The Star Was Born

By Priyendra Kishore Dutta

This city is too busy to notice anything, shrouded in a hazed and smoggy sky Too busy to check up on a birth or a death, let alone acknowledge: either celebrate or mourn. And still it witnesses everything: who drowned in darkness and who got his “Ikigai”- Who wrongly boarded the right train and who found a home in an unfancied distant sojourn. So it knows: it knows when the universe is aligned and when the stars are crossed- So crossed that the existing waits for the non-existent to exist in some uncertain future time. And during the wait the existing gets old and the forehead gets wrinkle-embossed- And yet waits with patience: for one possible future tryst, may be forbidden, but still sublime!

Born or torn apart, or brought close by the seemingly innocent waves of fate- The city remains stoically indifferent: just as it has been to warm welcomes and cold good-byes. But the souls concerned? Why they embark on such an absurdity only they can relate, Only they can truly appreciate the pain of strings, the strokes of brushes and the flight of fireflies. So the existing waited, to co-exist with the yet-non-existent, even if for a brief sinful while- Even if like the step-matched dance of a whirlwind swooping over the golden fields of rye and corn. And eventually, one day, when old enough, you could see those eyes with a glint and smile- For they just saw, after the long long wait and though in a different distant sky, finally the star was born!

By Priyendra Kishore Dutta