RAABTA

 "The Department of Archaeology & Museums, Pakistan, in association with Archaeological Survey of India, celebrates 100 years of the Indus Saraswati civilisation," read the banner at the conference inside the Partition Museum. Scripture expert intern Hoor Bhat stared at the board for quite some time. They were witnessing a historical event. Two countries at loggerheads had come together for the hundredth year celebration of discovering culture in the subcontinent they call home. She proudly wore the tricolour badge representing the country. She showed her ID card and walked in to be greeted by her seniors. "Meet Taraksh Chauhan. He's joining us from across the border and is your teammate." Taraksh extended his hand while Hoor did the adaab. He nodded politely. "So you are a scripture expert too?" She asked, hoping that the small talk would ease their tension. "Symbols, actually. Heard we are trying to decipher the scriptures. The latest findi...

The slow breeze of the night caressed Hoor's hair locks. Clouds whisked the moonlight away from where she stood, and in the darkness, she saw Taraksh standing at a distance on the terrace. He spotted her at the same time. He seemed to be looking at her with a certain agony. His eyes looked pained. At that moment, an arrow of sorrow seemed to tear apart her heart, and it bled with emotions she never knew she had. None of them spoke a word under the starry night. Finally, Taraksh turned, and before he disappeared behind the door, he gazed at her with confusion. He couldn't understand what made him so attracted to her, if not attached. That look of stupor took Hoor's breath away at the moment. As Taraksh disappeared, she wondered why her heart ached so much for a man she had known merely for a few days. She sighed. Questions remained unanswered, and the dawn came quicker than expected, much to their chagrin. Under the same titian hues of the rising sun, Fate wrote a story. Lov...

She was running through a meadow. A lush green, endless, vast land meeting the sky on the horizon. She stopped for breath and turned. There were mountain ranges behind her. Suddenly, she realised that although she was part of the scene, she wasn't quite herself; her name, her identity. Yet it was her. She stopped under a royal Poinciana in full bloom. A lady was playing the flute. The tune was quite familiar. The lady was she. His familiar face suddenly met her eyes.  Hoor woke up with goosebumps. He was attracted by the flute like a bee was to honey. In a trance, he could see himself walking towards her flute. He sat down at her feet, mesmerised. Her eyes were closed, and her lips trembled to make music on the flute. The wind and the rustling leaves made music with her, it seemed. He wanted to talk, but no words came out. Finally, she stopped playing and opened her eyes.  Taraksh sat up in his bed. What was that? They had been in the programme for three days now, and Taraksh ...

To the One, I dedicated my life, It's been years since I hoped my scriptures would find you, yet I haven't stopped writing. Every day I wake up in your thoughts; every night, I have a conversation with you before going to sleep. Every emotion I convey to the stars, hoping they will let you know. You are the voice in my head that makes me want to question my sanity. Is it possible for someone else to have become a part of me the way you have? Is it possible for a stranger for years to have become closest? I often dream that we would meet. Sit on a rock near the forest and talk about life. You perhaps look different from when I last saw you; I know I do. Perhaps we have grown apart in many ways, being away for so long; perhaps our minds don't sync anymore. But does that matter? Won't my flute make your heart ache? I daydream about our past. Like it was yesterday. The laughter. The stares.  The emotions. Almost like the past is nothing but a dream I had lived. They say tha...

The year 2038. Taraksh Chauhan, in charge of the Indus Saraswati Project by the Department of Archaeology and Museum, Pakistan, stepped out of his government car at the Partition Museum. He was greeted by his counterpart from the Archaeological Survey of India, Mr Shukla, and was led into the conference hall where the press awaited the much-hyped news about the deciphering of the Indus Valley Scripture. He was handed over the documents necessary for his signature as his eyes scanned the crowd of unknown faces among a few of his colleagues.  “Who is in charge of your script restoration department?” He asked Mr Shukla. “Oh, that would be Mrs Khan.” He looked around for the person he was referring to in the crowd. “Hoor?” The name made Taraksh’s hand stop at the point where the signature was needed. He looked up to follow Mr Shukla’s gaze as Hoor Inayat Khan pushed through the crowd and finally froze at his gaze. “This is…” “I know.” Taraksh made him stop. “I should have known.” A smi...

A different sunrise brightened the land beyond the Saraswati. For the people who had left their homes far beyond the Sindhu, the deserted land before their sight now stood as a testament to their woes. It was a land that was said to be blessed, but does anything really feel like a blessing without their loved ones? The undeciphered language of the Saraswati was music for their fatigued souls after walking thousands of miles in search of a place to settle, a place they could perhaps call home without any prejudice. Some smiled, some sighed, while others eagerly waited for their elders to speak; Hindavi stood on a cliff overlooking the route beneath, the one they had left behind. Something was pulling at his heart, and a strange eagerness swept through his veins. For a moment, he couldn't breathe because the pain from his memories replaced his desire to live. Every limb of his body refused to look ahead. The past seemed to have become his beloved habit.  What made them leave the grea...

In these thoughts to my soul, I know not what to write, yet I shall, for these ears are drawn towards your home. It is the most foreign of lands that we call our home, where I and everyone who left the citadel have settled. A million graces of the heavens that before innumerable gnashes sheared away our desire to walk further, we found this sweet-smelling land by the Sarasvati, a river so full of life and plentiful. Although an envelope of sadness always wraps around our cotton, the conviction keeps the lamp burning. By the grace of Lord Pashupatinath, I wish good health and happiness for you. Wish that is all I can muster for now, as I am well aware of how torn your heart must be, shattered into uncountable pieces of glass. Such is your grief, I know,  your liveliness parched as a desert. We came with nothing, broke apart with nothing and slept with nothing; a bouquet of memories is all we have to share with our graves. The sunset is strange, just like the day I had left and you s...

To the one, I must not name, I have lost count of the days we have spent apart; the last time I saw your face is, however, as vivid in my memories as yesterday. When you turned to take a last look at me in the crowd, I felt like you made a promise. You made a promise to belong to me as I did to you. Hence, every day, I go to the meadows and play my flute. Remember our tune? The one that spoke of our feelings when we were shy to confess in words? I play it every day, hoping that the wind takes it to you. Or perhaps a bird perches on the tree's highest branches, I sit under and learns the tune. It can then perhaps fly southward to you and sing to you, my ode of love. You never returned, but your memories did.  The children have started gathering around me for lessons. I have hence found a purpose in my life, which I have dedicated to you. I have been teaching each one of them in the Citadel the tune. I hope someday they will grow up, travel across the seven rivers and play our tune o...

To the one, to whom my soul belongs, You are missing from me, as is warmth from the sunset, palpability from the silence of the night and sleep from the eyes of a dreamer. It has been a long time since I last wrote to you; I do not know if you’re alive, if you’ve forgotten me or whether you’re travelling towards us. What I do believe is that these winds have probably accepted my request. At the behest of my anxiety, the clouds are carrying my words, and maybe you’ll read when it showers in complete majesty. Such silence has another reason- my choiceless self deciding to fulfil the physical void. Nay, this heart, for all those years back, I left a part of it with you. As our city sprawled with wealth, so did our memories with freshness to life and desires to mingle. The constant cacophony of apparent nonchalance all around made me realise something. The elders look at me for extinction is a fear that has been committed with our settlement. On one such day, when all the futuristic rigmar...