jewel

"चलो एक बार फिर से
अजनाभि बन जाए हम दोनों
ना  मैं तुमसे कोई उम्मीद रखूँ दिलनवाज़ी की
ना तुम मेरी तरफ देखों गलत अंदाज़  नज़रो से
ना मेरे दिल की धड़कन  लड़खड़ाए मेरी बातों में
न ज़ाहिर हो  तुम्हारी कश्म-कश का राज़ नज़रों से"

~ sahir ludhianvi

Sahir held his glass of old monk and stood by the pillar watching the mehfil that was beginning to warm up in the middle of the drawing room. A few nazms were floating by - someone sang jagjit singh's version of इश्क़ में गेराथे ए जज़्बात ने रोने न दिया and that usually signaled the beginning of a good night of singing and music. Saturday nights in Singapore or anywhere for that matter were gorgeous. Usually a day spent well and yet one whole day to look forward to. How utterly gorgeous. He was at a dear friend's place, Rohit and Elizabeth had invited a couple of them for a home cooked meal and the night was now progressing into digestifs and dessert and music. Their groups had a few keen musicians - folks who sang everything from country  folk to old urdu ghazals. Sahir couldn't sing or play an instrument, but that did not stop him from appreciating music. Nazms gave way to ghazals, which always brought with them memories of pain and separation from people you've loved or love - all of course keeping in tradition with the idea of a ghazal.

In some concert he had gone to, the artist in between ghazals had narrated a story and he ended it with how the idea of a complete love would be detrimental to ghazals- for what is the point of singing about separation when one had not known what it felt like - which is why the most beautiful ghazals are also about immensely sad and unfulfilled love stories. There is something about melancholy that feeds into the art of an artist, he thought to himself - but how much of it enriches the art and how much of it destroys the artist? Is it necessary to have gone through heartache to be able to sing with purity and pain? As he was thinking these thoughts to himself, the doorbell rang and Saira walked in.

People often use phrases like "i felt someone punched me in the stomach", Sahir felt it right then. He saw her hair cover her face as she bent down to remove her shoes at the front door before walking in. She stopped through the corridor greeting people and he watched her throughout as though taking his eyes off of her would mean losing his balance and crashing down. She was apologizing for coming in late - "i had another dinner to go to, but I am here for dessert''! Her eyes scanned the room, stopping at the group of singers sitting down on floor cushions signing, before taking off again - and then finally resting on him. He tilted his head and raised his glass and smiled. Sahir was completely at ease before she walked in, and the sight of her caused a storm in his head and heart for a tiny second, but the minute their eyes met, he felt a sense of comfort and peace. Yes he was ok before she walked in but there was a tiny thing missing in this whole scenario, and she completed it unknowingly merely by her presence.

Rohit, guided Saira to the bar and poured her a glass of wine and she carried herself and her glass to where he was standing - and in that 5 seconds it took her to reach him, he wanted to stay rooted and hear her voice but he also wanted to run away so he didn't have to bear hearing it, again. 5 seconds is too short a time to make the run for it, but long enough to fall in love, again. And he did, her voice, that voice - nothing else mattered.

Sahir and Saira worked together at a design agency. He saw her when he walked into office the first day, she was sending something via FedEx at the reception, he came in and introduced himself to the front-desk and she turned to look at him and said a loud hi! She went on to say how she and he were supposed to work on the same project and hence she knew exactly who he was. Coming from a traditional work environment to this agency which was everything that hipster design agencies were, was a bit of a culture shock initially - but he blend in soon. Saira's effervescence helped - it wasn't annoying because it was genuine. He knew very early on he was attracted - and he knew she was too. But he couldn't date her - not when they worked in the same firm - and especially because they were on the same project. And so they both grew out of that attraction. But it grew into something a lot more rooted in trust and affection than a romance could ever be - friendship.

Sahir was Indian, but French for all purposes. He was born in France, grew up there - he only had to start speaking to betray his indian looks. And Saira was indian, in mind and heart, in looks and in speech. The move to Singapore had subdued her bollywood-isms and not moving back to India was the only thing she was sure of at this point in time, but she couldn't take all of india out of her. A glance at her bookshelf convinced anyone that indian politics, history and authors still held her heart. One day at Jewel, the coffee shop downstairs at the building they worked at, they bumped into each other at their morning coffee run - a cappuccino and a flat white in hand, they walked back towards the office. "Shall we sit here for a bit, do you have to run?" he asked. She did not have any meetings planned immediately and so they sat down at a nearby table. And sat there until 11am discussing their project, life, vacations, the number of dogs they both want, their favorite Laksa place in Singapore. And very reluctantly they got up from that table and walked towards the office.

He still remembered this other conversation they had had at Jewel. Melancholy -the necessity of it for art to survive - how his creative genius and her madness needed a little bit of. As he was extolling the virtues of melancholia, he saw that she wasn't in this conversation anymore- her eyes seemed far away, her gaze over his shoulders at a far away point - he was no longer in her world and she was no longer in this one. Even today when he closed his eyes, he could recreate that scene completely in his head, from the red umbrellas that covered the outdoor tables at Jewel, to the morning corporate crowds rushing by, the sounds of heels clicking, the tiny bell on the door handle to the coffee shop clinking every time someone opened and closed it - every tiny detail, he could put it all back together until that picture completed itself. The most arresting feature of that picture being her eyes, they were at once full of tears, brimming at the edge threatening to fall and flow, and at once empty - like they were devoid of all life. Almost as though she had withdrawn herself to somewhere he couldn't reach.
He tried reaching her gently, by placing his fingers on hers which lay on the table. And she snapped back and a tiny tear escaped, she expertly brushed it off. It was then he asked himself why he shouldn't love this woman sitting across him at the table at Jewel. And at that precise moment, he knew he already loved her.

Many flat whites and many cappuccinos later, many more hours of work were missed and skipped, many more dreams were shared, plans made - and everything they had avoided in the first few months of them meeting, was back with an unstoppable force - and this time they had to address it. Should he do it? Should he tell her that he thought they had a chance and should give this thing a try?

When they were at dinner one day, he looked into her eyes and stopped mid-sentence. He was explaining something about summer in France, and he stopped. And she didn't ask him to go on - and they stayed there, Sahir and Saira. And he couldn't say it. He couldn't say he wanted her and that he saw them together, something stopped him, for now. Maybe it wasn't time yet. So he lowered his eyes and she looked away, smiled and asked him to go on with his story.

It had been a month since then and he was acutely aware of what he felt for her. Every day he saw her, he wanted to stay away or run away, exactly what he felt at this party right now and yet he also knew that he was hooked, he couldn't run away any more. He couldn't leave Singapore, because leaving Singapore meant leaving her - and he didn't know how he felt about that. He wanted to do something about it but he also didn't want to. A very close friend who knew about her had asked him why he hadn't said anything to her, and he did something he rarely does, he spoke in hindi:

नहीं केह सका
बस, नहीं केह सका

- i couldn't say it, i just couldn't..

So he held all that inside of him and went on with life.He hadn't seen her for a week until this evening and things were more or less manageable. But now that she was here, and he could sense her presence and hear her laughter, all he could do was sigh. And when he took a long sigh and he heard someone complete a ghazal :

"ये कहना था उनसे मोहोब्बत हैं मुझको
ये कहने में मुझको ज़माने लगे हैं। "