Sitting on the ghats by the Ganga one evening, I remember rambling to my best friend about the glitz and glamour that awaits me in Delhi.
He has been with me for a while now and our camaraderie has blown off all our chances to find ‘someone’ who would set our hearts ablaze. People would, more often than not, question our friendship – the bond he and I share. And we would burst out laughing hysterically at their stupidity.
The cool autumn breeze made its way through the thick strands of my hair as I went on babbling about random stuff that made me happy.
‘Do you like this place?’ he asked.
For a brown girl who has never set foot outside the vicinity of her humble dwelling much less her town, choosing a uni 1500 km away from home might be a small leap for anyone born with privilege but a big step that could have gotten my head on a platter.
'I really need to move out of this place. It's small and towny and...' I said almost instantly as though the words were at the tip of my tongue, excited to experience the new-found freedom.
His eyes widened but he kept mum. The silence consumed us. For some reason, it bothered me.
In retrospect, the silence was deafening and I wondered if sorrow has any language.
It began to rain shortly and we had to take shelter in a shop.
Suddenly, he drew closer, his face not more than 5 cm apart.
‘The weather’, he said.
‘What about it?’ I asked.
‘it mimics the cold nature of your answer, of how you perceive this place.’
A cold gust of wind breezed past us and I stood there, nonplussed. What does that supposed to mean?
A little over a week before I left for Delhi in March, it suddenly occurred to me that the person I know and the Tiyasha he knows are 3 years away and that the last time I saw him and he saw me was 3 years ago. 3 years ago, when we were young and naive and when 'goodbyes' were the least of our worries.
He decided to see me off the station. Nostalgia crept in as he grabbed my hand surreptitiously as though it were a sin. None of us could bring ourselves to say a word.
A year to this day, the silence engrossed us yet again, except this time I felt unbearable pain. I winced at the slightest possibility of going back.
The very epiphany that silence per se is a language and how horribly incapable we were to translate our pain into words made me feel lousy. All said and done, the prospects of being back in this town are obscure.
'Do you really have to go?' he asked.
'Do you love me?' I said.
‘I worship you, Tiyasha’
Until that day, I have always wondered if the poets actually went through the kind of pain they talk about.
‘October has always been a bit cruel to us, isn’t it?’
Tracing his face with my fingers under the moonlit sky, I could taste my name on his lips and he could taste his on mine. And right at that moment, I knew our paths will never cross again and that everything hinges on uncertainty. His name like my favorite song remained stuck on my lips for a long time as I realized how distorted our future is.
I had so much to say but all I could say was 'perhaps someday’.
Perhaps, in some other life and (possibly) in a less miserable time, we'll share a lifetime?
Perhaps.
I clung onto his shirt for one last time as I closed my eyes, seeking refuge in his arms.
Funnily enough, it was Dashami.
So, maybe it was a Shubho Bijoya (Happy Dashami)?
The meeting has dispersed.
Tiyasha Ghosh
Bharati College, University of Delhi
Tiyasha Ghosh is a university student in her penultimate year of college. Besides being a happy-go-lucky girl, she has always been the kind of person who enjoys being sad and has embraced sorrow with open arms. Dejection and despair, she says, are just as important to her as being happy and free, to say the least. As paradoxical as it may sound, she lives by the fact that there’s beauty in flaws and it is, in fact, the flaws that make us perfect.
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