& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

In for a Dream in for a Scoff

A Soliloquy by Shakib Ahsan
Ti It m.'«t 11■it' Min up. intirki t'luthi anil uns,...^ Mmh I encounter with is in the metropolis where you live and I wend back slouching from my getaways A curtain ot Jisuuiet hangs over this humid sodden township where a welcome pastoral song sometimes from nowhere brings waves of zephyrs into the erstwhile searing city skv line winch nnlid you, ruffle you and in an iota of a second take you on a ruminative journey across miles and years It is just one of those days when lite pays you back in your own coins
For the past few months I have been in and out ot the city looking for shinning sand dimes in the stillest hours of the dawn in the middle of rivers y. u might take for oceans ii you let your eyes wander Myriad ripples that heave and sway have made me think of you in my arms dancing slow...slow. fast...fast...slow. On board 1 had been with a coterie of characters no grocer can promise you. A Mr Cog gled not pepper was travelling with a Miss White egg plant and a smutted crone corn. There was a podgy snake gourd who scourged the deck tor the sculling closely re sembling a cruet of chilled tomato ketchup With the inquiry of a wildlife biologist a
popiniav, watched at every letsim who looked like a capped ladv s-finger The schooner which carried us looked to me wasn't sure it could reach its port which I also didn't give a damn about The most transient part of a travel is the brown studies I do living the life ot a castaway on a lonely stretch of never never land, washed in turn oniv by the waves and the moon. The Crusoe in me is a bit bibliophile and bucolic, so I make sure you are in my skiff. We would have oarouse into the middle of the night until you drop then I regale you with banjo curved out of a coconut which 1'11 have pleiitv of time to learn to make WonJcrtul things are always those which you're not prepared to enjoy right at die moment. I have seen large tracts of fallow lands, esoteric under the cover of night. The lay bare and inviting, each with a story to tell Dried river beds, once the nestling ground of galleys from the days of yore; decrepit masonries, twigged and gnawed away vestiges of lost pomp. I have craved for you in every step of the way. When the
woman of my host family bickered over my falling weight I missed you, when the girl lit up with transports of iov looking at the collage I helped her finish, I missed !ou Everytime the wind ound me subsided into a chair, I longed for you. In my ivory tower 1 talk to the breeze, drink to the evening and walk out with loneliness. Ex eryone rears up cubicles of grievance, piecemeal sighs, which are beloved, shared by none and better kept that way.
Ahl the sun on the face, the forest floor so meadowy, a nimbus stir in the whorl of leaves,/ every, leaflet con stantly living, dying changing, can there be another epitome of sempiternal life, more illustrious! Everything is the same, we used to come in this for est, climb those trees, sit on this rock in the shades in summer and dream. What you are is not what you've done it is what you've dreamt. The bay window has framed a spray of mimosa evocative of autumn on my sleepy sung wall. The silence here is so pristane, no music can break
it. The only music I have been listening to are the blusters that kiss the car on the highway. Moonlight has taken the seat next to me flushing through in the car. Somebody else in also with us, you. The road now taken is not the one I used to know and my heart has tuned into a different music but I am heading home. The road we crossed was blighted, let not loathe what is way anead.
You took my advances towards you with a pinch of salt, deeming it a fling that 1 would have for any giil in place of you. Your qualms about giving me too much space in your life that might encumber on your quietude, made me prating, jocund and more of an out person than I ordinarily like to appear. To me being an acquaintance is to mind the line that the person has drawn, listening mostly and hoping. I was nympholeptic. triea to force you into believing that only I could make you happy. I lost your respect and attention by trying too hard too soon. I remember asking you whether you would blame me if I had
stayed with the simple and afraid you" and had let the confused and troubled "you" find her own peace with me. I wanted my woman seasoned in her spring time, withered into a slender, fragrantful young sequoia because I had already read too much into the lines of Linda Goodman to believe that "when she owes a man or a tea cup for her, it is her forever." You were not loved by the way you dressed your hair, whether a dimple added a dazzling effect on you or how did you look in hot pants, its because being around you was a subtle compliance with ful-fillness and to be more in control.
I have shied the locket which smelled of me, had my reflexion and slept in my palms into the sandy waters of the bay. I thought, nothing could replicate the conviviality she had passed in me, the aamiration for her good tastes in life and that soft broken speech but it took me some bnmey tears to do it. Men have lived through greater travails but never with greater grace than sweet cru-,
elty. Love doesn't detonate it, fizzles out. I yearn to burn with enough incense to relive like that of the Phoenix, heart-whole and as timorous as a swain to fall in love again. Was there a love won without a fight?
I daunt the day that can't bring two people closer despite the warmth of begone days. My bleary eyes would cease to look for the woman whom once my youthful muse had filled. That is why my vagrant eyes only look for the staidest face every made, which they-narrowly miss to catch in tne offing. Did the girl in mantua stand knee deep in awe and coiffured her tousled tussocks in the clammy wind of the cove, fifty may be hundred years ago? Who deceives her dismay with something which can easily be mistaken as a smile but who's eyes can't lie. I would plunge in her deep caverns obtrusively through her eyes? She is so helpless, she has got nothing to strike back with at this reeking world where she pallidly saunters, whispers, stares but hardly belongs. One day the very Being of flesh and blood is gone with all that was sublime and drab, dear and-paltry. Still the blue of crofts, the croon of rapids, the grey of checkered fields of countless solstices to come would be there forgetful of our days.