It was twilight when I caught the bus from my Fatima Nagar, in the company of more than 50 strangers and (thankfully) my MP3 player. Travelling though the labyrinths of the old town, its sights, sounds and smells, I felt a total loss of my worldly consciousness and I drifted towards a state of extreme bliss. I felt a mildly familiar sense of euphoria at having discovered something so unique, so strange, and yet, so familiar.
The streets were calling, in all of their mocking glory, but it all passed away too fast for me, and I realised I was dreaming, for the very route I had travelled many a times before, had suddenly become a stranger to me, and I didn’t know where I was going, and what beheld my attention on every turn. But I was mesmerised, and don’t remember many a stretch in between, like a void. I don’t know how I got to the next turn; I lost myself in this temporary haze. I was thinking of the bliss I lived in mindlessly in the past, the liberating nirvana I felt during that very small interlude with no worries and complete freedom. I was transported into a world where I believed. In a world where this strange feeling called love –exists. With no rules, no conditions and no melancholy.
I could get used to this. But it was not to be.
A terrific jolt shook me to the point of infraction, and I awoke to find myself out of this reverie into reality, and I had nothing to do, but wait for my stop.
I got off the bus and as I started walking towards home, it started raining. It was the first rain of the year, and I was there to experience. But that walk, although short and familiar, was the most profound and intense walk I have ever taken.
And I am stronger and wiser now, for I loved and lost, than to have never loved at all…
