Remember Me Kindly

By VB Bonny

She never lived

in the margins of my notebook!

The buildings I crossed, 

the railway station I arrived,

was more than just a destination.

The curry rice 

and a devouring ambition

followed wherever I looked.

This friendship we shared.

It dwelled between 

equation and exhaustion.

Her name, Pooja,

a thirty-year-old woman

in a neatly pleated saree with a red bindi.

Also, a doctor by profession.

She met a girl,

who moved to Lucknow,

for her graduation.

Her pauses taught me,

to look beyond addition

and mathematical integration.

Every time

the spring submitted to rain.

She carried a pain to not be forgotten.

Oblivious to my understanding,

She said, 

“The seasons do not stay long.

Even the monsoon does not rain to every song.”

When the monsoon passed,

a revelation tapped my window with a fear.

That she might disappear.

Lucknow rained that morning

It was not just leaves

that were falling;

they touched earth

with a warning.

When her last message 

arrived my door as a souvenir.

Pooja passed away peacefully

A note with a thank you bonny.

It was a beginning of another journey.

This journey

was never my calling.

Then another request fell on my lap

“Don’t remember me like a tragedy.”

She bloomed into an inspiration

rather than a friendship,

that was broken 

or turned into a longing.

A request to remember her kindly.

People vanish too quickly.

But she will live forever

in my verses,

in my pauses,

in my clauses.

I can bring her back

as a vow.

She will forever shine, 

whenever I remember Lucknow.

By VB Bonny