Sufna | A day dream
Songbirds call, signalling the break of dawn. With a cup of tea in hand, her mind is brimming with thoughts.
She puts pen to paper, and conjures up a world. This is an everyday prayer. A ritual of love. A place of solace. The words pour out of her. The dreams and hope, the gifts of youth, the pangs of first love, the restlessness and desires that sprout from change.
The day looks inviting as she peers out the window. The shehtoot tree beckoning her to join in for a tete-e-tete. Draping her odhani, ready to step outside, she looks at the mirror on the opposite wall. Slowly recognising her own reflection, she wonders, “Is that me, who I see?” She finds moments of reflection, when she looks in the mirror. Coy, she blooms like spring personified.
She looks closer at the mirror, trying to find the little girl she used to be. Can she still relive the good old days of her bygone girlhood? Where does one go in search of lost time?
She is a butterfly, coming out of its cocoon. In the clear light of day, she can see the beauty in the everyday. The curves of her waliyan, the kohl in her eye, thori be-niyaazi—the the hints of her youth.
In her jhola, she collects the treasures of the day. A fruit, filled with saccharine ripeness, Flowers along the dirt road. She takes her book, leafing through its yellowing pages—it’s her one loyal companion in this earthly vastness. Finding the riddles of life and love, she delves in the verses of urdu zubaan.
On this slow, sunny day, she lies on down on a manji, the blue canopy of sky, hovering above her. The radio plays far away, but the breeze carries its sound to her ears. Lonely as a woman waiting for her lover, she knows her heart has been heavy, this far away from the one who dwells in her dreams. The wait for her lover has been tiring. Drowsy-eyed, she slips into a daydream.
Sleep comes, languorously, like a balm to her soul, almost as a friend with feathers, that blows with the wind. The flight of imagination lands her in realm of make-believe. “Dream, my child,” a voice, as sweet as a mother’s lullaby. A harvest moon may be the companion for nocturnal animals, who want to disappear into the good night. But. it is in the day, when sleep brings fanciful journeys, away from the present, like a portal to paracosm.
A field of green, a touch of the grass, to mark this moment at the brink of union between lovers. This is a memory of a man, who never was. Here, lovers meet, wisaal-e-yaar, but in the clutches of a dream. Separated by a certain machinery of fate, that keeps her apart from her lover.
On days like this, she like to design her destiny, and wanders in her dream world to seek some solace in her fields of fiction.
Here, he comes. At last, his hand touches her face. A feeling now locked in the depths of her being, in the faraway land of her dreams. Like a pact of youth, in the memory of her lover, her nap is but just a ruse. This day is moment of truce, between his absence and her soul.
A world of waiting, she will face when its time to wake up. For now, she sleeps.
