18/03/2019
अकेली. आवारा. आज़ाद
I have right to be FREE.
JASMINE - Preksha Diwakar
I lie prone,
on the black couch
in my 27th floor home.
On the other side of the living room,
on my old music player,
Kuhad sings in his
ever-soothing voice.
Filling the silence with
agreeable words.
"Do you have a 100 words for me?
Cause I have only three."
He returns with another
glass of wine,
sits on the floor,
beside where I lie.
He starts engraving those three words
—those ultra-obvious three words—
with his index finger
on my naked shoulder blade.
Over and over again.
He tilts his head
to look at my face.
"I do too", I say hastily,
fulfilling the obligation
of new romances.
"Is there a new whirl in your head again?"
He catches me
I tell him,
"You know, if I ever have a daughter
I am gonna name her Blossom."
He looks up
for a couple of seconds,
then gets back to inscribing,
this time his name.
He asks me
why not something better like
Daisy or Rose. Or maybe Dahlia.
"No. Not flowers.
I want her to always be
at the blossoming stage.
Not a flower.
They wither. Get crushed.
Plucked in
the winter of February,
kept pressed in a personal diary
till August.
I want her to bloom forever.
To always, always grow.
In gardens, in backyards and
in the wild.
They grow in their own spheres.
Unlike beguiling flowers,
they do not attract abundance.
they are rarely touched.
Yet, I want her to fail at times,
get cheated on,
feel jealous,
cry whole night,
once, be broke maybe.
And after all that, I want her
to always be a blossom.
Growing. And Blossoming."
He looks at me with a faint smile,
"I think it's a really nice idea."
He gets up to fetch more wine,
walking across the hall—he calls out,
"You need some more, Jasmine?"