I do not remember when I first read a book but I fell in love.
Head over heels, it was how love was to be. Inexplicable.
Every time I held her in my hands, I’d go weak in my knees
I needed to sit down for some time as I immersed myself in her beauty.
I spent hours looking at her, listening to her complain and rave.
I was mesmerized with her smell, her joyful contours
My hands on her. What more do I need?
She spoke and I was eager to listen, she was shy sometimes.
Slowly revealing her course. Passionate at others,
Passion seething out of her as she explained her views to me.
I would do nothing but listen, listen with my ears, my heart, and my mouth too.
My mouth agape at what she would say and what I would hear.
Its fiction some would say, she makes it up. I would push them away.
They hadn’t held her in their hands, caressed her with their touch. They wouldn’t know.
She was the truth.
She introduced me to my world again. I had seen the grass already, the sky too.
But when she said “Those blades of earthly warmth underneath the canopy of blue”
It was like there was a new grass now, a new sky too. A new world altogether to see.
She spoke of brooms and witches for a few years. Of good over evil. Of oddly numbered platforms.
I went mad with frenzy imagining that new world and nodding at all those new people in cloaks.
And when she spoke of all the pain she had seen in Afghanistan, I cried.
And in solidarity with her pain, went silent for a few days, let her talk and shed her tears.
She was also very funny. When she spoke like Wodehouse with his wit and charm
And asked "why the sudden change in mood?" she’d say in Vonnegut style,
“Why? That is such an earthling question to ask. There is no why. It just is.”
Sometimes suddenly her voice turned a little Indian. She spoke of my issues.
About castes and marriage and harassment and loss. She spoke of solutions.
She spoke of hope. And when I started believing, she pushed me a little, and said that hope was an illusion.
Like God. I cried a little too much that day.
We are lovers in a world where my love for her is not accorded to many.
And for my kind, our love wasn’t accepted. If I had been born 50 years back or
today in another family, they’d snatch her from my arms. But I wasn’t.
I was lucky to have her by my side, I was lucky to be able to have a light to read her by.
There were millions, millions who needed her wisdom. And she wanted to stop but had to pass them by.
But she swears to me that someday, all of those little children will feel her touch.
In their hands and their hearts and their brains.
She loves me. And she can love some more. It’s a weird kind of love.
Where I want it shared. Where I want to find someone who loves her as much
And then recite our stories of her.
How she carved me with her tiny chisel. Cutting away stone little by little
To reveal a form I didn’t know I had.
And today when I talk, I notice she talks through me. The wisdom of a million years.
And when she says “Look Trupthi, that's where wars were fought,
Look, that’s where love was lost
Look, that’s where a little girl one day wrote her poems like you. Look.”
I smile back at her and say, like always I believe you, book.
Head over heels, it was how love was to be. Inexplicable.
Every time I held her in my hands, I’d go weak in my knees
I needed to sit down for some time as I immersed myself in her beauty.
I spent hours looking at her, listening to her complain and rave.
I was mesmerized with her smell, her joyful contours
My hands on her. What more do I need?
She spoke and I was eager to listen, she was shy sometimes.
Slowly revealing her course. Passionate at others,
Passion seething out of her as she explained her views to me.
I would do nothing but listen, listen with my ears, my heart, and my mouth too.
My mouth agape at what she would say and what I would hear.
Its fiction some would say, she makes it up. I would push them away.
They hadn’t held her in their hands, caressed her with their touch. They wouldn’t know.
She was the truth.
She introduced me to my world again. I had seen the grass already, the sky too.
But when she said “Those blades of earthly warmth underneath the canopy of blue”
It was like there was a new grass now, a new sky too. A new world altogether to see.
She spoke of brooms and witches for a few years. Of good over evil. Of oddly numbered platforms.
I went mad with frenzy imagining that new world and nodding at all those new people in cloaks.
And when she spoke of all the pain she had seen in Afghanistan, I cried.
And in solidarity with her pain, went silent for a few days, let her talk and shed her tears.
She was also very funny. When she spoke like Wodehouse with his wit and charm
And asked "why the sudden change in mood?" she’d say in Vonnegut style,
“Why? That is such an earthling question to ask. There is no why. It just is.”
Sometimes suddenly her voice turned a little Indian. She spoke of my issues.
About castes and marriage and harassment and loss. She spoke of solutions.
She spoke of hope. And when I started believing, she pushed me a little, and said that hope was an illusion.
Like God. I cried a little too much that day.
We are lovers in a world where my love for her is not accorded to many.
And for my kind, our love wasn’t accepted. If I had been born 50 years back or
today in another family, they’d snatch her from my arms. But I wasn’t.
I was lucky to have her by my side, I was lucky to be able to have a light to read her by.
There were millions, millions who needed her wisdom. And she wanted to stop but had to pass them by.
But she swears to me that someday, all of those little children will feel her touch.
In their hands and their hearts and their brains.
She loves me. And she can love some more. It’s a weird kind of love.
Where I want it shared. Where I want to find someone who loves her as much
And then recite our stories of her.
How she carved me with her tiny chisel. Cutting away stone little by little
To reveal a form I didn’t know I had.
And today when I talk, I notice she talks through me. The wisdom of a million years.
And when she says “Look Trupthi, that's where wars were fought,
Look, that’s where love was lost
Look, that’s where a little girl one day wrote her poems like you. Look.”
I smile back at her and say, like always I believe you, book.
