Of treats—and grounds—and sealing love

All my life my sister has been to me a provider of treats. I cannot recount to you (or myself for that matter) the number of gifts I have had from her. From the elaborately concocted fictions about the universe from my earliest memories, through the songs, ideas, poems, concepts, interests, loves, laughs, philosophies, news, and nuggets she litters my life with, to the You Tube videos I almost invariably watch downloaded on her laptop, my mental life is strung with gifts from her.

Very often, I've believed as many as six impossible things she's told me before breakfast. Or fallen in love a couple of times. Yesterday it was with something which I watched with toothbrush in my mouth and mist in my eyes, which Sheetal also shares with you, so enjoy!

That sequence of events is beautiful for so many reasons – Sahir, Madan Mohan, Meena Kumari and Sunil Dutt are not the least of them. Oh! But the idea of it! In the ghazal world there isn’t a more intimate act than to work in another's zameen. It is always an extension of love. It is like wearing your lover’s T-shirt. And the audacity and the longing in writing in the meter and rhyme structure of an unknown lover is just too delicious.

The sweetness of the episode was impossible to resist. So this, dedicated in gratitude to my sister.

Ek tere noor ki hasrat ne jagaya hai jinhe

Dil ke nairang tilismaat kise pesh karoon

Apne jazbaat-o-khayaalat-o-khalwat se saje

Bazm-e-dil ke ye da’waat kise pesh karoon

Justuju ne tho duboya hai humee mein humko

Doobke ubhre jo ilmaat kise pesh karoon

Teri furqat mein ris-ris ke jutaaya hai jise

Woh nihaan abr-e-barsaat kise pesh karoon

Har koi aab-talab phirta hai zoya ya’an par

Phir umadta behr-e-zulmaat kise pesh karoon