Water! It falls, it flows, it undulates!
Aksha sat looking out of the window. The pouring rains and their pitter-patter on the roof. The drops bouncing off the floor and sprinkling droplets on his glasses. The occasional roar of the thunder. He liked the monsoon. He liked sipping coffee as he wrote. Somehow the monsoons inspired him. Always.
He heard the door bell and got up to open it. His silly friends were here. Complaining how wet clothes were pain in the ass. And how getting an auto in the rains was a task better left to the man from the land of Uz, Job, known for his patience! Sohni entered with her dripping umbrella and placed it on the window grills. Urjit had a beaming face perhaps because Sohni was irritated. Aksha never tried to understand their relation. They were the best friends. He would not speak much, Sohni would never stop talking, and Urjit would make sure that she never stopped. Yet, they were the best lot there could be. They didn't have a lot in common but that is what was different!
Aksha could not keep hearing the complaints Sohni had about the rains. He smiled at her and she knew he did not agree with her. Aksha’s mom got them chai and Sohni sipped it intermittently as she spoke.
“Come on Aksha, I know you like rains, I do too but not when I am in the city. I hate them here. I’d rather just go away from here and sit in the greenery out there. But our work won’t allow us right? Isn't that everyone’s story?”
Aksha replied, “I don’t know. I like it everywhere. It’s the same water. Same way of coming down. Here or away from here.”
Urjit interjected the rather few words that Aksha was anyways going to say. “I like the sea.”
Sohni looked at him with confusion. “Where is that coming from? I mean what has the sea got to do with the rains?” After a very brief pause during which Urjit could only move his jaw once, she said, “If you are going to say ‘water cycle’ and talk about evaporation and precipitation, I’d say keep the crap to yourself!”
With a wry grin, Urjit replied, “I meant the sea is good. Vast, never ending, and lets my imagination go wherever it wants.”
Sohni wouldn't let him talk more. “Ah! In that sense, I like rivers. Not the big, slow ones, but the rapid ones, the ones that provide rhythm to my flute. I just love to play flute by the banks of the Beas. I can never get over the Beas. It’s hands down the best thing I have ever seen or heard. It can be scary and it can be welcoming too. Its water can be chilly, but it is tempting to walk into it, wet your feet and take an occasional dip! Whatever you say I will always like it!”
Urjit liked her reply. But he hadn't finished making his point earlier. “It’s such a blissful feeling to be sitting on a beach with a nice book; I can paint the canvas with any colors I want! Staring into emptiness, taking me beyond my vision, beyond the horizon!”
Aksh loved to see them fight! But he never interfered. A smile was all he could wear!
Sohni had a point to make. “Oh, but sea does not support life! Okay, I mean in the conventional sense. It’s salty. You can’t open your eyes when you take a dip in it.”
“Aasu bhi to namkeen hote hai! (So are tears.) Somehow the salty water in my eyes gives me all those feelings. I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t like rivers, but I just can’t think of the anything else that can beat the magnificence of the ocean.”
Sohni replied, “Ha ha! A sailor went to sea, to see what he could see. And all that he could see, was sea, sea, sea! Can’t you get bored of it? A river is so much like our lives. Each bend is different. With each twist it changes course. All the places it flows through just bloom! It’s different!”
Aksha looked out the window. The downpour was reduced to a drizzle now. The healthy bickering of his buddies died out as he heard the chirping of the sparrow beating its wings to dry itself off. The sun peeked from the dark clouds. The writer in him needed no more inspiration…
Khidki par girti in berang boondon ko dekhke sochta hu, kitni berang hai zindagi,
Fir suraj ki kirano ki tarah badalon ke peeche se tumhari muskaan nazar aati hai.
Zindagi ke aasmaan par satrangi indra-dhanush nikhar aata hai…
Roughly translated:
(As I look at the colorless droplets on the window, I cannot help but compare it to my bland life.
Then, out of the dark clouds, the sun shines, just like your smile!
And on the canvas of life, appears a prismatic rainbow!)
