January 13, 2023
11:45 pm
Ditching our daily routine, today we left a little early for the evening aarti. It was just another bleak day in January, with very frail sunshine which almost disappeared by 4 pm. The sky was grey and dimly lit. Honestly, I miss the summer sunsets, the vivid orange and pink shades of the sky, the crisp chirping of the birds and the silhouette of trees, boats, people and life.
While Banaras was getting ready to bid farewell to another day, we tugged to our shawls and roamed aimlessly around the Dashashwamedh Ghat, sipping our daily dose of kulhad waali chai to survive the icy winds, randomly singing ghazals and nazm, laughing on silly knock-knock jokes and pretending to see constellations in the sky. As the ghat started bustling with people for the Ganga aarti, we three firmly held each other's hands and joined the crowd.
After the aarti, it was time for Lohri celebration. Lohri makes maagh bearable, it is a winter festival that I really look forward to. After the prayers, Kanha started entertaining us with a funny bhangra performance and we all ended up joining him because who could resist dancing with this cute clown on the dhol beats? Kanha teased Radhe by dancing while clutching to her dupatta, and when Radhe tried to free her dupatta from his hold, he said to her something in punjabi that neither I understood nor Radhe, and we both are still very sure that even he doesn't know the meaning of what he said, probably just blabbered all the punjabi words that he has ever heard of.
Tired, we sat beside the bonfire to soak in the warmth, munching on gajak, revdi, moongfali and popcorn. Radhe began singing her favourite winter folksongs and we sat mesmerized by her voice. Everything was fine and peaceful until Kanha thought of some mischief and ran away with the bowl of popcorn, expecting us to chase him. And we did chase him, ofcourse, not for the sake of the popcorn but for the sake of the happiness that these silly games bring. The dropping temperatures of Banaras forced us back to the bonfire, and we spent another fifteen minutes just sitting close to one another. Kanha narrated a story from his childhood, when he along with Balram dau had played a prank on Yashoda maiyya and Nand baba on the day of Makar Sankranti. Radhe and I watched the smile on his face as he recounted every detail of his mischief.
And that's how the day ended for us, exactly the way each day ends – by being together, in love, smiling because of each other's smile, grateful for our own little happy family!
Prem se,
Radhe Radhe <3
