Chapter 2
Jis samt bhi dekhun, nazar aata hai ke tum ho
Aye jaan-e-jahaan, ye koi tumsa hai, ke tum ho
Iss diid ki sa’at mein, kayi rang hain larzaan
Main hun, ke koi aur hai, duniya hai, ke tum ho
Ik dard ka phaila hua sehra hai, ke main hun
Ik mauj mein aaya hua dariya hai, ke tum ho
-Faraz
(I wish I had it in me to translate the above into English, but whenever I try, the import seems to get lost in translation. However, should you be curious about the meaning of any particular word, please feel free to reach out.)
It required herculean restraint on his part to not slap a palm across his face at the cringe-worthy spectacle that was unfolding before his eyes. Arnav Singh Raizada wouldn’t be caught dead indulging in crass poetry get togethers, and for the piece that was being presently recited with ironical gusto upon the stage, crass would have been a mild insult. The poet- who happened to be trying an original piece upon an unsuspecting audience - seemed to possess misplaced confidence in his acumen in the twin departments of humor and rhyme. Arnav surreptitiously swept his eyes across the sizable hall surrounding him and found his exasperation mirrored on quite a few faces, that were reconsidering their wisdom of choosing to wage a war with dreadful peak hour Calcutta traffic only to end up as recipients of such insufferable agony.
The hall was fairly large, and each time a poet took to stage, the lights would dim, plunging it into complete darkness. Only the stage would be illuminated with overhead lights, and the only other lit up area violating the darkened sanctity of the space would be the entrance door to the hall, above which a small yellow bulb glowed to provide a guiding light to any new entrant. The arrangement was such that small round tables surrounded by chairs were scattered all across the floor, providing an unobstructed view to the stage for all those present. The menu for drinks and refreshments was impressive, and after every few performances, the lights would come back on, for the guests to indulge in drinks, food, talk, and quick card games - thus providing the perfect blend in atmosphere of a classy, upscale hangout club, and a forum to indulge in poetry.
The ambiance was chic, but he wouldn’t be here himself, were it not for NK’s sake and upon the insistence of his small but tightly knit cohort of friends. Nilesh Kapoor, his friend of several years, was also an aspiring poet and had been seeking for a platform to showcase and hone his talent for several years now. The opportunity presented itself in the form of an advertisement of this newly inaugurated Open Mic Club on Park Street- the famous thoroughfare of the city. It was not often that Arnav happened to be in Calcutta anymore, not since his childhood, but when he was, it was only for the company of his friends. It had therefore been hard for him to turn down NK’s invitation, especially when Payal and Aakash had insisted that NK would be looking forward to their support and enthusiasm for his first ever stage performance. Arnav had heard NK’s poetry before - it was by no means exceptional, but wasn’t too shoddy either. NK tried, even if he had a long, long journey to traverse before comparisons could be drawn with stalwarts in the field.
Arnav felt the light touch of fingers on his arms, and turned to look at Payal Sengupta, a sparkle of amusement dancing in the latter’s eyes. “On a scale of one to ten,” she leaned forward and whispered next to his ear, “how hard is this poetry making you cringe?”.
“Fifty,” he replied with a deadpan expression, and Payal threw her head back and laughed. “I could imagine. This must be killing you right now. But come on, Arnav. You are a treasure trove of poetry yourself - surely you could give some leeway to aspiring bards?”
Arnav arched an eyebrow at Payal, and her heart skipped a beat as always at the sight. Even in a plain white, formal shirt with rolled up sleeves he looked handsome enough in the dim lighting of the hall for a faint blush to color her cheeks.
“Payal, I am into political, revolutionary poetry,” he replied. “Those that have been written from inside prisons, those that have been penned by hands that defied the constraints of iron shackles around their wrists and toppled over ruling regimes with the power of ink. I am into Faraz’s Mohaasra, and Faiz’s Hum Dekhenge. Not some inane, stupid works of losers harping and mooning over each other ad nauseum. Definitely not the gul-o-bulbul shayiri variety.”
“You sound like a snob,” Payal said, whacking his arm playfully. As she did, she wondered why she allowed herself to take such physical liberties with him, even in jest, when even simple gestures such as these wreaked havoc on her heart, and on her heart alone. “Why don’t you recite something on stage once NK is done?” she cleared her throat and asked hopefully. What she wouldn’t give to listen to him wax eloquent urdu in that perfect diction of his all day long. “Would be a shame to deprive ears of that voice reciting a classic, snobbishness of the reciter notwithstanding.”
NK, seated on Payal’s right, overheard this bit of conversation and chimed in. “Yeah Arnav. Give me some company, will you? I am dying of nerves here. Somehow all that I have written to date sounds like absolute shite in my head at this moment.”
“Bullshit, NK,” Arnav replied. “Don’t let Payal’s fatuous ideas get to you. No way I’m going up on stage. As for your nerves, that’s just your head playing with you. I have heard what you’ve written before - it’s good. Trust me, you know I don’t throw compliments around.”
“Don’t we know that well,” Payal said with a smile that was almost wistful for a passing moment, before it was playful the next. The obstinate heart she possessed refused to take no for an answer. It wouldn’t be denied small requests such as these when it was already being so abysmally shortchanged in the larger picture of things. “Okay how about this?” she offered, “-look the stage is empty now, and it’s almost fifteen to twenty minutes till the next performance comes up. They’ve called for a break for drinks. Meanwhile, you and I can deal a quick hand in Rummy, and if you lose, you recite whatever I pick, on stage.”
“You only say that because you know you’re good at the game,” Arnav said in a drawl, calling her out with a slight tilt of his head.
“Are you scared of losing?” Payal asked back, arching an eyebrow right back at him, knowing where to touch a raw nerve. “Is Arnav Singh Raizada finally scared of a challenge?”
“Don’t think I don’t realize what you’re playing at,” Arnav replied with an indulgent smirk. “You are being fairly transparent right now. But fine, let’s humble you a little in this game of yours.”
Payal grinned. She knew she wouldn’t lose. She never had.
***
Lavanya groaned and smacked her hand on the steering wheel in frustration. “Dammit man, who would expect such a long queue for parking? As if that stupid Beliaghata traffic weren’t enough, now we need to forever wait to just accommodate this car on the premises. We’re already late as is.”
Khushi mirrored her friend’s chagrin, and reminded herself for the nth time that evening, that all this pain was for a greater good. “I just hope we don’t miss the best performances. More importantly, I hope we are even able to find good seats given how late we are.”
Lavanya hmm-ed in agreement before a solution struck her quick brain. “Tell you what Khush, why don’t you go inside and save us good seats while I attend to this parking business. I’d hate for you to miss out on good performances- you know I don’t share your enthusiasm in parity. I’ll join you upstairs in no time.”
“No Lavu, I couldn’t possibly leave you to get bored here while I-” Khushi began, but was quickly interjected by her friend. “Arre I have my Coldplay and Pink Floyd to give me company no? What’s the point in both of us whiling away our time here while all the good seats are taken? Now hurry up and go.”
Upon considerable insistence, Khushi finally relented and stepped out of the car. Waving a quick goodbye to Lavanya, she hurried towards the building, her long pale yellow dupatta fluttering dramatically in the wind behind her, and the bracelet around her wrist chiming musically in the air. Lavanya smiled indulgently as she watched her friend go, then shifted her gaze back to the queue of cars ahead of her, and with a sigh, amped up the volume of the music system of the car till Chris Martin’s soothing voice drowned the cacophony around her.
**
Arnav lost.
Payal was the undisputed queen of the game. She waited till NK was done (a performance that had been received fairly well in the crowd, and had NK beaming in pride with a smile that split his face into two halves). Right after, she turned towards Arnav and cocked her head meaningfully at him. “Don’t be a sour loser, Arnav. Don’t make me remind you how bets work.”
Arnav narrowed his gaze at her. “I’m going to make you pay for this,” he said with mock menace in his voice. As innocuously as the threat was made, the effect it had on her heart was devastating. If only.
“All talk,” she scoffed, hoping that the slight tremor of her voice didn’t give her away. “Now go up on stage, Mr. Raizada.”
“That’s fine, but where is the piece that I’m supposed to recite?” he inquired.
“I don’t trust you to go along with it if I reveal it to you now. Go up on stage and check your phone. I’ll send you the link once you’re up,” Payal replied.
“You can’t be serious!” Arnav said with an incredulous expression marking his face. “Payal tell me you haven’t picked up some cheesy, romantic nonsense. You know I’m going to step right off the stage, if it is.”
“Relax will you?” Payal replied with an eye roll, ignoring how her heart fell a little each time Arnav made his displeasure for love and romance so expressly known. “A bet’s a bet. The ball is in my court. And I have picked Faraz for you, if that’s any consolation.”
It was. Arnav had been reading revolutionary, rebellious works from Faraz for so long, that he almost forgot that the illustrious poet had a fairly large collection of poetry in the romance genre credited to his name. With a resigned sigh, he rose from the seat and throwing one last exasperated look in Payal’s direction, walked up towards the stage.
The hall immediately plunged into darkness, and it took time for him to adjust his eyes to the spot lighting on the stage. At once, the crowd was drawn in towards the handsome young face center-stage, the planes and contours of which shone flatteringly in the diffused illumination spread like a halo around him- a strong, chiseled, and stubbled jawline, a patrician nose, high forehead, and honey-brown eyes that were fringed with thick, black lashes. A few strands of dark, tousled hair hung down over his forehead. He was strikingly tall, with broad shoulders, and lean muscles wired across the length of his arms. Women in the crowd suddenly became a little more interested in the happenings of the night, and men looked on with disgruntled envy.
Adjusting the clasp of his wristwatch with one hand, Arnav wrapped the other around the mic which was fixed to the stand, and took a step forward on the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he addressed the crowd which he could barely see in the darkness before him, “-hope you all are having a wonderful night. I am up here on the insistence of a friend, who refuses to take no for an answer. I am lacking in the talent it takes to conjure rhymes of my own, so tonight I beg your permission to borrow some words from the evergreen Ahmad Faraz.”
A murmur of approval rumbled across the hall, interest immediately piqued by the mention of the legendary stalwart’s name. That bought Arnav some relief. He wouldn’t have known how to deal with a crowd that claimed to be an audience of poetry and yet was unaware of Faraz. He gave a wan smile in the direction of the crowd, then pulled out his phone from his pocket and waited expectantly for Payal’s message. Sure enough, in the next second his screen lit up. He opened the link and was guided to a page on Rekhta. The moment his eyes found the words of the ghazal before him, he almost groaned in disappointment. If he could see Payal right now, she would have been at the receiving end of the most ferocious scowls he was capable of.
But there was no turning back now. So with a cold exhale, he grabbed the mic once again, and in the next moment, a deep, husky, voice permeated through the quiet night of the city of joy.
“Suna hai log usse aankh bhar ke dekhte hain,” he whispered, and the words that left his mouth danced a celebratory dance across the hall, raising goosebumps in their wake. He paused for effect, and then continued in the same timbre, “So uske shehr mein kuchh din, theher ke dekhte hain”
***
Khushi panted for breath, as her light footsteps hurried across the corridor and towards the entrance door. The lift had been occupied, and not one famous for patience, she had taken to the stairs, which on hindsight had been an ill-thought decision since seven floors of speed climbing had knocked the breath out of her body. She also wished that she had chosen a different bracelet for the night. Along with her anklet, it seemed to leave a rhapsody of tinkling music in its wake wherever she went. Her beautiful, almond shaped, kohl-lined eyes darted in one direction, and then the other trying to figure out the entrance door to the club. She saw an illuminated board guiding her towards itself soon enough, and clutching the sides of her lemon yellow lucknavi chikan kurti, she ran towards it. A guard sitting near the door confirmed that she had reached the correct destination. With a relived sigh, she had just placed her hands on the handle of the door to pull it open, when the timbre of a deep, male voice flooded into her ears, the magnetic pull of which seemed to beckon her towards itself.
“Suna hai log usse aankh bhar ke dekhte hain
So uske shehr mein kuchh din, theher ke dekhte hain”
It was Faraz, someone was reciting Faraz inside, she didn’t have to be told. But that voice…whose was it. She needed to know. Not wasting another moment, she pulled at the handle of the door, but it yielded no results. She yanked harder the next time, her impatience steadily on the rise.
“Suna hai dard ki gaahak hai chashm-e-naaz uss ki,” the hypnotic voice continued from inside, “So hum bhi uski galii se, guzar ke dekhte hain…”
“It’s push, not pull. It’s written right there,” the elderly guard sitting on her right said with an eye roll, and a blush quickly spread across Khushi’s cheeks as she realized that he was right. Muttering a quick “thanks”, she pushed the door open, albeit with a lapse in judgment regarding the force it required. So forcefully did she shove her petite frame on it, that the door immediately swung open, and Khushi Ayeza all but stumbled inside the hall, the tinkling music giving a background effect to her entry.
***
“Suna hai rabt hai usko kharaab haalon se,” Arnav recited the first line of the next couplet, and after a customary pause was about to move to the next, when the melody of silver droplets clinking against one another, and a small but audible gasp in the otherwise pin-drop silence of the hall caused him to tear his eyes away from the screen of his phone and towards the direction from which it seemed to beckon his attention.
In the next second, all eyes in the room darted towards the noisy entrance at the door, and remained fixed upon the intruder. Khushi Ayeza Khan Gupta’s was a face that more often than not, beckoned second glances. The effect of the first glance in itself, was often devastating. Her copper brown hair presently glistened underneath the warm glow of the bulb that was lit above her head. A rose pink flush infused the cream of her skin, a manifestation of the physical exertion she had put herself through while running up the stairs. The oxidized silver jhumkis in her ears, borrowed some of the light and teasingly winked at the onlooker while the single lined sequins on the edge of her pale yellow dupatta shimmered blindingly with every slight move she made. She looked embarrassed at the disruption she had caused, which caused her lips- bow shaped, and a delightful rose-pink, to purse themselves in contrition. Eyes, coffee brown and veiled beneath enticingly long lashes, blinked in rapid succession as she tried to accustom them to the sudden darkness in the room that was in complete contrast to the harsh lighting in the corridors outside the club. Her hesitant gaze darted in one direction, and then another, yearning to find a source of light to guide her through the darkness in the room. In their quest, they were steered to the only lit up space in the large hall, other than the one that she presently occupied. Abruptly, she swiveled her head to look into the direction of the stage, and just as she did, her gaze intertwined with one that had remained fixed on her , all the while.
The silence of the moment that stretched between them was deafening. Time stood still in tribute - an allowance it only seemed to make for some first encounters and last goodbyes.
“So apne aap ko, barbaad karke dekhte hain,” Arnav whispered the remaining line of Faraz’s couplet, his eyes looking straight into hers in what could only be called fated coincidence.
_______
Poetry teaser for the next update to be posted soon. Meanwhile, for those who may have missed, I have posted the video links to the ghazal that Arnav recites in this update on Pg. 17 of this thread. Check it out :)
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