You Are Smiling So Much

You are smiling so much

What’s the sorrow you are hiding?

Dampness in your eyes, a smile on your lips

What’s your state and what are you showing?

They will turn into poison if you keep drinking

These tears that you are constantly gulping down

The wounds that time has begun to heal

Why do you insist on scraping them

Fate is a game of the lines on your palms

You are being defeated by mere lines

Afterword

My Husband, My Friend: Kaifi Azmi

2002

Each morning a new day dawns and there is birdsong; sometimes clouds gather and raindrops drift into the veranda. Like every other day, our housekeeper Vinod arrives with the tea and puts the tray down in front of me, but the chair facing me is empty. It is not occupied by my Kaifi, who would walk to the garden despite his frail condition and sit in the chair opposite mine, waiting for me to pour out his tea. He would reach out for his cup with trembling hands and look at me in companionship, drinking his tea as though it were ambrosia. These were the most cherished moments of my day. It was under the spell of one such moment that Kaifi composed a poem, ‘A Moment’:

Life is nothing but a few moments

And among those, that one moment

When two eloquent eyes

Rise from the cup of tea

And drown in my heart

And doing so, they say:

Don’t say anything today

And I won’t either

Let’s just sit here like this

Holding each other’s hand

Cradling the gift of sadness

Nurturing the heat of passions

Who knows in this very moment

In some faraway mountain

The ice might just begin to thaw . . .

Life carries on as usual, Kaifi, but you are nowhere to be found. When you went to the village, I was secure in the knowledge that you would return. I recall a New Year’s night when the house was full of revelry. I was rushing around looking after the guests when without warning a little wish awakened in a corner of my heart, ‘What if Kaifi were here?’ How amazed I was to see you walk through the gate, leaning on your walking-stick. I ran and wrapped my arms around you. ‘Arrey wah! How come you’re here? How did you know that your absence was the only thing that was keeping me from feeling happy? How wonderful to have you back. Now that you are here, my New Year will begin.’