Sojourn

Note: Wrote this for Black Coffee in 1st year

Dawn…

A new day begins, while another comes to an end…
The darkness had not receded, though the birds had started chirping somewhere far away in the distance.

"Coo…cooo!" The koyal's sweet call permeated the damp dewy air around me. I lay on the lawn, looking at the faint shadows of the last few stars left on the blue-grey sky. The smell of morning was all around us.

It was the same place where we had met for the first time. The first look was a mixture of shyness and excitement, apprehension and hope. I don't recall the exact words though. The bursts of laughter seem like a sound from a far away land. The soft songs waft through the mind's

maze…and there is this hazy picture of dance.

It seems just like yesterday, and yet it's been so long now…

"Let's go for a walk…"

"Umm hmm"

Our walk…

The roads used to be a maze in the beginning. I would always get lost in the way, asking people to show me the right route to take. At other times, I would just follow the ones ahead of me, hoping at least they would be smarter than me. But through the weeks and months, this was

our route, an unsaid, undefined road which we took without giving a thought.

The cold pebbles under our feet were soothing and smooth. I held my slippers in my hand. A breeze was moving the tree tops, and gently caressing us as we took our stroll. The bela flowers' fragrance intervened into our thoughts.

"Ding! Ding!"

Someone was at the temple. I could not register a name to that face though. The shuffling noise of his slippers moving against the ground was the only conversation that one could hear between us. Who would know the conversations we had without using words. Our silence spoke

so much more.

Thoughts. When you try to put them in words, it makes sense…but it misses so much that can not be put in words. Its like a kaleidoscope, you turn around a bit and the image changes. You miss out a few words, and the feeling is lost.

The guitar was being played with the beating of the drum while the synthesizer went on with its tune. Three different instruments, having different tone and a music of their own, and yet when they came together they had a character of their own.

"You want to go and listen to them?"

"No, it's fine here."

Sitting near the tyre swing we sipped a cup of black coffee, as the sun was lightening up the horizon behind Silver Oak. All those days of fun, of riding on the chhakra to FR, of late night arguments on the suitability of a 12 size font of Calibri and not 14 of Times New Roman, the chilling water on the birthdays and taste of chocolate cake on your face, the triumph of pulling through a show at the shortest notice given, the fights and cold wars, the sarcasm and wit and

lifelong friendships.

The day was about to begin, we could see the sun's blurry rays lighting up the sky…a new day, and the end of a lifetime.

"Coffee's over. It's time to go"