He would click each and everything he fancied – beggars, rain-drenched Esplanade, to dewdrops on a leaf. Nature was his forte. Piles were stuffed in boxes waiting for a space in the album. Euphoric in glee, he mused ‘Would she kiss me if I jumped off the copter? Could I soar free like the birds? Would she still love me if I didn’t return?’ “Are you OK?” he was back to the senses at the pilot’s gesture. “Fine” “We’re going down. Riveted Aneesh flooded Nandini with a volley of questions. Ride over, they walked out of the helipad with memoir of a lifetime marvel. Hopping into the car Arnab said “Let’s have lunch at the hotel. We’d be out in the evening to see the fireworks” “Want to click a few more while you laze” Arnab had a strange feel of unease. He walked out, leaving them to their afternoon siesta. Nandini hit the bed sheet, hoping to grab an hour’s catnap. Arnab could feel the azure alluring him to the orgasmic blue. He walked towards the falls until the rails blocked him like a virgin’s hymen. He leant over to get the right frame. Click… click… click … His head whirled, legs trembled, specks of sweat piled on his forehead. In throbbing expectation, he could feel the lure of Nature. Wiping his forehead with the lens wiper, he wanted to seize the dream frame in his SD card. Fingers trembling, heart pounding, he could hear the beat of the distant drums. Amid the clatter of cliques, the camera slipped. In the split of a sec he lost his foothold. His dangling body detached from the soil, floating mid-air, drifted from riddle to the crib of mystic twilight, never to be seen again. The azure mingled into the greyish dark. The fuzzy portrait stayed numinous before Nandini could splash any colour to its vague outline. Her sentient being was trying to plumb her subliminal. The colours of life wiped from the palette with nothing leftover for a figurine. The array of rainbow was sinking in the deepest nadirs of her sorrow. She posted in Facebook, the vista of the blue turning dusty grey, merging into the dark. This is the jingle of life. It reveals in dappled awnings, slopping horde of colours on an empty canvas, with its unique verve of veiled dreams in its sheath. The beauty is amid the trusses and verges of life in varied shades, until the demon leers with snooty jape. “Are you a dreamer?” someone remarked. “Why?” “The setting airs your illusory brush” without realising she had tried to bring forth her reality. “Why do you say?” "The colours are wacky” If the order of the spectrum didn’t follow a defined range, which colour could illustrate the soul of her fictional image? Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange or red? He was in quest of the myth of a vivid spectre. He was taught to applaud the tailored concept. But the realism lay far beyond the myopic visibility, into the aura of fallow canopies. Maybe she had to wait for that piercing awareness, amid the lonely twilight, onto the cuddle of sleepless nights. She strode through the snug rims of the dusty alleys, in quest of her destiny. UPAHAAR 2021 উপহার ১৪২৮ 31
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