From Your Valentine (1)

The night is quite cold. Even my bones can feel the chill of this February night. I don’t know what hour it is. Judging from the little glimpse from my barred window, it must be three hours past midnight. 

The morning is hours away and before I go to face my death, I need to see her just one last time. Julia, the daughter of the jailer Asterius will know about it for sure. Asterius thinks highly of me; so does Julia. If not for that herbal potion from my medicine bag, she would have died of high fever. 

 I’m no hero only a priest who became one to give praise to the Lord. But in the reign of the mighty Claudius, I dared to marry off young couples who loved each other. I defied an emperor who wanted all men to join armies and not to settle down in life. I think God will forgive me for what I have done for I know what it is to be in love.  

When she came to see me after her recovery, it seemed like Julia’s eyes had stars in them. She brought sweet pomegranates for me. I am sure this must have been the forbidden fruit that once tempted Adam and Eve. After that I haven’t slept a wink for her eyes have haunted me with their bright-eyed despair. 

Despite the sleepless nights, I don’t feel tired at all. The only thing that is before me is her lovely face. Nothing else. The young ones keep on throwing notes and flowers at my window. Here and there, I have seen her hand too. In the eyes of the world, I am a sinner for marrying off young lovers. But here, on the last day of my life, I regret the fact that I met my Julia too late. It is already dawn and I must write a farewell note to her and seal it with my purple amethyst ring: 

My Julia, 

My love, from the day I saw you smile,
From the very day you came to see me;
Don’t cry for me when I am gone away
For the merciful god will bring us together.

This letter I seal with my amethyst ring
For what you meant to me in these hours,
How dawn has come with your bright face
And taken away the strife of long years.

How I long to hold your hand in mine,
Or say one word expecting your smile,
How late have I come to know you dear
I regret on this last day of my life.

Our loyal hearts will sing in heaven
Though not in this life but eternal. 

From Your Valentine

To be continued...

Togetherness

It was good to see them together after their scars faded away. It was forever, she thought when she had etched his name on her heart, the palms of her hands in a mehndi design or on every scrap of paper that she came across. 

Destiny said otherwise and the one that smiled with love at her was even more smitten. In the meantime, this first love was forgotten. But after a lapse of a few years,  look at their chemistry, it looks magical, like out of a dream. 

In her eyes that look up to him, in his smile slightly older but contented, in their perfect blend together, there is this miracle that after a battle of egos, the magic that makes a breakup look unreal. 

Hiraeth

It was as if a long-forgotten dream had flashed right in front of my eyes that evening. A glimpse of that last day in December when you I saw you last, the day we spent hours at the bookstore just because you wanted to buy me a book, the last time you had held me close and the day you left so as to make our dream true.

What I saw was none of these but an opulent durbar, the dancers and the audience who were screaming praises of my own name when I looked at my demure queen with a quiet pride knowing her to be mine only. There she was, smiling at me. Though veiled, the silhouette of her cheeks could be seen against her red veil. 

As we walked side by side, the crowds roared. We climbed those ancient steps and looked in the huge mirrors as if it was part of an old dream, as if two broken pieces were put together in a perfect shape for an instant. With a strange wonder, I recognised an old home, a place of no return, one that I lost long back return as we stand chattering inside a palace that gives a strange sense of having lived here long before.

Mehndi

Priceless

There were times when I have struggled a balance between my dreams of material wealth and spiritual happiness. Not that there were many possessions, a bare room that looked more like a scholar's study than a girl's bedroom but there was always a need to keep it spick and span.

There was this craving for possessions later always caused by an awareness of a lack looking at the wealthy and the rich. Then now, when it is possible to have possessions and objects that one wants, this strange heart wants nothing but to be left at peace, to know the wisdom of simplicity and of keeping away from needless clutter.

It wants not to learn the price of new desirables but to keep against its heart the priceless value of timeworn possessions, worn-out words, tired dreams and old loves of words, coffee, wine, music and  you.

Wisdom

You were a wanderer who left behind your hometown to start a new life, to prove yourself in the eyes of your near and dear ones. I was a dreamer who could listen with wonder to your ramblings and walk with you everywhere, one who could go places without leaving my favourite armchair. 

In the many years of absence, you and I travelled together across many exotic lands. From these wanderings, we have gathered so much of wisdom and have arrived at a place of mutual understanding. How we have changed in our lives holding close only values that which matter to both you and me!

In the long years you have been away, I have glimpsed you in many forms but not in real but I still remember your tenacity in sticking to your dreams and nothing else. For me, who have lately started following your footsteps, the world looks new and vistas inviting. 

May be this is not a dream at all but a piece taken out of tattered lives like yours and mine, but when these words come to fruition, it is more perfect than anything else heard, felt or seen.

Tonight

Tonight, it was your words, chocolate and butter, that made me drunk.Words that would bring back your bold gaze that could read more of me and weave a tapestry of desire.

I still wonder why I would spend hours in front of the mirror wondering at what you saw in me and go over in the mind, a flash of your childhood smile.

But all this magic faded away and we became two strangers fighting about what belongs to whom. Still it was your words, chocolate and butter, that made me drunk with delight, tonight.

Pic Courtesy:things sweet and wonderful to eat. wordpress.com

Years: Rose Day

May be it was part of my bravado to make  fun of love and how lovers feel when they meet after a long time.

Though the hourglass looks still, the days have fled so fast as if on wings. Here we are, the writer and the written, the wanderer and the dreamer, face to face, eye to eye.

I don't know where you have been and whom you have met but I would like to hear what passed day by day, hour by hour, second by second.

I might have to fight back all the tears of absence that have weighed my heart and you may have to slow down the countless words that never found a way to the lips.

But god willing, when that day finally comes,  I want it to remain still like forever and I want to tell you for sure that I know what a love story really feels like.

At home

We were at home, you in your sky blue shirt,
With chocolate stains from my hungry fingers,
Your cheeks smudged with my new lipstick,
When the story ended rather abruptly for us.

Instead what I saw in the place was a durbar
Among countless dancers and a huge crowd
Who were screaming praises of our names
Your eyes on me, your lovely demure queen. 

We climbed the ancient steps to the palace
Dressed in all regalia, very sure of each other;
Then this fragment from the last day I saw you,
Two broken pieces were put together for a while

A glimpse of an old home, a place of no return
With a strange wonder, I feel like being at home.

From Your Valentine (2)

I wake up to the sounds of shouts in the street. It sounds like a huge crowd rushing and trembling. There are sounds of women everywhere. I wonder when my agony will be over before or after the festival. Today is the festival of Lupercalia, dedicated to the god of fertility. 

The women folk must be out in the streets, dressed in white for the ceremonial sprinkling of animal blood on their bodies. Julia might be there too waiting for her chance for her name to be picked by her prospective groom from the urn of good luck.

I could hear the prayers from the sacred caves breaking the silence of early morning. The chants were audible as they were repeated by the women folk everywhere, from the hills to the valleys for begetting children and for good crops this year. 

The huge doors are opened and I see Julia before me not Asterius or his soldiers. I am too dumbfounded for words. I’m surprised that in the midst of the festival, she has come to see me. Dressed in white, she looks more like a ghost than a real person. 

It takes me some time to ask her why she has not gone for the festival near the caves of Romulus and Remus, the founding fathers of the nation. She replies in a low voice: Everyone has gone for the festival and I have stolen the keys so that I could come and see you. You need to hurry because there is a horse ready for you. You can run away from here and from death. 

No, I cannot. I am a priest and I cannot break the trust that your father has showed on me, I mumble. She is not convinced and comes near me. Though it is quite dark in my prison cell, I can see her face and she looks pale. It takes me sometime to understand that she may not have recovered fully from the disease that almost took her life away. She holds on to my arm and caresses it with her long delicate fingers. 

Not any longer. You are not a priest any longer. You are freed through a royal order that might in fact gain you a death worse than that of a criminal. It is better that you run away for your life. As for my father, he might forgive you because you saved my life, because he sees you as a good man. You are to be executed in the morning without any blessings from a priest. There is no time to lose. 

That shocks me because I am still a priest though I might have disobeyed Claudius and his orders. There were many couples that I had married off disobeying the order of compulsory bachelorhood for all soldiers. I have seen the women cry when their men left for war. Nor was I fool not to read in Julia’s eyes, the same flash of love though I have never been with her. 

Suddenly, there is an alarm raised and I see that the prison guards are on their way back. I snatch Julia by the hand and we run as fast as we can through the empty corridors. She leads the way and by the time we reach where the place where the horse is tied, we can see crowds of people, all splattered with blood on their clothes and crops back from the festival of Lupercal. 

To be continued...