Dear star-crossed lovers,
I have been staring into the night sky more often, now. The lights spiraling skyward, only outline the shadow of the darkness. There is nothing left to find. Somebody once told me that if you stare at a blank canvas, long enough, the picture begins to find you. I have traced letters in the constellations; written novels all across the atmosphere, hoping that it would lead me to a Gingerbread House. Sometimes, I fear being found out. If one fine day, the Hate Police look up at the sky and read all our letters, I should be damned to lifelessness. In the throes of desperate fear, I remember they cannot read. It has been years since they unlearned the language of compassion. The couples in love are safe now- speaking through the infinite space inside our hearts. They will never look for us here.
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Dear hearts that are hunted,
They killed your kin last summer. 7 billion pairs of eyes bore into the documentary of ‘safe-guarding’ or ‘crime’, depending on which side of sanity you belong to. His voice, incessantly pleading for life, often wakes me up mid-sleep. I see the fire burning out his freedom, and feel my body turn to steam. I will tell my children stories of a man who dared to find an oasis in the thirsty streets of Rajasthan. With every blow his body shouldered, Love lost a million times. I do not understand the Mathematics of the world, but I do know that it will take a thousand Edens to heal us. And then, some more. When my children ask me why it happened, I hope my head hung in shame will be answer enough.
Nietzsche said that God is dead. But was he ever alive, to begin with? I crib for days over a poetry that was born deformed. How then, could he be satisfied with the entire human race? I wonder if we are in the Upside Down. Maybe our relentless lament tore through the fabric of our Universe. How else can I explain abstract religion developing a stronger shield than the spine of a man lying dead in a lonely Rajasthani field? Something refuses to add up.
My 10th grade teacher told me that calculations made up the entire world. “Every aspect of our being can be reduced to, or explained by Mathematical principles.” How then, do we continue to thrive in a world where all equations have been rendered null and void?
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Dear lamenting kindred,
In some ways, love is like death. A touch and go. An eternal waiting. A momentary bliss leaving mourning in its wake. But of course, you hardly understand my metaphors. You are far removed from the fake-ceiling we call our sky. You are lost and found, in poems that children tuck away in their notebooks. Someday, your legacy will find its way to a ‘jhaalmuri’ packet, to an oily napkin, to the wastepaper bin- unread, un-found, unexploited. Sometimes, not being discovered can be the greatest ode to your existence.
I remember a childhood when love did not come in daily rations. When I was young, they did not have parking tickets for emotions, and forced expiry dates if you loved somebody un-like you. In fact, our mothers ensured that we shared our food, shared our games, shared anything that was asked of us. Even when we did not want to. Maa said, “Your doll will never be more important than a friendship”. But look, Maa, they are holding a country above the worth of a million lives. Don’t they remember being children? Being so small that we were herded like cows in the School Assembly; so small that we looked like each other until the second glance; so small that you could not tell us apart enough to make a shrine out of our differences.
I wonder if the problem lies in identification. Would they hate couples in love less if they could not tell them apart? If all the 7 billion people on this planet looked the very same, would we be allowed to live? I fear for the archaeologists digging up our remains. They will strive to decode our language, and find answers where questions were never asked. I feel their eyes bore into us from several decades later. They seem to be asking, in unison, “What have you done, brethren? What have you done to each other?”
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Dear silent screamers,
I hear nothing but the sound of crackers tonight. Rows of houses trying to burn away the heavy silence. In the boom-boxes playing unmusical sounds, in the incessant chanting of words that don’t make sense, I wonder if they realize this is an attempt to scream away the loneliness. I imagine walking over to these houses, ringing the doorbell, and saying, “Good morning, sir. What are you trying to escape, today?”
We are a country of 1.3 billion people, trying to run from ourselves. We bite our lips every time we think in words beyond the pamphlets. There are slogans tattooed on us now; slogans we must never refuse; slogans that they told us we had made for ourselves. I fear for the little ones who believe them. I fear for the children, molded like clay, into claws that drip their neighbor’s blood. “But is this really YOU?”, I want to ask. “Are these your words? Did you have lies for breakfast? Has blood and hate been your staple diet for 40 years, sir? Are you still hungry?” But they will look through me, I know. They are looking at the cue-cards hanging from imaginary sidelines, urging them to repeat the same words over and over again. One answer to every question. One God for every sin.
“When was the last time you felt human, sir?”
Silence.
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Dear psychotic runners,
They are looking for you. I have dreamed of searchlights being shone through my eyelids. I have heard sirens ten thousand feet above the ground, raining down on us like omens on a good day, like atomic bombs on most others. My country feels like Hiroshima with every breath it loses. I dream of my land as an overweight acquaintance, growing fatter with each visit. “You should do something about that flab”, I say. “A little extra weight never hurt anyone”, they smile. But the burden of dead bodies has left a bloody letter in every stretch mark, every clogged pore, every patch of unkempt hair, until my country is a hideous amalgamation of flesh, bile, and inhumanity.
It is funny perhaps, that it took us decades to push foreigners out of our nation, and minutes to turn foreign to our own brethren. I imagine the mother of our kin, gathering decades of food and compassion into her son, only to have it burned down in the name of an Almighty that protects nobody. I imagine the woman, trying to claw her heart out, hoping that it would turn back time. If we all donated our hearts to the Almighty’s Feast, then would you let us live?
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Dear comrades of the only war that matters,
How does it feel to have your love turned into a revolution? Every time you hold hands, there is an anthem bursting in your veins, dear couples in love. From a black-hole we arrive, and to a black-hole our hearts go. But I am glad you are celebrating everything that comes in-between. A hundred years from now, when children read about Hate Crime in their colorful history books, I hope you are able to comfort them. I hope you can look into the eyes of your child and promise them that no matter where or whom they love, there is no Police taking notes. When they shudder at the news receipts of kins you lost decades ago, I hope you can tell them that some of us never stopped fighting. And, if they ever embrace somebody with a different skin, or a different God, I hope you welcome them home.
You are the warriors of the infinite; the flag-bearers of kindness. If you dare open your heart to this diseased and disillusioned world, know that I am proud of you. This world will never speak about your sacrifice, or adorn your neck with glittering spoils. Do not be disheartened. Remember that the podium they offer, has been built on the corpses of your kins. Refuse it. Love requires no trumpet, no celebration, no God. All it needs is a couple of people who believe that they can save each other.
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In some world, far removed, I know you’re reading my words. Nobody has bought away our skies yet. I can feel you tracing your reply in silent constellations. Write back to me in thunder, lightning, promises, and all other things that shatter. I will wait, eternally.
Featured image source: Google copyright-free image, under Creative Commons License
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