To the changing environment and traditions…
To the changing order of things!
A record of what we grew up with,
In Kalimpong town.
Farkanna hola aba ma gaye pachi utai tira…
A song by John Chamling Rai. I have heard this song over and over until it started resonating with me… it resonated with me so deeply until somebody left… I won't say until someone left me but it was just until someone left my little town and moved to a different city.
And I can't describe the pain of departing from someone. It feels like you are just there standing still and there is a storm everywhere around you and you can't understand whats happening probably because you have never seen a storm before. Or at least, you have never seen a storm of that intensity before.
And this song suddenly plays somewhere in the distance. I recognize it like the verses of the text that I always read. It makes me feel the same storm inside my heart. And I tell myself it's okay. It's okay.
But that word okay feels so small, like a thread trying to hold back a flood.
I try to breathe like the world hasn’t changed. I try to walk the same roads, see the same skies, hear the same birds. But everything feels… slightly out of tune. Like the wind is whispering a name I know I shouldn’t answer to. Like the air still carries a warmth that doesn’t belong to this moment anymore.
The chairs we sat on, the small shops we passed by without ever entering, even the half-finished conversations, all of it suddenly aches with absence. And in the middle of all that hush, this song… Farkanna hola aba ma gaye pachi utai tira… floats through the air again. Maybe from someone’s speaker nearby. Maybe from the wind itself.
And it hits me.
This song knew.
It knew before me that goodbyes can happen for no clear reason. That some people leave like seasons change, without needing permission. And all you’re left with is the memory of sunlight when the sky turns murky.
I pause. I let the music wash over me again, like I’m letting it stitch something back inside me. I am not trying to to fix the wound, but I am just reminding me that I’m still here, still feeling, still human.
And somewhere, in that storm of silence and song, I whisper to myself again
It’s okay.
It’s okay to be hurt.
because maybe pain is the proof that something mattered. That someone mattered.
And in that, there’s a strange kind of peace.
A soft, unsteady peace, like the moment just after a storm. When the world hasn’t healed yet, but it is starting to.
I have been writing too many opinions lately and have started calling my page Vee’s column.
This is one of the episodes and this is my very PERSONAL OPINION.
Ending my April Hinglish poems with this podcast.
Dear Love,
I would be waiting for one message,
And I would be startled by every phone call
thinking it would be you.
But goodbyes don't work that way.
Some goodbyes mean forever.
And deep down I know, some days,
you too, wake up with a faint memory of us together.
I don't know where you are and you don't know how far I have come. But The only thing is,
I remember you.
Ardently.
Everyday.
Despite the odds,
despite our indifference.
I just remember you.
Inspired by the front porch of Coochbehar Palace.
The battleground was silent,
not from peace,
but from the absence of war.
I laid down my weapons too soon,
not because I wanted to,
but because I feared
what victory might demand of me.
Now, the ground is littered
with the wreckage of unsaid words,
apologies turned to ash,
and the echo of your withdrawing footsteps
still rings in my ears.
I wish I had fought for you,
but my hands were too busy
building walls
eventually to see the bridge collapse.
~V
Dear Love,
I remember you as you were in the last spring
You were like a shortbread, crumbling at every bite and had a stable heart.
You had eyes like a blazing fire wandering through the forest at night.
And I fell into you like water cascading through the waterfall.
I remember your hair that shone like a moon and your mole resembling a shooting star.
The only way I knew to make a wish was by planting kisses on those freckles, every time and I wished nothing more but only if your body was filled with a city of stars so that I could kiss you indefinitely.
I remember your voice, your words, your beautiful expressions,
as if those were the music to my ears.
If only those were the music I could preserve, I would listen to them over and over and over again.
I remember you as you were in the last spring.
You had eyes like a blazing fire wandering through the forest at night.
And I fell into you like water cascading through the waterfall.
And now I wish we could have been like fire and water, flaming and dousing when needed.
but we kept fighting fire with fire.
It started as a harmless tease.
Varun would always find a way to sit near her, often commenting on her serious reading choices. She would roll her eyes at his dramatic poetry recitations but never actually stop him.
‘You know,’ he said one evening, leaning back in his chair, ‘if you keep frowning at your book like that, you are going to get permanent lines on your forehead.’ he said.
Varinka sighed and said ‘If I had a rupee for every time you distracted me, I would have enough to buy this library.’
‘Ah,’ he said, smirking. ‘But then where would I find you?’
She pretended not to be affected, but the truth was, she started looking forward to his presence.
One evening, as she scribbled notes, Varun slid a book across the table toward her.
She glanced at the title ‘The Art of Flirting.’
She stifled a laugh. ‘You think I need this?’
He shrugged. ‘Not really. But I thought you might like to study my technique.’
Varinka leaned closer. ‘You have a technique?’
‘Oh, absolutely.’ He tapped the book. ‘Chapter three: The Power of a Well-Timed Compliment. Chapter six: The Art of Subtle Touch. Chapter nine….’
She rolled her eyes, pushing the book back to him. ‘You are impossible.’
‘And yet,’ he teased, ‘you are still here.’
For weeks, their flirtation danced on the edge of something deeper.
But Varinka was careful. She never told him who she really was. never mentioned the stories she wrote, the places she had been.
She liked being just a PhD scholar in his eyes.
Until one evening.
She was in the library, typing furiously on her laptop, when Varun sat down across from her.
‘You are not reading today?’ he asked.
She barely looked up. ‘Deadline.’ she said.
‘For what?’ he asked.
She hesitated, then casually said, ‘An article.’
Varun leaned back. ‘You are a writer?’
‘Hmm. Something like that,’ she said.
He studied her for a moment. ‘You know, I’ve been trying to figure you out since the day I met you.’
She smirked. ‘And?’
‘And I think,’ he said slowly, ‘you like keeping secrets.’
Her fingers froze on the keyboard.
He noticed.
‘But I also think,’ he continued, softer this time, ‘I like that about you.’
She met his gaze. ‘Even if it means I might be something you didn’t expect?’
He smiled ‘Hmmm Especially then.’ he said.
And just like that, she knew, he wasn’t just flirting anymore.
The first time Varun saw her. she was sitting alone in the library, lost in a book, her curls were spilling over her shoulder.
He wasn’t sure what caught his attention first. the way she twirled her pen between her fingers absentmindedly or how her brows knit together when she was deep in thought. Either way, he was intrigued.
Varun had been an assistant professor at Sikkim University for nearly five years years. At 34, he was one of the youngest professors in the English department. His students adored him, partly because he made literature sound like a movie. partly because he was young, sharp-witted, and undeniably charming.
But that afternoon, in the hush of the library, surrounded by books and lights, he found himself drawn to someone who didn’t seem to notice him at all.
And that was new.
The First Move
‘Mind if I sit here?’
Varinka looked up, blinking as if she had just been pulled from another world. She took in the man standing before her, tall, broad-shouldered, with a presence that filled the room without effort. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, revealing strong forearms, and there was a teasing glint in his brown eyes.
She glanced at the empty chairs around her. ‘There are plenty of seats.’
He grinned and said ‘but I like this one.’
Varinka sighed, marking her book with a pencil. ‘Do you always disturb people when they are working?’
‘Only the interesting ones.’ He leaned forward slightly. ‘What are you reading?’ he asked.
She tilted the book so he could see the title, Emergence of Pakistan.
Varun raised an eyebrow. ‘Light reading?’
She smirked and said ‘I like depth.’
His grin widened. ‘I like trouble.’
She sniffed a small laugh and went back to her book, pretending not to notice how he lingered.
He didn’t leave.
Instead, he pulled out a book from his bag, The Love Poems of Pablo Neruda.
He flipped it open and, in a low, deliberate voice, read aloud,
‘I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.’
Varinka looked up, one brow arched. ‘Is that your way of introducing yourself?’
He closed the book. ‘No. That’s my way of impressing you.’ he said.
She shook her head, biting back a smile. ‘You are unbearable.’
‘And yet,’ he said, resting his chin on his hand, ‘you haven’t told me to leave.’
She met his gaze, holding it just long enough.
And that was how it began.
