A Smile on Her Face

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
— Love after Love, Derek Walcott

If they ask me, what are you doing tonight? I will tell them, I don’t know.

If they ask me, what are you doing on 31^st night? I will tell them, I don’t know.

This is because, once I tell them, I will, at once, lose that delicious secret which I hide in the deepest recesses of my inner self. I will suddenly become empty and shallow. I will have nothing left to protect me. As Jorge Luis Borges wrote in Two English Poems, I will lose “the central heart that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities”.

Perhaps, I might go dancing like mad around a bonfire. I love dancing. Remember that beautiful Leonard Cohen solo, sung and written by him?

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic ’til I’m gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love…

Dancing, like the brave girls and women of Iran, holding hands, fingers and fists clenched in the ecstasy of rebellion and defiance, jumping into the sky, into the dark, into the dawn of a million freedoms; dancing around a bonfire, aflame by their hijabs, hair, dreams, courage, rejecting the ‘moral police’, going round and round in circles, shouting in absolute glee, in collective chorus, in symphony, in angst and anger, singing songs of protest, of togetherness, also, of love.

Perhaps, I might be lucky to have a trusted friend around the warmth of a room heater, rare as they are, sharing footnotes and anecdotes, with a glass in hand; or, sitting in comfortable silence, warm and cosy in the shelter of deep friendship.

Or, I might be walking the cold, frozen, midnight streets of Old Delhi, the ‘Old Monk’ inside my intestines flowing like a stream of consciousness, keeping me warm and alive, like the days in the past, when, as a young reporter, I walked in the dark when others celebrated, reporting on the homeless who live in the open-to-sky pavements; they, wrapping wall posters around their legs, heads, chest, to keep their bodies warm  — so how do the poor celebrate the new year’s eve? 

The dark irony. As in this great song which moves me so intensely till this day: Chino-O-Arab hamara… Hindustan hamara… rehne ko ghar nahin hain… saara jahan  hamara… (Film, Phir Subah Hogi (1958), directed by Ramesh Saigal, lyrics by Sahir, music by Khayaam, starring Raj Kapoor and Mala Sinha). Also, this immortal song:

Woh Subah Kabhi toh Aayegi…
In Kaali Sadiyo ke Sar Se, Jab Raat ka Aanchal Dhalkega
Jab Dukh Ke Badal Pighlenge, Jab Sukh Ka Sagar Chhalkega
Jab Ambar Jhoom ke Naachega, Jab Dharti Nagme Gaaegi
Woh Subah Kabhi toh Aayegi…
Jis Subah ki Khatir Jug Jug Se
Hum Sab Mar Mar ke Jite Hai
Jis Subah ke Amrit Ki Dhun Me, Hum Zeher ke Pyaale Pite Hai
In Bhukhi Pyaasi Ruho Par, Ek Din toh Karam Farmaayegi
Woh Subah Kabhi Toh Aayegi…

Or, maybe, tired of all the brutality in this world and the genocides, repeated day after day, or, the fickle uncertainties and cruelty of love and friendship, or, fed up with the sheer banality of it all, I will choose to be alone. With my old buddy — the nocturnal expanse of solitude.

In the dark, protected by the slow, softened light of my ancient lamp, a shawl around my legs, a book in hand, as always, sitting by the window next to the balcony, where the tall sturdy trees, one of them, a majestic Saptaparini (sadly, without its exotic fragrance), will heal my wounds — invisible to the world.

There are waves of memories falling like an infinite rain from a freezing, winter sky saddened by its own vast emptiness. There are old diaries, letters, postcards and notebooks, yellowed and fragile with time’s cruel onslaught, still preserved like an archive of pure, pristine desire — fulfilled, unfulfilled.

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Life these days is often like an obsessive social media mirage which becomes more vacuous and vicarious each moment. In this world of repetitive, illusory, emotionless existence, with neither trust nor gratitude, there are no basic instincts or deep longings. Everything seems to be without warmth, softness, feeling, sensuality — everything is ephemeral. Temporary. Forever in transition. Friendship. Love. Longing.

You just can’t hold the image, the memory, the human bonding anymore. It slips away, for no rhyme or reason! It disappears before you arrive into many more absences. Digital. Real. What remains is fatigue,  a lingering sadness, a simmering wound.

Earlier, they were real. For instance, black and white pictures. Or, hand-written letters. You could keep these letters inside your books, like book-marks, and re-read them, again and again. I still do.

Some of these photographs were made into colour pictures by the artist-photographer, with gentle strokes of her/his brush. Like a painting clicked by a camera! You could almost touch them. Watch life seeping into them. Discover the tangible substances in the image.

The folds of a pristine white cotton dress with flowers, petals, birds and butterflies, in subdued colours, fragrant with familiar feelings; the lucidity of the skin, eyelids and eyes, the poetry of the fingers, the depth, intelligence and character in the image, the beauty and softness of the face. The entire image stays.

A real, tangible moment — lived, experienced, felt.

The remembrance of things future. Yes, it can happen again. It is possible. What has gone may return! Like the sudden shine in the eyes after a long phase of despair.

Life lived, one day at a time. In his Selected Essays and Notebooks, one of my most favourite books, Albert Camus says he crosses a street, and a stranger, a young woman, smiles at him. He carries her smile with him all day.

I too carry the smile. It lives deep inside me. A sudden, sunshine smile. So full of light, and lightness, so enlightened, warm and joyful, replete with magical luminescence.

In this new year, I don’t want anything else. Nothing!

You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you…
Sit. Feast on your life.

Happy New Year, my dear readers. Give youself a gift. Pamper yourself a bit. Give yourself a smile. A sudden, sunshine smile.

I tell you, no one deserves it more than you!