She carried it with her wherever she went. The smell of ink, old paper and the not-yet-callous feel of life. It was a gift from her brother who was leaving for Oxford that day. She had with eyes brimming with tears asked him, “What should I write, Adarsh?” Adarsh had smiled at her, held her close to his chest, patted her head and said, “Write what you love and love what you write.” Ten years had passed since that afternoon when the thirteen-year-old-she had watched, unable to control her tears, Adarsh pass through the guarded automated gates of the International Terminal. It was a hard-bound book with roses on the cover.
She was at the airport then, alone. Leaving for a foreign country sans the usual crowd of family and friends hugging and wailing, the exclamations of “look at her; she has become a big girl now!” A huge trunk, a hand bag and her book; this was her luggage. She had checked in. Her trunk had been name tagged and put away. There was still a good part of an hour left for the flight.
From among the usual clutter of keys, documents, id-cards, chewing gum, chapsticks and a pile of greeting cards which had been gifted to her years back, she took out a red fountain pen, another gift. She felt the need to write something before all that were here would become ‘back there’ and everything that was home, part of the wave of nostalgia that was sure to hit her on a rainy day. She poised her pen, ready for that feeling of pen gliding on paper, but it stuck like a lump in the throat. Refused to move.
The pedestal fan seemed to favor her at that precise moment and in that artificial breeze the pages flashed by in a flurry. Names. Some in bold; some crossed out and some others smudged by tear drops. Places, photographs, stamps. ‘Mine, his’, ours, home, vacation, school, college…’ someone seemed to whisper in her ears, spreading a warm sepia tint over the black and white. Then long slanted sentences written in that sudden fervor. Couplets scribbled down quickly lest the emotion overwhelmed one. Words, the meaning of which she should have found out, but never did. Something that some high and mighty said. Damp pages where she had poured her heart out. Ten years and yet, these pages had not yet been fully filled. A deep sigh seemed to doubt if it ever will be.
28th June. How could she forget that day? Every time she sat down to write, the memories of that day would haunt her. Death, cancer, loss, tears, goodbye, daughter, dreams… these words reverberated in each line, every paragraph.
18th September. Forbidden love. Sweet sin. Guilt. The One. “… he took that duster and wiped the blackboard clean. There are no furious scratches and scribbles on that dark plane, a few specks of chalk powder still remain; but the wind of time will take it away too.” She smiled away the shadow of a sigh.
1st February. Passing out. Friends, sweet memories, broken promises.
Then without the pretences of form and structure, a tumble of it all, memories, pictures, dreams, loss, works.
Lost she was in this flood that pushed the hands of the clock backwards in one swooping motion. She had, for once, adhered to someone’s advice. Her brother’s. She had written what she had loved and she had loved what she had written. It had become a part of her and she was the hard-bound book with roses on the cover. The weight of all that was written made it heavier than her trunk which would soon be put in somewhere in that flight that promised to propel her to sunnier climes. Much more to write. Words, are there enough of them? Enough to fill in that book, the hard-bound book with roses on the cover? Impossible.
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