He was a brilliant student of his time at school, all the teachers used to praise him and speak a lot about him, and the boy was happy in his life and used to strive hard to retain his repute and stature.
Days passed on and seasons floated, one day in a beautiful evening, the boy was sitting on a bench in a park and having an encounter with the ¬¬devil of his insatiable inquisition. He was floating in the world of his ideas and dreams and suddenly, the vibes carried the voice of his name to his ears, a faint but a confident voice.
“Ridhwan”, what on the earth are you doing here, sitting with a phlegmatic posture and travelling in the world of dreams, chum, how much high have you made the dome of your air castle ?
The tone of the question was razing, instead of caring.
Ridhwan plummeted from the dream world to mundane reality and out of the blur image and faint voice, after focusing, he found his “friend at opportunity”, Ravi. Standing and staring at him with giggle at face and pun in eyes.
What are you doing here, I guess, must be contemplating over the rupee crisis and contemporary policies of the government, aren't you?
“Don’t tease me lad, you know this is not my genre of thinking and I never ever think about that”
Then what? What on the earth is making you feel so introvert that you are not able to feel the presence of my heavy footsteps?
Ravi, I am thinking about my life, I am trying to answer the plethora of questions that is growing inside me and making me restless,
But why are you being hit by such a fusillade? Being sit in the park under the shade of such a beautiful topiary and all flowing here is the fragrance capable enough to dilute any enigma and yet you have stretched such long walls of your intrinsic questionnaire which actually are refraining you from getting the bliss of nature.
Yes Ravi, you are right, but I can’t help it, I can’t control this salvo and feeling like it will burst my head.
So, what’s the exact matter, what is making you feel so awkward?
What is love? I mean I am not talking about love for family, siblings or country; I am just talking about the love which is getting portrayed in almost all the movies, the love which has legendary characters like heer-ranjha, Romeo- Juliet etc.
I wish to have an encounter with that beautiful or ugly, monster or angel, I don’t know what to say, but I want to meet that “love” someday and would like to fathom its depth, whether it is a mere ostentation or is it really a divine feeling, a feeling of acceptance, commitment and sacrifice.
Ridhwan, we are too young to understand this but I have heard one line about this love, in Urdu
“Ye ishq nhi asan bas itna samaj lijiye, ek aag ka dariya hai aur doob ke jana hai”
All around there is a strange silence, as if, the trees are also appreciating the words, zephyr is now blowing with utter sophistication and warmness, it is slowly embracing the colourful flowers and getting their fragrance in return, it is then carrying that fragrance all around and making the ambiance fresh and vivid.
Albeit, Ridhwan left the conversation with a silent gesture of appreciation for the writer of such a beautiful line but in the nadir of his heart, in the depth of his thoughts, one desire got seeded, and this will perhaps one day bud out into a flourishing tree of ideology, which shall transform the mentality of this young lad.
