TO ALL THOSE WHO ASKED , “WHY LEAVING THE HOSTEL?”…A TRUE ANSWER

“YEH RAATEIN NAYI PURAANI….AATE…..AATE JAATE…..
LIKHATI HAIN….KOI KAHAANI…….”

Nights for me are something sort of an oasis when I am a thirsty one all alone in a lonely desert. Where I quench my thirst, I fulfill my heart. Nights are like a fresh morn where it all seems to be new, like a laborious noon, where a kind of ‘wanabee’ spirit rolls down my mind, alas, like that gorgeous twilight where after all the trials and tasks done , heart lives up and says ,…..”C’MON LET’S PARTY’
This time alone in my room, and incidentally in a dark night, my mind lingers on to those days which perhaps, made me start discovering the life that I was made to live beforehand. Those days of hostels , of those rooms, of those lobbies, and of course that awful mess-food, those days that perhaps will never come again as I have dropped them in the aisles of history (reasons I’ll tell later.)
If I roll back myself and start recounting those days, the moment that tops the list contains a letter of a mother and I ,a freshly ragged son of her reading it, a point where he understood what that home he left behind was for him, what that letter and those feeling inscribed in the blue ink were. I was wearing a filthy uniform , but that was the last day (or moment) that I was pure, and knew what relations actually meant.

Friends ,or rather partners, no, shall I say mates…..or I don’t know ,perhaps beyond language, they were guys, who acted as parents, as girlfriends, as something unimaginable. They are still there….yes….they are…its just that ‘I’M NOT’. Still remember those sleepless lobbies, where the night crawlers (all of us), used to crawl away days, nights, weeks, away from all the hindrances, all the struggles, all the realities..perhaps.

Hostel for me was like a school, a school where I learnt what life was, what I was, what the near ones whom I had left far behind were, what home cooked food was …….. It was fun; it was all like a riddle whose answers I knew beforehand until….
Until I realized, that this was the fun I was not supposed to have, this was the riddle I was not supposed to solve. I was somewhere in a huge, long mango orchard and I well knew that perhaps, that it was the arid Sahara that I belonged to, or rather I deserved. I wanted to prove something, I wanted to prove that I can convert my Sahara into a fruit orchard, wanted to prove, that I can take a decision, struggle with it, but stick to it, hate it again, but ultimately gulp it down so that the reality can be digested. This was all I wanted to prove to myself.
So I took it, and am out of the hostel, of that PMC, of those night strolls, of many things. Electricity is not there this time in my rented room,, everything out and out dark, sweat flowing like a distant Campty, but somewhere inside, a faint lamp , of introspection, is burning, burning low , burning slow, but burning deep, burning steady. And somewhere along that low battery radio, in some distant channel a song is being played………

“YEH HAUNSLA KAISE JHUKE…..YEH AARZOO….KAISE RUKE……”