❝Loving you scares me to bones, but I shall rather love you to pieces, than let you go and be in pieces.❞
Viraj, an emerging sensation among photographers, and Kashi, the beauty and brain of the oldest city of India - 'Kashi', are not meant to be to...
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22 April 2009
That night, Kashi was set ablaze; I stood like a mere spectator.
I stood silently, keeping my hands behind my back, for every rebellious muscle within me that twitched upon the gruesome sight itched to jump out of my arms and embrace the burning moors. My eyes were drawn to the ground, as if each question that screamed its way into my head might trace the answers across those flaming ghats.
I didn't want any of those hundreds of faces meeting mine. Their eyes––gazes, that dripped of curiosity, hatred, sympathy, disgust, and even fear. They were bound to know I was different, or that I was someone who knew more than anyone else present there. They possibly envied me over how much more an outsider mourned for burning Kashi than those who resided there. They were the ones who called Kashi their home. I was a mere wanderer.
Kashi.
I could never get enough of repeating the word. The bane of my existence amid the cruel world. The madness with which a recluse adhered to his solitary confinement, or a hermit's madness to touch the elixir of divinity in seclusion; I could keep repeating her name with as much passion; repeat it even more than a divine chant.
Instinctively, a small smile made its way onto my lips. Any other set of eyes that were to fall on me at the very moment might have labelled me as someone who traded for his sanity. Someone who had fallen, who was lost beyond the sanction of reality. I knew better than them. I, indeed, was lost but not at expense of my sanity. I was lost in bliss. I was mourning the burning ghats of Kashi, but all the same, I celebrated the start that was impending for a while.
With each passing minute that the flames started dying, the crowd heaved a collective sigh of sadness and withered around. They mourned, but momentarily. They mourned for the loss of their comfort, but the intensity of their loss was for a blink only. By the following day, no one was to remember what happened there last night. The screams, the cries, the fire, the ashes, they all would become a story to be travelled mouth to mouth, and ears to ears. Maybe, in near or far ahead in time, someone daring was fated to tumble across and rebuild that ruined side of Kashi, but that had be it. No one was going to remember what happened that day in Kashi... with Kashi.
The crowd disappeared. Whispers went silent. Even the lights dimmed. Except for me, no one remained there. I stood frozen on the topmost stair of the now-ruined ghat. Below me laid the ashen, barren land, still some flames danced occasionally––not strong enough to cause a fire again, but strong enough to not let the screams fade, just yet.
