Monochrome Dreams

I always wanted to write about him. Like summer kisses and winter rains. I might have been 13 or maybe 14, I can’t place. But I knew what it was to feel so. To be terribly attached to someone. So much that when they touch you, it feels as if you have pins and needles all around your head.

He used to sing the most melodious old Malayalam songs, perfectly. I could sit and talk to him for hours on end. His college, his classes, his music practice, his music troupe, his friends and their love stories. It filled my mind with hues of bright hopes, colorful portrayals of his life.

I watched through the window ventilator, two bars on top of a wooden mahogany door, the style in old ancestral homes of those days in Kerala, three young men smoking cigarettes- and one, he, just being there. My mind swelled in righteous pride.

He talked about Prasad and his girlfriend. I forgot her name now.

I wished he would find a girlfriend, a real full one, who would love him, despite all. I wished I could be that girl for him. I wished I could do something, anything at all. I loved him so much.

We held hands when we talked. Childish foolish me, and big, mature him. He praised my usage of big English words.

“Here even people who are on MA literature course do not speak English as fluently as you.”

 I felt elated. I decided then and there that the power of written English words, I was going to own, as mine, perfectly.

I urged him to study more. I wanted to see him succeed. He joined Law College. I was in seventh heavens. I never questioned man’s ability. I never tasted failure. I never knew a word called practicality. I didn’t know life.

He left Law in the middle of the year. I was heart broken. I hurt more in his failure. I sent him letters that smelt strongly of love. The songs of ‘Ashiqui’ were a rage those days.

“Kshama ki zarrorath hi jaise..

Zindaghi ke liye Bas ek sanam chahiyee…”

I interspersed lines of lyrics amidst my lines of poetry filled letter prose. I quoted Thomas Gray “Many a flowers bloom full in desert...to blush unseen…” I altered quotes to my hearts content. Some days I slept with the letters tucked under my pillows, so that he could smell me, when he opened them. Little did naïve me know that smells were lost in travels between overseas and Indian Postal systems.

I threw a tantrum in Orchids that summer holiday. I wanted the grey vest and midi skirt. Red colour. I came home wearing the dress; I went to him and asked him, “Can you tell me which color my dress is?”

“Red.” Tears streamed down my adolescent cheeks.

I wished I could make a difference. I wished heroic things to happen. I wished I could be the heroine in those heroic deeds. Only if wishes had wings…

Years later, he named his baby Ashiq. He isn’t the handsome man he once used to be. Taking care of a family had been a big burden on him. Something he still shoulders responsibly. He never landed the kind of job he was looking for.

He was blind.

Even with an MA and a half way through Law degree. Even with reservations and all subsidies, the jobs just aren’t sufficient for all student members of The Blind Students Federation.

His smile still flutters my heart. I wonder if he remembers how close I was to him long ago. I wonder if he remembers how we used to hold hands while talking. I wonder if he knows my eyes strain with tears whenever I see blind people rendering soulful melodies, like Ritwick in 'Idea Star Singer', as he sings “Me yaha wahan batakta rahu…”

I wonder if he knew that at 14, I wanted to give him one of my eyes, if that could solve his problem. Then I might have even done it. Not now, not today…

Sometimes in love, there are no chances. No replays, no cut, start, action. Just dull grays. Just as in life.

Sometimes we close our eyes and make it dark. For memories that haunt in  monochromes.