When I first saw him, he was standing below that tree that broke into a storm of fragrance every November. I remember that moment clearly. A black sweatshirt, equally black pyjama frayed at the ends and olive slippers. He stood by the tree, looking up and sizing it with his eyes.
I had never seen him in the locality before and it is a rare thing for me to say. Much later in life I would come to realise that he was an outsider, an outsider who came into my world for just one day and left it. But, like that one visitor you cannot help forgetting, a sketch of him would remain in my memory for years to come, him and the tree, hammered into the back of my head.
Trying to keep my voice from shuddering or breaking (which it usually does when I am talking to a stranger), I crawled up to him and asked, "Hey, what are you looking at?"
"I am looking for a twig of flowers, can you get me one?", he mumbled, without looking at me, his hair reached his shoulders and sunlight filtered through it, I could not see his eyes but I could feel that he was one of those few who still had some light loitering around in their eyes. I never understood why poets and writers always compared eyes to an ocean, never understood the simile behind it. I was about to know it soon.
He turned, looking directly in to my eyes, he took my soul out and gulped it down in one breath. Tangled hair were dangling on his forehead, his otherwise black seeming eyes glistened, his nose pointed out at me in accusation and his lips rolled as he began to say something. "Oh hi, did you notice how beautiful it smells? I was thinking I would break a twig before I left."
"I am sorry, I cannot recall, who are you?"
Turned out that he was just a passerby. I did not know wether it was just coincidence or the street that was resonating with a smell that I surely did detest that brought him up here.
Nevertheless, I was happy.
"Sure, let me help you."
I got him on my back and his hands were firm on my shoulders, we both tried and tried and then tried some more until our lungs decided that it was too much for them to bear, that even though the air was scented, it was not what they were made for.
I, to be honest, wasn't concentrating much on the task at hand. As his legs were docked around my neck, as his slender fingers brushed through my hair, I just wanted the moment to hang in there, to not move forward, or backwards. A fragrance wafted, of skin, of a man and of everything that was his. As the sun was setting, little rays of sunlight danced on my glistening head, docked between his thighs. I wanted to stand. But sometimes, it is worthwhile to fall hard like the little droplets of water do. If it were not for the droplets to fall and split into a thousand sprays, rainbows would not have been possible.
But he was not trying it that hard either. Right? He could have gotten a twig if he just stretched his hand a little bit more. Just one more push and a dangling rope of flowers would have been in his hand. But his hands were there, coursing through my hair.
As I fell and shattered under him, I could feel him falling down with me.
In dirt and dust, in sweat and sun, in exhaustion and epiphany, I was his and he was mine, broken, tired and laden over me, we were one, and in that perfect moment I felt as if this stranger wasn't a stranger anymore.
He stood up and left. Abruptly.
I wanted him to stay and wanted to hold those slender fingers, to kiss those pink lips, to be deep enough in him. But he left. And since then, I wait for November to come every year. I wait for this tree that my maid calls 'Shiuli' to burst into a million fragrances. Who knows, when a traveller might come this way, yearning for a handful of flowers. And, who knows, I might be just there, below the tree, offering my shoulder and all of me.
Travellers come and travellers go. They stop and halt for things they need. They haggle with shopkeepers on the way for the price and then they set about their path. Buses come, passengers come along too, and then they go. The town stands still and so do the townsmen.
After all, which mid-way town has ever stopped a traveller?
राह की बेरहमी तो देखो ऐ मुसाफ़िर,
मंज़िल के इत्र में मशगूल, ये सफ़र से ख़फ़ा हो चली है ।
अब ज़िंदगी से क्या करूं मैं मोह,
जब रूह ही बेवफ़ा हो चली है ।