Tu hai ki nahi
“ Mujhse hi aaj mujhko mila de, dekhoon aadaton mein tu hai ki nahi… Harr saans se poonchh k batah de – inke faaslon mein tu hai ki nahi. ” Are you still there, I ask myself sometimes. In the dark cobwebbed corners of my mind, knee-deep in half-remembered memories, I sometimes ask myself if you’re still there. During dusty auto-rickshaw rides along potholed by-lanes, when a sudden whiff of a flowery perfume takes me years back and I raise my hand to see if a few loose strands of hair are once more softly blowing in my face, I ask myself if you’re still there. Just before taking off the maroon kurta , checking the breast pocket for a pair of minus-powered glasses that were never mine, I ask myself if you’re still there. Beneath snatches of poetry littered across the sky of an ever defiant chimera, at the corner where yesterday’s neverland meets tomorrow’s never-to-be-land, bathed in the dying light on today, perhaps I will always ask myself – tu hai ki nahi .