around you is celebrating. So what if she was far away from home, she could get the home-like feel here. It's not easy to replicate, but she could try. So Nairah sat up straight one day at work and drafted an "Get together at my place" email. She sent it out to all her friends. And most accepted.
Yes, that made her happy. She had other plans to spend the holidays. She thought she will re-visit a chapter in her macroeconomics book from college. Something she had read recently intrigued her and she wanted to see how the scenario would play out on a graph, how would output react.... to draw those graphs again, oh what bliss. Then she thought, maybe she could catch up on her reading, then there was this beautiful sketch that she had seen on a site and she wanted to try recreating that on her canvas pad. Or maybe she could just sleep. This 6 am morning routine made her so tired after all, and she hadn't been sleeping well off late. She eventually decided to have a good time with her friends and invited them for dinner.
The city was lit up with fairy lights, the parks had artificial reindeers jumping around, colorful, musical and brightly lit Christmas trees lined the popular shopping promenades, her favorite one was the one with fairies all around it. She loved this time of the year. It was one season she looked forward to. When it started to get cold and chilly outside, she took out her woolens and prepared them for the coming months. Her sweaters and scarves were the favorite part of her wardrobe. She just loved winters. And it snowed here! It was like Delhi, but with snow! Ah, how she missed Delhi. It was time for her to visit soon, maybe in February next year, she told herself
It was a beautiful day. The church next to her house was crowded, it was December 25th ! She woke up early that morning to start preparing for the evening meal, she knew what she wanted to make, especially for dessert. Someone at work had ordered a red velvet cake for a colleague's birthday. And it was horrendous, it was so bad that she couldn't take a second bite. She vowed that day to make a 3-tier red velvet cake that looked and tasted good! So she started getting the ingredients ready for that. She loved listening to music when she was in the kitchen. So she got her laptop along. Her flatmate was out of town, so she turned the volume up to maximum and got working.
The radio then played a song, that made her heart cringe. Michael Buble telling her, in his lovely honeyed voice, that all he wanted for Christmas, was her. She tightly closed her eyes, almost as if she was trying to push something back from her head, her heart. And as he said " all the lights are shining so brightly everywhere", she opened her eyes. She was successful in pushing back whatever it was that made her cringe and she was back in her chirpy festive spirit, her natural stoic self. And she even hummed along with Michael, as she poured the cake batter into the 3 cake tins. She was about to put the bowl she prepared her batter in, to wash, when suddenly she realised, she was crying. He loved tasting her food and cakes. He would start eating when she chopped vegetables, or whipped up eggs and sugar. If he were here with her, there was no way so much red velvet batter stuck to the sides of the bowl was going waste. She cried for her loneliness, and for his. She cried for what could have been, and what was now gone. He wasn't holding her anymore. She leaned against the kitchen door and just cried. The washing machine started beeping, she had to add the fabric conditioner, it snapped her out of her reverie, wiped her tears, steadied herself, and put that bowl to wash.
Thankfully the next song the radio played was this beautiful number that she and her best friend used to love when they were in school : Jeene ke ishare mil gaye from Phir Milenge. She started singing that song and went about doing stuff in the kitchen. When she was done around noon, she made herself a cup of coffee and took it out into the TV room. Plonked herself on the couch, and sipped on her coffee. She realised her baby blanket that she liked to cover her legs with when she was on the couch, was missing. It must have fallen somewhere, she looked around and found it lying on the floor next to the couch. She picked it up and covered herself and dragged her laptop closer and looked at her emails. Her father had emailed her some pictures of Snowy, their dog. As kids, her sister and she loved Tintin and the comics. When their mother finally agreed on getting a dog, they called him Snowy, after Tintin's dog in the comics. The pictures were beautiful. Now that it was super cold in Delhi and he is getting old, he loved to sleep. And when he slept, half of his tongue would flop outside, oh how cute he looked! There was one pic of him sleeping just like that, and she awwwed loudly and said "Oh Kuttush". She loved dogs, they filled her heart with such joy. Whenever women discussed babies and how cute they were, she would argue the same about dogs. If she could, she didn't want to have kids, she'd rather have 3 dogs, she used to say. She started replying to her father, and she typed, "Kuttush looks so cute" and then she realised what she had typed.
As she pressed the backspace, the warm feeling that was in her heart after seeing Snowy's pictures, started dissipating and there was a dread, a fear and anxiety that started spreading. It was almost like she could see the fear flowing through the veins of her heart. She had to stop this feeling from creeping in. Nairah was like that, she hated confrontations. With anyone, but mostly with herself. And that's why after they broke up, she wouldn't sit and think about what she had lost and where he had gone and why she had sent him away and how could she feel this way and what is love and the meaning of life, what is friendship. The minute these thoughts started coming to her, she would push them back. Get up and pace up and down, sing loudly, purposely in her bad singing voice, or watch random nonsense on TV. And when she thought of these things, she would go to the point to coming face to face with her real self and her real desires and dreams, her loves and her losses and she would turn back just before the bend on that road down her memory lane, beyond which lay her raw her.
Kuttush was the name Aniket used for Snowy. And after so many years of being with him, he was no longer Snowy for her, but Kuttush. She was thinking about how they spoke about how they will take their dogs for a walk, after dinner or maybe on the beach. About how every time she saw a cute animal picture, she would turn to him and ask "Baby, can we also keep a baby elephant" Or "Baby, can I also get a frog that changes color like the one Rapunzel had in the movie Tangled" And he would kiss her, humour her and say, "Yes, I will make a mini zoo for you". She knew for sure that she wouldn't find anyone who loved her so much. When she said that to a friend of theirs after the break up, the friend got up from the table exasperated and said "then why are you doing this to yourself, and to him? Are you heartless?" That had hit her hard. She hated being judged by people. And heartless was the last thing she wanted to be called. But she had been called a lot of things in the last few weeks, so this is one more to the list. But she had to do what she did for them, for him , but mostly for herself. For once she was selfish and she asked herself, what do I want. And she knew the answer.
The oven timer's "ting" broke her silence. She had been sitting there for 40 mins while the cake baked? Wow, she thought to herself and walked to check on her cakes. She peeped from outside and the red, well risen beauties looked heavenly. When she opened the door of the oven, the aroma of the cakes enveloped her and filled her with pride and happiness. And everything that had tugged her heart for the last 40 mins drifted away. Nairah, was just being herself. The smallest things gave her a lot of joy, such everlasting kind of joy that would dispel any, any heartache. That was what got her through the last couple of months. She could push away intense pain and agony by losing herself in a book or by baking or by sketching and painting. And she did. It calmed her. So when, someone asked her, again a friend of Aniket and hers, how she was, she said "I am OK" and the friend replied with "Of course, you will be OK, why will you not be OK". Nairah, always slow to get sarcasm, got it this time, no one could have missed it, with that statement dripping with oodles of sarcasm anyway. She smiled and walked away from there. It had been tough, and when she hurts she closes herself to everyone, and everything. No one can break in, no one, not her parents, not her friends, not even her best friend. No one, even today knows what she feels about what she did, why she did what she did, or what she actually feels about everything and everyone. Sometimes she wonders if she herself knows. If she keeps pushing away the truth the way she always did, when will she ever confront it and feel what she was supposed to feel?
But today was not a day to think about all this. Tomorrow will be a new day, and in 5 days it will be a new year and everyone knows, irrespective of anything that happens, life goes on. That's the beauty and the harsh heartlessness of life and the truth about how the world functions. Today was a day to thank God for everything she had, and day to celebrate with friends. She would think these thoughts, later. It was already lunchtime, she fixed herself a quick lunch and finished it and then settled down on the rug in the living room with the canvas pad lying in front of her on the coffee table.
She loved to sit down on the floor. Especially when she was sketching. And that coffee table was the perfect height for her arm position. She looked out of the window before she started, it had started to snow again. She should remember to light the fireplace well in advance for this evening's party. And then she started sketching, the radio was playing a lovely mix of classical Hindi music and popular Bollywood songs. She loved this radio station, it made her feel like she was back in college, listening to the radio while studying at night. The RJs always manage to crack her up with their wit. She sketched, and when she did, her mind was blank. Absolutely blank. Aniket would often ask her what she was thinking and she would say "nothing", not to hide what she was thinking, but because she was actually just blank. It was like the mind had left her body and gone for a short break and in that period there was nothing but silence and blankness of thoughts, feelings. Sketching did that to her, but in a peaceful kind of way. She would still unconsciously be humming whatever was playing on the radio, but there will be nothing else in her mind.
After she finished her sketch and turned her head right and left to look at it from all angles, and approved of it, she suddenly thought, I have to show this to Aniket! It took just a second or less than that for her to realise that she can't do that anymore. She couldn't share every tiny thing about what happened in the day with him anymore. She couldn't email him or message him or call him for advise or to help make silly decisions like " Shall i have an extra cup of coffee or not? " She was still getting used to being alone. Always. Alone. So she would talk to herself as if this other person inside her was responding back, there were times when she has had conversations with this another person. She smiled this time, and in her self-talking style, said "No Nairah, you can not show this to Aniket, because he is not in your life anymore, you sent him away remember?" With her "Hmm" expression and pursed lips, she got up, carefully started to put her sketching things away and tiding the house, and making the fire.
It was 7 am now, the house looked pretty and it smelled Christmas-sy as well. The cinnamon fragrance oil she had used in her oil burner gave the house a nice aroma. The fire was up and crackling, the lights were orange and dim and nice. She smiled when she saw that lamp in the corner that she had picked up in a garage sale two weeks back. It was a big thing and the light from it was so pretty, and gave such a nice warm glow to the room. It was almost like her, that lamp, emanating light. That was what her name meant, light or the source of light, a synonym for "Noor", her mother had chosen the name, and she loved it! The only thing not chirstmas-sy in the room were the slow nice Bollywood songs playing in the background, but they were still perfect for the mood. Her friends started coming in, they were just 6 of them in total, She liked to keep it small. She wasn't one for loud big boisterous alcohol and smoke ridden parties. She liked to talk, reminisce, sing, crack random weird jokes and share random-er riddles. She had asked Karthik, a friend of hers to get his guitar along, so the night would have some singing for sure.
When they were all eating, drinking, singing and making merry, Karthik started singing one of her favorites : Kal ho na ho. She was sitting on the couch with a glass of rose, her legs crossed and the wine glass held close to her heart, as if just holding it was warming her, this cold snowy winter night. And she smiled, and started singing along. When she was close to tears, she closed her eyes, and sang "पलकों के लेके साये पास कोई जो आये, लाख सम्भालों, पागल दिल को, दिल धड़के ही जाए, पर सोच लो, इस पल हैं जो, वोह दास्ताँ कल हो ना हो", a tear escaped nevertheless. The room was too dark for anyone to see, so she quietly wiped the corner of her eyes, and smiled, her usual smile. The smile that hid beneath it many unshed tears, and unsaid words. But she was OK, why wouldn't she be after all.
सच हैं कि दिल तो दुखा हैं
हमने मगर सोचा हैं
दिल को हैं गम क्यूँ
आँख हैं नम क्यूँ
होना ही था जो हुआ हैं,
उस बात को जाने ही दो,
जिसका निशान
कल हो ना हो
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