Poem I Aanya Mehta
A goodbye and then the test,
The test of the trust,
A thousand parents,
Trusting their child to open his wings,
Aashirwaad is a must.
The big city- Delhi,
A nightmare for many,
A sweet dream for some,
A million stories yet one place,
Feeding our reflections and solace,
And so I asked myself,
Is it really that haunting?
When the last ray of the sun sets,
And the yellow bulbs light up,
A circle of joy bounces in my heart.
They ask me,
‘Why do you capture the eerie lights that deck up the entire city’?
I tell them that I feel.
I feel deeply for places,
Feel attached to places more than people,
And Dilli,
Well, you see the old man and his wife,
Sitting in the garden beside India Gate,
Holding hands looking up at the memorial,
That is a memory.
When, in the cold rush hours,
An uncle,
Sitting beside me in the metro,
Was checking birthday emails from Airtel,
I wished him,
And his smile touched the deepest layer of my heart,
Leading to a throb- in a jovial way.
That is a memory.
The way the cold air,
Brushed across his face,
While the night grew darker,
His parched lips touched the rough kulhad,
While he waited on ISBT, Kashmere Gate,
And the sip gave him the most comfortable sigh,
That is a memory.
The woman,
Telling me a funny story,
Of how the tiny tuck shops at Majnu Ka Tila glowed in the night,
While she herself forgot to eat momos there!
That is a memory.
But when I get home, tired,
Curiously reminiscing that Chandni Chowk looked like a Chandni at night,
My mind slows down,
Listens to the silence,
That the night beholds,
The crackling sparks of a bonfire and the people talking from a distance,
While I wrap myself in the razai,
I feel that though the night brought lovable laughter,
It makes me question to get out,
A second time.