Three days — in the company of loneliness
It’s day 1 at a place we can call our second home, a home to eternity.
The graveyard- a timeless landscape of silent winds. Headstones, hiding stories of countless seasons, stand still in stoic rows. The moist intricate soil beneath my feet is alone and longing for someone to embellish it’s forgotten beauty with carnations and red roses. The sea-crest green leaves of almost every tree are rustling as if they are welcoming me to their realm of clandestine solitude. The grass is as tender as petals of white Calla lillies.
The air carries a faint scent of damp earth, while the occasional rustle of leaves adds a gentle undertone to the prevailing silence. There is something so strange in the air. Something so gloomy & somber to my nostrils. I can feel a numbing sensation as if the air is asking me to stay and stay for long.
The tracks are lonely as if no one is yet ready to spend some time in the company of quiet air. So here I sit on an empty bench under an elm tree with fallen dead wilted leaves and twigs around me, reminding me of the golden-yellow pallete of Autumn. The season when a tree loses it’s shades of green.
It's day 2!
As I walk through the graveyard, a deep sense of introspection wraps around me like a heavy gown. The gravestones, etched with names and dates, are like portals to untold stories. The nature, too plays its part, as the atmosphere is saturated with the fragrance of mystifying flowers.
Running my fingers along the weathered stone surfaces, I feel the cool touch of history. The engravings, worn by time, tell stories of love and loss. The uneven ground beneath my feet bears the imprints of countless mourners, creating a tapestry of shared grief.
And here I am standing near the graves who are deprived of the fragrance they are longing for. They are dull and perhaps they are waiting for someone to put some periwinkle purple flowers around their beds. I feel so strange, so utterly drained as if I have never paid my mind to the afterlife. We are too occupied in this worldly life that we hardly ponder over death. We accept the truth but never embrace it. So I walked off with the echoes of Maghrib in my mind.
Oh my it's day 3!
Life is so unpredictable. One second you are carefree and the very next is your turn to join the alternative realm of eternal dimension.
I never thought I would learn so much from a place, a place so casually connected to us, a place that forever haunts us, a place where flowers find themselves in the company of departed souls .
Each moment spent within its bounds is a reminder of the delicate dance between life and death, a dance that leaves an indelible imprint on the senses and the soul.
As I was walking around the tracks I happened to pass by a strange man. He asked me a question:
- I have never seen someone come here for three consecutive days, but you come with your camera and talk to almost every grave. Why so?
I couldn’t answer that. I don’t know why but I felt a brief moment of silence at that moment. I have never been so quiet in my life before. Sometimes all you need is to keep your moments and whispers with you. So I breathed the calmness of fragranced air and let my silence had it’s moment.
I just wonder why you’d wanna stay
If everybody goes
You’d still be alone
I don’t wanna cry, some days I do
It’s just a lot to think about the world I’m used to
It’s not my fault, it’s not so wrong to wonder why
Everybody dies
And when will I?
