I toss and turn in my bed, but she won’t let me sleep.
It’s long past midnight. A couple of hours later, the pressure cooker whistle will blow in the kitchen of the south Indian family below my floor. That’s my telling symptom for the dawn because birds don’t chirp here in central Delhi.
The day’s wear pulls my eyelids down. My mind pulls down the blinds to keep out rays from the wonderland. But she has a master key to my mind’s mansion. And she won’t let me sleep... She won’t let me sleep until I’m done telling the world her story.
Just like an amateur painter cannot justify the beauty and love of a mother in his portrait, I tell her, I’m not mature enough in my words to tell the world her story with the splendour it deserves. She tells me her tale is all but beautiful. I reply maybe not her life’s chronicle, but the stories that her moist eyes told every time she hoped her life would get better, they are stories mankind should absorb...
I ask for more time. A few years more down the line and then maybe I will mature enough as a writer and a human being, and then maybe I will be the right candidate to narrate her story. She acts like she understands. And she lets me sleep. But I know she’ll come again tomorrow.
Sometimes, I feel Radha is not my brainchild. Like she really did exist somewhere amidst this bedlam. And her story is true. And she wants it be told for a purpose. Justice? I remain ignorant. I am just a storyteller and I will do my job... tomorrow, with all honesty!!!
It’s long past midnight. A couple of hours later, the pressure cooker whistle will blow in the kitchen of the south Indian family below my floor. That’s my telling symptom for the dawn because birds don’t chirp here in central Delhi.
The day’s wear pulls my eyelids down. My mind pulls down the blinds to keep out rays from the wonderland. But she has a master key to my mind’s mansion. And she won’t let me sleep... She won’t let me sleep until I’m done telling the world her story.
Just like an amateur painter cannot justify the beauty and love of a mother in his portrait, I tell her, I’m not mature enough in my words to tell the world her story with the splendour it deserves. She tells me her tale is all but beautiful. I reply maybe not her life’s chronicle, but the stories that her moist eyes told every time she hoped her life would get better, they are stories mankind should absorb...
I ask for more time. A few years more down the line and then maybe I will mature enough as a writer and a human being, and then maybe I will be the right candidate to narrate her story. She acts like she understands. And she lets me sleep. But I know she’ll come again tomorrow.
Sometimes, I feel Radha is not my brainchild. Like she really did exist somewhere amidst this bedlam. And her story is true. And she wants it be told for a purpose. Justice? I remain ignorant. I am just a storyteller and I will do my job... tomorrow, with all honesty!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment