To Zorah From Ayaan

(An Unsaid & Unposted Love Story)

I still wonder, how a careless person like Ayaan, has kept that unposted postcard with utmost care, deep down in that dusty & rustic iron valise , under the red Kashmiri blanket. The card was more than a help for his mind, to travel along those muddy pathways of the past, once again. Those were the only memories which he never shared with his wife Fathima and son Aamir. He walked with the support of his walking stick towards the mirror. He wondered how time has brought wrinkles on his face and hair turned grey, but also that he had dressed neatly. Love has changed him above time, the love for Zorah...

As he leaned over the wooden chair in the backyard for an afternoon nap, he remembered, how a wild guy like him, use to dress up neat and tidy and comb those oily and spiky grasslands, just to get a glance of Zorah on the by lanes to school. Even the breeze was gracious to carry the smell of Cuticura talcum powder, the harbinger of her arrival. How he used to consciously talk with his friends, so that the teacher make him sit near her, as a blessed punishment. Just like any another romantic hero of the 80’s, after schooling as his Baapa expired, the responsibility of the family was laid on his lean shoulders. Even then he used to wait for that rare breeze, though she had left for higher studies.

The days and dates on the wall calendar, changed, the muddy by lanes got tarred, technological developments ran through electric veins, even then it was the same for Ayaan, who had no means to express himself to Zorah. After a week or so, the village rumoured that Zorah has an affair with a guy of her college. The very next week, Ayaan’s family too got an invitation of her marriage, to her distant cousin in Dubai...

He wondered, how on a Ramadan day, he gathered all his courage, and stole a one rupee coin, from his Umma’s Afghani leather lap purse, to buy a postcard. But it lay, unaddressed forever, in the iron valise of Ayaan.

A sparrow woke him up. He confirmed that Fathima and Aamir are not at home. He hurriedly opened the valise, took the postcard out. With his shivering hands he moved his finger on those illegible Urdu words “Taraf Zohrah... Minjaanib Ayaan” (To Zorah from Ayaan)

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This is in response to the WriteTribe Contest #1 and also linking this post to the UltimateBlogging Challenge.