The deep blue sky of early February and the rustling of colourful kites riving the wind and soaring languorously above me; bees humming on the thick bunches of sun-yellow Tikoma flowers; the soft chirping of bulbuls and weaverbirds busy weaving their nests under the thick green shrub of Raat ki Rani; and a perfect lazy […]
I took a day off at the call of the wind that came softly into my room drenched in the fragrance of the Gandharaaj.
Dark clouds covered the sky, they rumbled and thundered and cast a sparkling green spell on the noon.
I decided to stay at home. I curled up in my favorite corner and felt how blessed I am to be alive .
I took a day off at the call of the wind that came softly into my room drenched in the fragrance of the Gandharaaj.
Dark clouds covered the sky, they rumbled and thundered and cast a sparkling green spell on the noon.
I decided to stay at home. I curled up in my favorite corner and felt how blessed I am to be alive .
Yes, I can smell its presence in the lemony fragrance of the morning air, I can hear its call in the first tender aubades piped by the robin at daybreak, I can already feel it in the jingle of the wind that is lazing around and playing with the crisp leaves of the Amaltas as the sun dozes off and takes an afternoon siesta on my old carpet and the wind chimes tinkle faintly with the moody gusts of the idle wind – spring is almost here! I feel it as I sit on my old easy chair on the terrace, watching the dreamy ‘spring haze’ of the sun as eagles soar in the deep ocean of the blue sky and the tender violet buds on the beanstalk open softly. Yes, spring gypsies are about to arrive with their caravan; they will be camping here for a few months with their sweet Phaguns and Chaitis, and their dazzling colors!
So, what are you planning this spring – why not, to begin with, take a day off to prepare for greeting them? Well, I have taken a day off today and it is already afternoon. Winter afternoons, I have always felt, are the ideal time for listening to the restless songs of the warm and idle wind. And today, I am hearing them again – inside me and everywhere near and far. I know these songs so well; I have known them since my childhood – since those days when my little sister and I used to run breathlessly after the wind-swept flowers of the bougainvillea as they would go whirling and rolling in the sun at my grandma’s house. All that is but a memory now, but what is spring if not the time to recall our good old memories. So why not begin with some songs of spring that have traveled through the decades with us.
When all our abodes of music sacred
Are being razed and wrecked,
And plundered all dwellings of blossoms tender,
When all cool and deep shades of trees huge
Are being ravaged and bulldozed,
When collapsing under our feet are
All shores azure, emerald, shimmering,
Listen to these songs of mine
– listen!
I had heard the mighty eagles
Brave, beautiful and fearless
Chase the storm and these daring songs sing;
Wings outstretched in a sky anxious:
Grey and ashen with fear and panic
Of storms mighty, fast approaching.
One afternoon – thick, hushed, and dense,
I had heard a river ancient,
Cool, deep blue, languorous,
Sing these ditties long forgotten,
As it sat calm and motionless
Under the dark shade of an old Peepal,
These songs of mine
– listen!
All these songs melodious
Of vales leafy and sky indigo and springs sunlit
These hymns sweet – of flowers wild,
Of earth and of life,
These songs mine,
Are all yours,
These songs
– will you listen?
Listen,
I will sing for you
In these dark hours of frightening destruction,
Riding on the waves wrathful
That roar and rumble as they rise and rave,
Standing on the shoulders of the storm
Wild and savage,
Ascending the volcano furious,
I will sing for you
All those songs tender,
Which promise life and renewal,
All those songs that have you in them
I will sing for you
Till my last breath
And when these dreary hours shall end
(My journey will be over by then),
When a new dawn shall come,
These songs shall bloom and blossom again;
These songs – the joyous serenades of spring,
These songs – the saddest requiems of earth,
The most pious aubade to that morning first,
Yes, it shall come,
Soon shall it shall come!
पथिक 