March ends. Finally. It has been a long one, because it carried whole seasons within it: Ramzan, breezy Eid, holidays, summers, winters, spring, rains, cloudy noons, and a sudden monsoon today.
Just when it seemed over, it burst again. It cried.
Just when it wasn’t time to drive… it was.
And, of course, it’s not just the month but the city too.
Lahore. Tidy. Embracing. Seeping into your pores, your soul – with or without a soulmate. Gradually getting on your nerves too.
This month felt like a long pause. Nostalgic. Even for those who’ve never lived their nostalgia in existence. As Sylvia Plath wrote, “I’m nostalgic for a place that doesn’t exist. I’m homesick for lips I’ve never kissed.”
Like it was another March. Like the first hug, in the first rain of another spring. Among the trees in a signature Lahore setting. And then it had its share of summers, and autumns, and finally, fall. The fall.
Legends of the fall. We all, after all.
A tragedy. It’s a tragedy even when there isn’t an ending. Divorce is a tragedy. So is marriage. Union is a tragedy. So is separation. Because existence is a tragedy.
And there’s no wine of nostalgia if there isn’t separation.
Whatever you see with your dilated pupils, from close proximity, like the entire world merges just there above your nose, with exceptional intent, care, poetry, and words; and ego, lies, and quiet hate. Tragic.
Like the book being written. And being unwritten. A sacred manuscript and a blasphemous script all at the same time. Characters being born and being killed. Being stripped naked. And then being dressed to have a conversation with God. And the first person to read it, hating it. Feeling disgusted by the words. Like the ugliest book ever written…
Usual deviation.
This was all that March had to bring to Lahore. Stories. Fiction and non-fiction. Nostalgia or history. For hands that we held, and that weren’t. Or couldn’t.
What else? Adios!
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