Nangla's Delhi

When they first come, these "friends" are really our friends, who participate in everything we do. And in this way they become adept at everything we do. They come and roam with us, make their acquaintance with people we know, have known for years. They mingle not only in our lanes, but also in our families. They come for our wedding, show up during small everyday things that need to be done.

At this time, we do not know how they are about to do a volte face soon, change their colours like a chameleon. It is difficult to figure out what it is they want.

When the lane becomes familiar to them, they slowly start rejecting us. We understand what is going on, but it is difficult to recognise it as it is happening - because they are our friends.

They waft into our lives like a dream, a dream that then halts somewhere to fulfill its own dream.

One such dream came into our lives. He spread into everyone's hearts and minds, making his place there. The dream would appear during the day as well - he was a day dream as well as a dream that would sleep with us at night as well. It is easy to sleep, but waking up is difficult. But one has to wake up some time...

This dream would sit among us while we talked and did our own things, his eyes closed, but ears listening intently. Off and on, some word we said would sting him like a mosquito bite, and he would say, "Where did you bring that word from?" The mosquitoes would buzz for a while, and then become quiet. Then the dream would open a notebook and scribble something in it.

This much is easy to take. But then come moments when these dreams desert us while we sleep restfully, assured of its existence. We can then only dream of them. But when we turn over on our  cots, the side on which he rested and slept seems empty, and we lie there, fully awake now. One feels lonely, and as if one is alone, but the voice of the dream who had appeared keeps making a wound in the mind. Its a wound that cannot be treated by a doctor or a cream with medicinal properties.

One walks the lanes, remembering the days when the dream had accompanied us around. 

As I walked down a lane one day, a voice stopped me. I looked hard and saw it was the same lane in which I used to take my friend around, introducing him to people. I stopped in the lane and said to it, "He? He has left us now and has gone very far away."
The lane replied, "No, that's not true! He was here, just yesterday."
I asked, "And when will he come back?"
"That is what I have stopped you to ask you...," said the lane.
"Listen, when he comes next, do tell me."

I knew something was amiss here, but who could I talk to about it? Then a few days later some people who were my own told me, "Your friend has written a letter, that he saw your house from very close." And I realised, that letter was written as if from the bridge that passes from far from my home, high up in the sky from the ground on which my home is. And this is when I realised my "friend", who I had considered close, with whom I dreamed into the lane while roaming in the lanes, had now turned into a stranger.

One day I roamed the lanes alone. The lane called out to me again, "There, look! Your friend. There he is, wearing a pair of sun glasses, a green pair of trousers, white checkered shirt, a green bag on his shoulders." As soon as I heard this, I forgot all my complaints and walked up to him and hugged him. That day he again roamed in the lanes with me - with what in his heart, who is to know. But he disappeared again at the bend of a lane, and I went home.

After a few hours, he reappeared at our door, and spoke with a loud voice, as if this was his own place, and said, "So friends, what is going on here today?"
"Nothing," we replied and gave him a chair to sit on. He took the chair carefully. Maybe it recalled some days past.
And then an environment of question-answers formed.
"Why do friends desert us?"
"Maybe they don't care for you," came the reply.
"Then why did he show so much love?"
"Maybe he wanted something out of you," came the reply.
"Why did he have to show his rejection in a letter to the world?"
"Maybe he wanted to leave his mark," came the reply.
"Does he want to climb up high without a staircase?"
"No, maybe he wants to show his splendour to the world," came the reply.
"But how are we to recognise his splendour?"
"That is for you to think. You have to judge if he is a diamond or a stone," came the reply.

This is a letter, delivered to you by a pigeon. You cannot ask questions of it and demand a response from it. But what you can do, on reading it, is to guage and understand what it is about.

Written: March 3rd, 2006
Translated: April 8th, 2006
Translation by shveta@sarai.net