just as we are

Just naked

and we can love

but only naked

As naked as our God and Truth

bare naked as only Love can be ..

I don’t know what
She hoped to find
She just went looking
into the starless night
there
in the pitch of the dark ..

In her bag
an apple
a tune
a little bread
a needle and a thread
and all the lies of all the world ..

Every day she walked
But she never talked
She just
cooked
and
ate
and
sang
and
mended
And every night
she walked into the dark
looking for those beating drums ..

Lonesome in a dark sorrow
The secrets of her broken heart
She could not share
She did not dare ..

Once, upon a fleeting time
Your eyes had asked
Did I know the magic word ?
I said i did as much as you
But did you hear me tell you that ?
I was your brother
I was not your lover
So did you hear me tell you that ?

And before I could speak
The truth or the lie
You closed your eyes
You took your sorrow
and
You walked away ..

And the sky remained the same
And the sea remained the same
And the same remains the memory
of your lips and your laughter
But
You had gone ..

And now, when they say
You killed yourself
Verily, by your own hand
I hear you say
You just finished
a job someone else began

Sister of my soul
My shooting star
Was this the way as it must be ?
For them
For us
For you
For me
The awful truth that sets us free ?
But did you hear me tell you that ?

I hold you in my arms
for a night without an end
The moon is all upon me ..
I hold you in my heart
for a night without an end
The moon is all upon me
calling
calling calling
calling calling
calling ..

Turu ru ru tu ru too
Tu ru ru ru ru roo rooooo ayyyyy
Tu ru ru ru tu roo rooo
Tu ru ru tu roo rooo
Tu turu ro ro roooooooooo

Tonight it’s a purple sky
I hold my faith
and I breathe your breath
I run all inside your skin
calling
calling calling
calling ..

Take me take me
take me take me
take me take me
take me take me

Take me now take me now
My blood splatters across the stars
What use be our eyes anyhow
We see all in each others dark ..

Spread high upon the purple night
You take me in your deepest heart
I hold you close so I could die
before the day comes
calling
calling ..

Yes
it will be morning light
and Yes
our wings will take a flight
A flute may call
and
voices will sing
the air
the sea
with crystal ring
away
away
away on a cloud
away away
on a butterfly’s wings
And yes
rainbows
the rain
and a few other things ..

The sun goes down
the voices go home
the night calls again
across the other side
I hold you again
and you won’t let me go
and again the moon is
calling
calling
calling ..

Take me in your deepest heart
I hold you close so i could die
This night is forever
This night is without an end
Night without an end
Before the day comes
calling
calling calling ..
calling calling
calling ..

Turu ru ru tu ru too
Tu ru ru ru ru roo rooooo ayyyyy
Tu ru ru ru tu roo rooo
Tu ru ru tu roo rooo
Tu turu ro ro roooooooooo

He knew the earth was one
The sky was one
one island amidst a million stars
their voices were like two sailing boats
in the silver midnight hour…

I wasn’t the only kid my mother had.
I was her first though.
I had two brothers and four sisters even before i was born.
Two out of the six of my siblings were almost as old as my mother.
She couldn’t share the joys and suffering of bringing up
all of us, with my fathers first wife, because my fathers first wife had died two years before my mother got married to my father.
Soon, i also had a younger brother and a little later,
a younger sister.

All my brothers and sisters were crazy about the movies.
I wasn’t much.
One day, on my annual winter holiday, back at home from school,
I heard a voice on the radio.
That voice has stayed with me all my life.
It was the voice of Mehzabeen.
She was more widely, but not better, known
as Meena Kumari .. the actress.
My mother though called her Mehzabeen.

Then i started watching a lot of movies with my brothers and sisters and friends.
Now i like to watch films alone, only with strangers in a cinema theater.
Through a series of accidents over the years,
i am now making films.

Now where did Mehzabeen go from this story ?
Not far. For she is the heart of this matter.

A few years after that voice on the radio
and many seen movies later ..

I was on a visit to one of my elder sisters,
who lived in Bombay at that time.
I bumped into an old school friend one day.
I hadn’t met him in years.
It was pouring cats and dogs.
After a chat in which we felt we had bridged the years,
he said he wanted us to go to a man’s house and pelt stones at it.
I didn’t like the random idea too much,
but was very curious to know why he wanted to do that.
He said he wanted to get back all the poetry that actually belonged to Mehzabeen, and was in that man’s possession.
My friend was biologically related to Mehzabeen, closely.

So off we went, and enroute i told him,
that a chat would be a first step idea,
with the stone pelting being a second step one, in case.
He said all chats had failed.
He was now not allowed to even enter that man’s house.
On one occasion the security guard had set a dog upon him.
And this was a house that Mehzabeen had gifted to that man.

It was pouring sheets of rain as we climbed up a road that went uphill in Bandra.
We stopped at a roadside teashop.
My friend took out a completely worn notebook now also wet from the pouring rain
Most of it was in tatters and most of it illegible.
The writing was in Urdu.
It was then i heard the couplet which i have translated ..

patta patta din pighla
boota boota raat ghali
jiska jitna daaman tha
utni hi saugaat mili.

© Mehzabeen

The rain and the storm refused to let up
and by the time it did,
my friend and i had both decided to talk to an uncle of his,
who would help us get back the notebooks.
So off we went.
We met the uncle.
He was a pragmatic man.
He said he knew about all this, but there was no way to prove what the truth about the notebooks matter, really was.
Still, he would try to do something about it.
It was after all Mehzabeen who had gifted him this palatial bungalow, as easily as she had gifted so many loves, and faith and passions and trust, and careers, and houses and cars,
to so many people.

For herself she had kept just the bottle.

Again a few years passed and i reconnected with my friend.

We spoke about the notebooks and that rainy day.
My friend said he had figured by now, to let some things be.
I said we should still try.
I wanted to do a translation of the poetry in English.
He said he didn’t think we could do much about this matter.
He did tell me though that there was a book published.
He didn’t know by whom or where.
I tried looking for it over a few years,
not much determinedly though.
I never found it.

Just that one couplet remained.
And came back.
On an ssT post-
on a network called Caferati.
I wrote,

Leaf by leaf
the day melted
petal after petal
Fell the night..
Only as much true as your heart could be,
Just that much, is what you got ..

The accidents continue showing their truths.

Some readers elsewhere contended that Mehjabeen was the proper pronounciation, and pointed to the care one must take when writing the names of people well known. Or something like that.
I have called her Mehzabeen because that is how i first heard her name,
from my mother and the Radio Announcer (RJ in current terminology)
My mother still remains my mother, terminology changes notwithstanding.

Dont talk to me about that trifle -
we achingly call love,
even as it dies
the thousand deaths it needs
before it finds its voice
after it finds its nose…

That, you would know too…

There
we were
where the silence was…

Listen to the wind in this secret place,
the mountains it meets and it meets the sea.
It is here we exchange our lives
It is here we exchange our memories…