Hri's Reveries

Most babies find the single syllable ‘maa’ easier to form and hold in their tiny mouths as their first word. Mine was ‘baba’ . Spoken often and with such clarity that people would sigh at their own children’s mumbled noises. I learnt to sing almost simultaneously as I learnt to talk. My mother tells me the first song I started humming, and then singing perfectly was one of the Rabindra sangeets my father often played— one of his favourites. She tells me how overjoyed he was when I started humming it while he held me in his arms. He never tells me any of this. Growing up, I gave several adjectives to the image of my father, in my head. I thought he was strong and invincible like every other child does. Now every time I go back home, he seems to have grown older. I thought he was my best friend. Every argument we had when I was sixteen made me doubt it. I thought my father was flawless. But he is only human. Most of my family tells me I’m just like my father. I’ve grown up hearing this ...

I used to find a definition of love In every single thing I adore Took me a while to realise Love is all that and more Then you came along and Somehow love was madness A rollercoaster of a journey From anticipation to sadness   I’d look at you, stop breathing As if I was suddenly set on fire I didn’t ever want to look away It felt like walking a thin wire   And everyone else would say This isn’t love but infatuation Love isn’t madness and chaos This has to be plain attraction   But if it was just attraction Then why did it last so long? Even when I saw you years later My heart burst into a song   A few more years passed But the ardour always stayed Still whenever I see you My entire soul seems to sway   Because love is just love,  And a lot of other things too With you, it was something else because There was love………                         ...

October rolls around and brings with it the Durga Puja— my heart rejoices in anticipation, every year. And every year, my mind becomes sick with bittersweet nostalgia, without fail, thinking of you. It’s not fair to me, the fact that your memories are now so closely woven with the one festival I look forward to. This is the first time I haven’t gone back home for the Puja. This is the first time I haven’t seen you during the Puja. I remember, on the first day of Puja, shashthi— I visited the pandal next to your home, and you visited the pandal next to mine. It’s an exchange of worlds that occurs every year. Not this year. I could only see your pictures and laugh a derisive laugh because you are closer to my home than I am right now. I remember, on the second day of Puja, saptami— both of us sang at the annual singing competition in our hometown. Not this year; this time, it was just you. I haven’t heard you in so long, I am scared of slowly forgetting your voice. I remember, on...

Every now and then I dream of you.  Of quiet corridors in our busy high school / side eyes from our classmates / teachers’ knowing glances (even when they knew nothing) / you sitting a little too close to me / your best handwriting / your laughs being funnier that the joke / sharing secrets we never shared with anyone else / studying together in all those free periods / just talking when we had nothing to study / just sitting in silence when we had nothing to talk about / you telling me you loved my hair, my eyes, my laugh / secretly texting late into the night and feeling guilty / long phone calls / hushed whispers every now and then / ‘I love you’s that were sometimes returned, sometimes not (what if someone overhead?)  Every now and then I think of you.  Of broken promises / missed calls / unanswered texts / spiteful words (I know neither of us meant them but we said them still)  My dreams are longer than my thoughts but they are both equally destructive. And...

I. It is summer again and I love to lie in the cool shade of the banyan tree in my grandmother’s backyard and think of summers long past. It is almost as if I hear the tree speaking to me— in echoes from the thick stem, the roots hanging from the branches as if to graze my skin and unlock my memory. The earth has a mind, I think— one that collects the memories of everyone that ever walked on it and returns them when one stops and rests. I think of summer two years ago when the brown-eyed boy bought a few seeds with the pocket money he’d saved and held them out to me in his rough palms. “You like plants,” he’d said. I remember telling him he had beautiful eyes before taking the seeds and planting them in one of my mother’s earthen flower pots. I thanked him and promised him I’d take care of the seeds and help them grow into strong, healthy plants. I remember the look of satisfaction on his face. Time stumbles and slows down. This is how love begins. A few seeds planted in innocenc...