Nature's Trance.

 
A light glows, far in the dark,
Rising above the flames of a dancing fire,
In the silent woods of an undiscovered land,
As the trees wave in unison, to the wind,
That breathes more life into it.

A deep enchanting voice seeps through,
Like a song being sung by the unseen,
Filling the silence with a shrieking thrill,
As the leaves give in, to the sparks of light.

The smoke, like fog, has spread to to the skies,
Like spirits of the burnt, rising from the dead,
The dark clouds above, they start to dance,
And the nature, at once, seems like a psychedelic trance.

- Azad Hussain @ smokeofsulphur.blogspot.in

To determination.

 To a brother, who made it possible.
(Got Recommended in his 24th attempt.)

He walked along the thorns in life,
Bleeding from every nerve, his hopes were high,
Into the darkness, in search of light,
He barged in, with every breath he could find.

He stumbled upon the failures,
And came across the knights of it,
Some, who gave up without a fight,
And some, who gave in, just to survive.

A thousand thoughts stormed his mind,
As a hundred dreams rose from the dead,
Dreams, that couldn't turn into reality,
Still breathing right under his skin, where the heart is.

The darkness called out to him,
Asking him to run, before it destroyed him, like many others, who tried,
He paid a deaf ear, to the cries of it,
And as he walked further, the path was lit.

Were his senses playing with him, or he really had achieved it,
The light everybody wanted, but no one could reach it,
He stood awestruck, at what he had discovered,
A life, beyond the dark, where the sun still shines.

- Azad Hussain @ smokeofsulphur.blogspot.in

'a love, never made'

Have you ever wondered, if the 'special someone' that we think about, truly does exist? What if he/she thinks about us too? We have never come across him/her all this while or may be we did, but the love we have for that imaginary face or illusion, isn't it pure? This piece is about two such people, both of them special to each other. They've never met or seen each other. They don't even know how the other person looks like, but their love is still  meaningful. Who knows, they might end up together in life, for real, or they might settle for someone else. Their  love would be a success if they do meet, but if they don't, it would still exist, but like a painting that was never finished.

Shuffling through the papers,
He takes a brief pause,
To think about HER, and he smiles,
Imagining a face, he has never seen.

Half a world across,
She is waiting tables,
Thinking about him on a horse, dressed as a cowboy.
Rolling her hair, she chuckles,
She doesn't know, how he looks.

He looks at the sun,
Slowly hiding behind the clouds,
Wishing if she was here,
He would do the same.
And he stares into the air,
Like its her eyes,
He is looking into.

She walks along the alley,
Smiling at the couples, she sees,
Wondering how long before he comes to her,
To take her into his arms,
For her to feel the world.
And with a deep breath,
She hugs the cold air,
Spiraling her hands, around herself.

He is in the balcony,
Breathing his cigarette, softly,
When a cold breeze splashes his face,
With a warm feeling of being wanted.
He closes his eyes, wondering,
What she looks like, the girl, who is all over his mind.

Her focus has gone,
From the book that she holds,
To a fiction of her own,
A story that she so wants to live.
She sips her coffee,
Looking out of the window,
At the moon, wondering,
If he's looking at it too.

Spread across oceans and skies,
This love often mesmerizes me,
Of how it binds two different people,
Sometimes by chance, and sometimes,
As if the universe is behind it.

The night crawls slowly,
and the whole world falls back, to rest,
Well, this is just another love story,
Of two people, who never met.

- Azad Hussain @ smokeofsulphur.blogspot.in

I combust.

Deep inside in everybody's subconscious,we keep searching the reasons for our existence, asking for a better and meaningful life. We build a world around what we want, we decorate it with what we need, and we dream. But when we wake up to the reality of life, everything collapses to dust.

- Azad Hussain @ smokeofsulphur.blogspot.in

A random two minute poem.

DEATH, is it really so scary?

He never entered an empty lift because the fear of it freely falling to the ground with him alone was dreadful. He would rather walk down the staircase which seemed a little less dangerous. He would constantly keep a watch on the speedometer when he was driven to work by his driver, constantly whispering in his ear to drive slowly. The fear of death in him had reached a height where everything around him pushed his mind to the idea of something coming for him, to end his life.

He was a successful entrepreneur, married to a beautiful woman and blessed with two little girls who meant the world to him. He had worked hard to own the luxury he lived in, from walking door to door to sell cosmetics to working 24 hours a day, and now he headed a company which had its shares soaring high each day. He was compassionate and full of life, a party animal, and a need-no-invitation guest at every party in the town, and may be that was the reason he had the fear of it all ending. He did not wish to live for decades together or the immortality, but the fear in him was of how cruel death would be to him. His subconscious was overflowing with the thoughts of how uncertain life is and how everything could end like a dream when death would wake him up in another world.

He was different when he was a kid, cheerful and fun loving, the most loved kid in the neighborhood, until the accident that took his parents away from him. He saw it happen as he walked out of his school gate towards the car his parents were waiting in, excited about his first day at school. It was a drunk truck-driver who saw him on the road at the last minute and steered right into the car his parents waited in. He was too small to understand the turn of events at that time but as he grew up, he started blaming himself for the death of his parents. His parents had paid with their lives for him to escape death once but he knew it would come again, in search of him, like it comes, for everyone.

Saturday morning, the roads were not much crowded like they are every morning, with office cabs, motorbikes and autorikshaws zooming on the roads as the working class rushed to their condensed office cubicles. He jogged along the footpath, feeling the wind on his face, and dodging potholes and electric poles, a regime he had started to keep himself fit and healthy. He stopped at a bus stop to take a two minute rest, sitting in a corner seat beside few school kids, debating on which superhero is the best. As he brushed his t-shirt to wipe away the sweat on his face he observed a kid, dressed shabbily, crossing the road and walking towards the bus stop, holding a white cane in his hand. The kid carried a bag on his back which had the books poking out from it, at one end, a striking symbol of his status.

He jumped to his feet as he saw a car speed at a distance, possibly to make it before the signal turned red which had the green light 'blinking' with the screen above it on a countdown, ' 0 5'. He raced towards the road, to save the kid who by now was in the middle of the road, struggling with his cane to find the way. The sound was loud as the car screeched away from him, leaving him on the ground in a state where he felt no pain but he couldn't feel most of his body. He slightly turned his head to see that he had pushed the kid back in time who now moved his hands on the tarmac to find his cane, which parted from him during the fall.

His vision was clouded, and his senses, numb. He felt immense pain as the blood gushed out of his body but he couldn't scream. All of his life flashed in front of him, his parents,wife, daughters, failures, success, and his fear, of death. Amidst the voices of the crowd that slowly started gathering around him, his own heartbeat was louder than his screams. With eyes staring at the sky, and a vision blurred by tears, he wondered how he could gather so much courage, such that he could actually think of opposing a speeding car. He knew he was a different person few minutes back or was he? The questions that he asked himself all this while, of how it would end for him, were being answered. He looked at the kid who touched his hand to feel his presence and sat down right next him, unaware of what has happened. The whole meaning of life and death changed for him as he thought of how worse the things could have been had he not rushed to this kid, who couldn't see with his eyes. He could feel his life being sucked out, drop by drop, breath by breath as his heart trembled under his chest to keep him alive for a little while more. He wasn't afraid of it anymore, the end, because he knew it couldn't have been any better for he got a chance to do what his parents did for him; to give life after death. His heart was on the verge of giving up but he forced a smile, at his thoughts and all those times when he tried to be overly conscious as if death was following him everywhere.

"Are you fine, sir? ", the kid asked in a whimpering voice, with his head bowed down and his eyes, closed.

" I very much am", he struggled to answer, brushing the kid's hair with his fingers, which fell lifelessly to the ground, minutes later.

- Azad Hussain @smokeofsulphur.blogspot.in

Book-in-the-making.

An unedited excerpt from my BOOK-IN-THE-MAKING..

'1 1 : 5 8pm', She glanced at her phone, probably for the hundredth time by now.
Two more minutes, and she would be a year older. She wasn't excited like every one else is, in those early hours before the day, expecting people to suddenly remember, she is alive. Birthdays lost the fun in them from the time her friends from college had formed two groups. The last time she ever had a blast on her birthday was when her best friend convinced her parents for a night out, and they had partied until late. This time, she had no idea what to do, like always. She was just waiting for the phone to start buzzing, so she could answer all the calls, and sleep peacefully.

She was expecting his call. She knew he would, it meant a lot to him, her birthday. It had been a good one and a half month that they last spoke, when she told him it was not going to work out. She still remembered how hard it was for her to let him go, and to be strong, and not to show him the signs that she loved him the most.

She knew, he was still waiting for her to change her mind, to think about her decision of giving the relationship up, and to get back to him. At times, she even thought of getting back, ignoring the odds of it, and to believe in him, but she was afraid of the future, a future they would not be able to reach.*clink clink clink..clink clink*, her phone rang. It was HIM. The time was 1 2 : 00am. A strange feeling of happiness shivered in her, as she read his name on the dialler.

'Hello', she said, in a low voice, adjusting her phone over the ear.

'Happy Birthday', he whispered on the other end.

She was happy, happy to hear him speak. This was what she missed the most, his voice, she could hear him speak for hours.

'Thank you', she replied, gulping down her excitement.

'Open the door and look down, there is a surprise for you', he instructed her while she was almost shocked at the fact that he actually thought of surprising her.

She jumped from her bed at once, and her sleep, well now, it could wait for a while, she thought. Walking towards the door she was imagining what it could be, 'the surprise'. She opened the door, slowly, without a sound, and looked into the poorly lit hallway, to find him. He was standing near the lift, smiling and pointing downwards, reminding her about the surprise gift. She looked down, already content after looking at him, at 4 boxes that were piled up together, on the doormat. She picked them up swiftly, and placed them in her room, to return to him, quickly.
She walked up to him, after securing the door from outside, and her smile widened with each step that she took. He was there, along with three other friends, smiling at her.

'Happy Birthdayyyy', everyone shouted together, as she walked up to them.

'Thanks for coming', she whispered in his ear as she moved in a little closer to him, standing beside him.

'How could I not come, Saww? If we really have broken up then this is the last chance for me to make you feel special', he said, hiding his face away, not to show her how hard it was for him to accept his defeat at changing her mind. He had decided not to bring up the topic today, just to keep her mood alive.
Cool breeze greeted them on the terrace, with a full moon shining in the sky, and he did not waste a single second to tell her that the reason for such a weather was her birthday. She chuckled away, rolling her eyes at him, an expression of her that he loved the most.

'You people sit here and talk, we'll try getting dosa or some snacks from Ram ki Bandi', Vineet said in an excitement, to which Pravallika and Nikhila nodded right away. And now, they both were alone, under a glooming moon and a sky full of a hundred thousand stars.

'Are you happy, Saww?', he asked, looking at her hair that was falling perfectly over her shoulders.

'You think I am not?', she turned her face towards him, 'I am more than happy, Azad. Moreover, I thought you wouldn't wish me today for I know I have hurt you so much', she said covering her face with her palms.

'How could you even think like that, Saww. This day has been on my mind since so long and I wish I could make it a little more wonderful', he frowned, still not satisfied by his efforts.

He knew he could do so much more for her, and he wanted to do so much more for her. You could see it in his eyes, that enthusiasm that just her name bought up, in them.

'You've done more than I could ask for, Azad, and trust me, no one would ever do this much for a girl who is so stubborn about not taking the relationship ahead', she reassured him of his efforts, slipping her fingers into his.

'By the way, you did not tell me what the surprise gift is?', she hit his knee with her fist, as she suddenly remembered about the boxes.

'Go, see for yourself, and come back up, Saww', he winked at her, with a wide grin on his face.

She rushed down at once while he waited for her, counting the stars, praying to God that she likes it.

'Woooah! Did you-uu-u seriously make that g-gift on your own? For me? Seriously?', she exclaimed, gasping for breath as she walked towards him.
The gift was a representation of her nickname that he used to call her with, 'See-saw', handmade from things like wooden pieces, chess pieces, fake jewellery ornaments etc.., of which, some he had to steal from his sister's wardrobe.

'Yes, but did you like it?', he asked, covering his eyes with his fingers, looking from the gaps.

'I loved it. I really did. That is just so thoughtful of you. Thank you so much, Azad', she said as she moved in closer to him.

They both expected a hug, but neither of them initiated one, thinking it would be awkward. You could tell from her eyes, she wanted to hug him, and deep in his heart, he had that wish too. He tapped her shoulder, as a substitute, pulling his hand back as fast as he could. From his side, it was the respect that he had for her which stopped him from hugging her, fearing that she would think, he did everything today for her to get back to him. And on her's, it was more of a confusion, a fight, in-between her wish to hold him close and her decision, not to give him hopes again.

They both settled on the concrete blocks, sitting close but still apart. One look at them and anyone could tell, they loved each other but some resistance stopped them from accepting it, may be that month long separation.
'Saww, remember you once said you want to sit on the terrace and count stars with me. Well now, I made your wish come true. Look up, one, two, three..', he whispered, resting his head on her shoulder, which she welcomed, brushing her fingers in his hair.

'Oh yeah, you remember. I so wish, we could stop time, its so beautiful, this moment', she said, playing with his hair.

'I know right. Wish we could, Saww, wish we could'.

It was 3 : 00 am. She did not feel sleepy any more, nor did he want to go home. They both sat together, heads inclined on each other, counting the stars, and talking about a past that seemed impossible to reach out to. Lost in the same thoughts, sharing each other's smile, caressing each other's hair, they had the same thing running in their hearts, 'a love, they could not make, together'.

- Azad Hussain @ smokeofsulphur.blogspot.in