From “Poetry” to “Poet”
by Ayan Dawn
Now I am far away from you drowning in the nectar of alienation, remembering my first drop of tear.
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Remember that day when I cried for the first time? When blood filled my skin? You held me up and stained your hands with blood and joy. You named me “Kasturi.”
And I became your favorite fragrance. Your touch made me feel secure. Your soft hands and sugar-filled breath made me ecstatic. I was your greatest poetry with charm in every verse. I was like the best morning tea served in your empty jar.
I laughed and giggled the most when I said “Abbu”.
You gifted me with the best childhood but “Khuda” snatched it away with growth. I was grown enough to get the touch of care and love from him. Maybe I needed a woman in my life to fulfill the void of touch and love.
I met many women, travelled with them but none had the poetry and fragrance which your veins had.
Was this right? Was this wrong? Or it was above these futile terms.
My lips dried when I confessed my love for Abbu. He broke down to tears.
“Have you gone mad? This is not usual!”, My Abbu shouted.
“But when had love been usual,” I replied.
He whipped me, scared me and shouted, “You are my worst creation!”
I felt like a torn page of poetry. My poet despised me.
Even my limbs wept when I ran away from him. I fell near the feet of my grandma for shelter. She understood me and embraced me as her own.
After that, I never got a call or a letter from Abbu. Last year I tried to find him but failed to get his glimpse.
Every night when I went to sleep, my grandma told me the tale of Akbar’s birth.
The Mughal emperor Humayun was in exile when the news of his son’s birth reached him. The emperor gave a great thought about what to gift and then he smelt “Kasturi”. He got maddened by it and sent it to Akbar through his followers. He wanted his son’s fame to spread all over the world like the fragrance of “Kasturi”.
*******
Every night, this story whirls in my mind. The desire to be born again takes birth in me. Maybe this is the way I can get my father’s fragrance back in my veins. I still wait for a call or a letter or some kind of gift from my Abbu. Alas! My morning tea jar remains empty. I am still in pursuit of my poet.
[NOTE: 1. “Abbu” means father. 2. “Khuda” means God.]
