Shraman: Tales Of Love || Completed

4. ||Tanhayiyaan/Loneliness||

~ aah ko chahiye ek umra asar hone tak,
Kon jeeta h tere julf a sar hone tak.
Humne mana ki tagaful na karoge magar,
Khaak ho jayenge hum tumko khabr hone tak.~

(The sighs need an eternity to have their effect,
Who would be alive until your heart melts down?
I understand you might not ignore me ever,
But I would already be burnt to ashes by the time you would get to know)

Three months had gone by, and yet it felt like that he would never get over that wretched hour of his life, ever. Waking up in cold sweat, after a horrible nightmare, Shravan was still trying to control his breathing when his eyes fell on the wall clock- 4 am. It had been hardly two hours since he fell asleep, though only to fall in the pit hole of his nightmares that haunted him. Calmer than before, he gulped down the glass of water and checked his phone, maybe she might have messaged. To his dismay, she hadn't. Neither had she read his message, the one he had sent after fiddling with it for two hours after midnight. His eyes fell on her profile picture, and a smile adorned his lips. She had gained a little weight in the past three months, and also the glow of her cheeks had returned too. A sigh left him as he realized the fact, she was slowly becoming Sumo again. The layer of Suman around her, the layer he had clad her in, by his venomous words, bitter actions, and a  nightmare of a marriage, was shedding off now. She was being herself now, her Sumo self. The irony being, as she was returning to herself, with every passing day, he was loosing himself a bit more. He was dying every moment as she slowly bloomed again.

Removing the comforter, he walked out of his room, and opened the main gate to strall in the garden. His legs were sore from the extensive run he had the last night, but who cared. His mind was drifting again to that day, the day he lost everything to his destiny, to his father's betrayal, to his Mother's choices.

Khwab me tairti parchayiyan,
Tar batar shor me khamoshiyan.
Duriyon me bati, najdeekiyaan,
Barishon me ghuli chinagariyan.
Jane kya kya leke aati hai,
Har lamha mujhme yu, tujhe bhar jati hai!
Tanhaiyan!

(The shadows swimming across the dreams,
The silence amidst the haunting noises,
The closeness divided between the distance,
The fire dissolved in the rain.
Don't know what it brings all the time,
But evertime it comes, it fill you in me, a little more.
Loneliness!)

Sharavan always thought he was proud to have this sharp a memory, it had helped him immensely during school and college and his law practice. But now, when he still remembered that moment so clearly, precise to the points, it stabbed him in the heart. It killed him every second, whenever the memory resurfaced. The memory of his father, sitting on his knees before him and accepting all the gamebits he had played, in tears. Shravan could not help and a painful sound escaped his lips, as his bruised knee stumbled against the wooden chair kept there. He sat down, his head in his hands, as another memory resurfaced.
Sharavan standing in front of suman, both of them equally in tears and in pain, the embrace of love they shared and then her decision, to not return back, until he worked on his equation with his mother, with his anger, with his insecurities and fear. That was the day and this was the day, and in between three months had gone by, just like that.

Gehra sa, halka sa, jaisa bhi tha,
Kafi tha us wqat apne liye,
Khushnuma h sabhi, din raat wo,
Humrah jinme dono jiye.
Jane kya kya pal dohrati hai,
Har lamha mujhme yu tujhe bhar jati hai,
Tanhaiyan!