Date

I have an economical idea of a romantic date when we are done with sunsets, beaches and candles and stuff like that (or even before that?). On hot summer days, we'd walk along cobbled streets lined with copperpod and Palash trees - road strewn with yellow petals and on reaching home fall asleep to whirring of the cooler that is pretty useless in a humid Mumbai heat. Curtains as soft as cloud drift occasionally on warm breeze and a furtive sunray makes its way in from a window. Air has a scent of sleep, love and Champa flowers in my hair. What say?

Meeting Place

Black sand and tiny stones prick your feet as you walk on the shore as you watch a purple lily in a serene lake in front. You swim into the water - pleasantly cold against your skin and pluck it. You wait - dreamily, sitting under a tree with golden grass tickling your feet, knowing I would arrive soon with a never-fading smile on my face when I would see you. As always.

A place where there is no confinement, where minds are free, where everyone knows they are fragile, where they just let us BE, where we wouldn't HAVE to, but we would WANT to. That's where you meet me.

Ferryman

It's a cloudy, pitch black night with a sinister silence punctuated by water splashing the shore lazily. A young man waits for a ferry, along with his wife and an ill infant. The couple is worried, wishing a ferry arrives sooner to reach doctor in a village on the other shore. As a custom, man breaks a coconut on the shore as an offering and prays to a local deity for protection.

As a ferry arrives, they get in hurriedly - their eyes glued to the other shore. Each moment is precious. Ferry moves, with waves gently lapping against the sides. After what seems like an eternity, they have covered quite a distance and are almost halfway there.

Boat came to a halt in the middle of the water. Clouds move a little and gentle moonlight bathes the interiors of the boat in an eerie glow. Man, for the first time since they were on the shore looks at the ferryman. A scream gets frozen in his throat to see the ferryman without a head. A headless torso with hands and legs, its hands holding oars. Man holds on to the edge of the boat and his wife for his dear life, shaken to the core, wishing his wife doesn't see what he has just seen. He is grateful for clouds to cover the moon back.

With all his heart, man folds his clammy hands and prays to the warrier deity of his village to protect them from whatever it was with them in the boat. In the inky blackness he hears a hooves of a horse - right in the middle of river. The sound keeps getting louder by every moment, man's heart fills with a courage and reassurance as he realises an arrival of warrior god. Confused wife, having realised something not being right, clutches husband's palms harder.

Here we reach, husband tells wife. He doesn't know what is making him do it. He only just knows that it is the time to step down from the boat. His brain knows it is impossible that they could have reached the shore just yet because the boat hasn't moved an inch for long but his heart somehow knows it's the right time.

Holding his wife and child, he almost jumps out of the boat. To his relief, his feet find dry ground as if the river has vanished. They walk fast together, not looking back until the faint flickering lights of village get closer.

Connection

Meanwhile, the only reassuring thought is that

your grief breaks my heart,

I heave a sigh of relief when you smile,

your WhatsApp last seen still changes unlike some chats that have fallen silent forever,

we still exist under the same sky,

and in this vast messed up nation, a cyclone that builds up in my region trails off in yours...