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Stories
Lonely Heart was only one out of millions of tourists visiting the city, mainly to wow the marmoreal mausoleum on a night when the sky had fanned out and the moon was swollen. Me, the local historian and archeologist was often hired by the hotel to guide various visitors around the ancient complex built by a medieval king to mourn the untimely death of a beloved wife, lost to him in childbirth. “After you,” he said charming me into my own car that had appeared before the semi-circular steps to lead us away from the hotel. “I do hope that you have a sense of humor?” he said quite out of the blue and as he made himself more comfortable on his side of the back seat. “Come to think of it I don’t,” I said without thought. “Infact I am quite sure that I do not have any sense of humor,” I repeated almost in glee. “Then, I am afraid, we have no future together,” I heard him say. The instructions meant for the chauffeur were given a sudden brake as I sat back to enjoy the funny conversation. I turned to my left to look at him and saw him preoccupied, trying to concentrate on what lay beyond the window. The tapering fingers of his right, generous looking hand parked on the seat in the space between us, I noticed, played as if on a keyboard. “What a gorgeous man,” I could not help thinking as I feasted shamelessly on a profile that was etched in lines so gracious that the sight hurt. He said that he was a Syed. His scholar ancestors came to the Indian sub-continent centuries ago to study some more. All Muslims like the Syeds, who claim to be direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, had found the vulgar merrymaking by fellow Meccans impossible to bear. They fled the Arabian deserts to the more civilized lands surrounding the Tigris and Eupharates rivers in search of solace to the soul as well. Here they were nourished upon Mesopotamian, Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian and the Hellinistic way of life before they decided to troop into the Indo Gangetic plains to seek even greener pastures. When we took a break in a nearby stall for a drink he made me sit at a corner table opposite to him, facing the wall. “I don’t want to share you with anyone else here,” he said taking a sip from the glass before him. “You still have to tell me your name,” he continued staring in to me. I took my time to answer this one. “You may call me Spirit of the Moon,” I said. That made him smile. A sweeping, wide smile that got me wondering if it was dusk or dawn? I could not help but continue to rejoice. We reached the monument just as the last ray of the sun prepared to retire for the day and watched it wrap itself in sheets of shocking pink and purple, and then disappear. Night followed decked in transparent alabaster. We looked up at the moon, as big as my mother’s silver plated tray used for serving seven people at a time and saw it make the memorial, that seems so manageable on pretty picture postcards, quiver. I had brought numerous visitors to this place so often before. But this was the first time that I stood frozen below the awesome arch of the entrance. I let him take my hand. We strolled to the marble slab laid out as a seat and where countless people both couples and groups have posed for photographs as proof of their pilgrimage to the most mesmerizing shrine to love. We sat down.
“If there is Paradise on earth, The river Jamuna meandering at the feet of the monument sighed. A whiff of fresh air teased a strand of hair away from a face so flushed. Then I heard the first sob in the Garden of Eden. |
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You may call me Lonely Heart,” he said as soon as he was close
enough for me to hear him say so. After a quick, visual examination
of the one he talked to, the conclusion of his small, twinkling
eyes, I noticed was, nice. I smiled back as if I was not meeting him
for the first time in my life. Together we walked out of the hotel
lobby into the dusk that waited to descend upon a historic city,
draped in festivities in celebration of 350 years of one of its most
famous fantasy in stone.
