Far away on those mountains, I see a small chalet, and there, a woman smiling at me with limpid eyes. She looks familiar. Like I can see myself in her, just a little older and wiser.
Her eyes tell me she has traversed these paths before, and felt their soul. I can sense stories reeking out of her enchanting smile. Stories of love and loss, despondency and hope, of trust, of laughter, of togetherness, written right here, amidst these hills.
Stories deprived of language, but containing within them all that music is. Stories sans alphabet. For all that was to be said, had been spoken amidst these mountains once. And understood. Absorbed. Between dusk and night. Between coffee and wine. Between sound and meaning. Between emotion and embrace.
As these stories reach me, a strange mountain breeze blows from somewhere and my hair and scarf drift me ahead. I feel myself borne onward along a force whose source seems to be in all that is, in the very beginning of things, in the core which sustains us. I am drawn towards the mountains and as the breeze reaches my ears, I can hear what those two brown wise eyes and one enchanting smile on the other side have to say to me -
" Live. All that is here and now, is yours. Nothing more. Nothing less. Live. One day, you'll understand. And you'll smile, with wet limpid eyes. That day, you'll melt in these mountains, become one with them. After all, its for the molten magma inside, that the mountains rise. Live. "
"इन पहाड़ों में लिपटी हुई
एक सुबह है यहाँ,
और एक शाम है
मै इसी का तो हूँ,
इसमें खो जाऊंगा।
इसका हो जाऊंगा।
क्यों धुआं हैं यहाँ ?,क्या हुआ है यहाँ ?
क्या मेरा आसमाँ, मुझसे नाराज़ है?
क्या ये मेरी ज़मीं, मुझसे नासाज़ है?
मै इसी का तो हूँ,
इसमें खो जाऊंगा।
इसका हो जाऊंगा।
आसमाँ जब मिलेगा धरा से,
कुछ बारिशों में कहीं,
हाँ इसी का तो हूँ ,
मै बरस जाऊँगा
तुझमें बस जाऊँगा।
तुझमें सो जाऊँगा
तेरा हो जाऊँगा। "
PS: wrote prose after a long time. Got reminded of something I wrote years back... Those two brown twinkling eyes.
