So how am I without you?
Haunting
8/29/20252 min read
Life Between Sunsets
So how am I without you?
Not very bad. Not very good. Just somewhere in the middle — a place where the day starts, the day ends, and yet nothing truly begins or finishes inside me. Each passing sunset whispers a strange prophecy: soon you will find Moksha. And by Moksha, I mean that distant shore of complete detachment, the kind of peace I am yet to touch, yet to even believe in.
The world outside spins in colors and sounds, but I don’t step into it much. Gatherings feel like a language I have forgotten. Friends have become names in an old address book, pages curling at the edges. Sometimes Sandeep calls, he asks about you. I give him my usual answer — I don’t know much. What else is there to say when the truth is not about what I know, but about what I can’t stop feeling?
Most days I stay in my room, letting podcasts fill the silence. Because without voices in the air, my mind invents ways to disturb you — tracking, sending reels, a photograph here, a small nothing there. Not to annoy you, never intentionally. Just to feel, for a moment, that you are still somewhere within my reach.
And yet, every now and then, I think — maybe you’ve moved on. My head nods to the thought; my heart rejects it like a child refusing bitter medicine. I never want to intrude, which is why I ask if you’ve found someone. A strange part of me believes that if you said yes, something inside me would help me to just… switch off the daily journey.
You must be thinking I always talk about leaving. Is it instrumental? I tell you it’s not. I feel it will give me peace — though I don’t know if it will, or not.
My mother still asks me to get married. She believes I gave you the full ₹10 lakh I once told her about — not knowing I gave you half and invested the rest quietly in the market and lost. Perhaps she thinks wrongly of you; perhaps I let her. I once blurted at her, Why are you asking me to marry? You know there will be no one else. She even asked for your number once, but I wonder how she’d talk to you — she doesn’t know your language.
These days, the quiet frightens me. Drinking has become rare — not out of discipline, but because it doesn’t work. No intoxication holds the power to erase you. You circle my mind like a moon that never sets.
I’ve stopped wanting most things. The job, the salary, clothes, places, travel, food — they no longer excite me. But I do drive well now, a four-wheeler. If you ever returned, I’d take you somewhere far. I avoid Chinese food now — yes, the Indian Chinese kind — telling people I’ve tasted better.
Twice I tried for a China visa and failed. Maybe the third time will be different, maybe the SCO meet will open some door. Maybe I will see that country and its walls, its streets. Maybe I will stand somewhere unfamiliar and still carry you in my head.
Life, I’ve realized, doesn’t pause for grief. It just walks beside it. And so, I go on. But you — you trouble my mind more than I can admit out loud.
Life is like a journey — nothing in my control, always haunting me with the ghost of who I am.
LISTEN
I told my heart, "Go and bring happiness to me." The innocent heart brought me sorrow—well then, let me accept sorrow.
Where does the poor heart know what pain is, what emptiness is? Compared to all the joy in the world, my sorrow is more comforting.
I never found joy in celebrations; I found pleasure only in sorrow.
Sometimes there is the light of love, sometimes the darkness of death. Tell me, what disguise should I wear? Should I become a saint or a thief?
This heart has many faces. Who knows which one is truly mine?
There were thousands of miles I set out to travel, but the paths kept moving forward, and I was left behind.
I walked only a few steps and then began circling around your thoughts.
I told my heart, "Go and bring happiness to me." The innocent heart brought me sorrow—well then, let me accept sorrow.
I have no grouse against a life without you
But a life without you is hardly a life
Wish we could tread our journey with your steps
Pick our destinations afresh and walk someplace else, far far away
When you walk along with me
There’s no dearth of places to be
And though I have no grouse against a life without you…
All I wish to do is seek refuge in your embrace
And keep crying; keep crying
Aren’t those tears too that I detect in the moistness of your eyes –
A life without your is hardly any life
If you say so the moon will not set tonight
Say it – Stop this night
It’s just the matter of the night, there isn't much left in life without you
I have no grouse against a life without you
But a life without you is hardly any life
You alone… Without you, how could I live? Come to me, don’t let me ache like this.
My life, come and breathe within me. Like the moon, descend onto the ground of my heart.
If you love me, come and meet me — or else, take me from this earth entirely.
These breaths are restless, they whisper that wherever you walk, I should lay my eyes like a path beneath your feet.
I would give up my life from the heights of mountains if you did not come.
My hope, my world, my life and my death — I have placed them all in your hands.
I have broken every bond for your sake. Call me a hundred times, and a hundred times I will come.
Even tears taste sweet when they fall for you.
O naïve bird,
come back home..
come back home..
why do you wander country-country (in such bad shape)
why is your condition so bad, all tired-lost
why do you wander this country to that
you (have become) a nomad of nights..
a hundred pains are spread on the body,
clothes of all compassion are dirty..
(guess that means, all the sources of compassion are not there for you right now)
however much you cut the winds with your wings,
you'll not be able to fend yourself from yourself..
break the skies and burn the worlds,
but you can't hide yourself,
whatever path you take,
you are homeless (out there)
you will come to your home only..
O crow, I have so much of request to you, eat (my body's) flesh,
but do not eat my eyes, don't eat my eyes as I have a wish to see my lover..
If you are mine, I’m surprised that I never asked for anything
If you are mine, Why does it feel like I’ve gotten everything
For you are mine
I don’t ask for anything from this world
And if you’re not
I don’t want to live in this world
And in my visions
There’s a place where you and I are together now
And no one else is there
But you and I, oh
And you’ll come, you’ll come
Are our paths intertwined like this?
And if you’d cross paths with me
I’ll fall madly in love with you
And you’ll come, you’ll come
Are our paths intertwined like this?
And even if you don’t cross the paths with me
I’ll still want you the same
For you are mine
I don’t ask for anything from this world
You ask
What I see in you
When there’s a lot of things to see around me today
You don’t know
Yourself, no idea why
See yourself from my eyes please
Please see, please see
Beneath the hair, how beneath the hair
Your lovely smile hides beneath the hair
And your eyes go down and then up
So what do I do? I’ve lost already
Your lips, your lips
By which you give me lovely names
And about your heart, and about your heart
What can be said? How wonderful they are!
And yes, look here
How two hearts are walking down the aisle
But is it a clear sky
Or a rainy day again?
Even if your day is rainy
I’d still want to be with you, do you know that?
I’d not ask for anything else for
You’re mine
Stranger, you too sometimes call out from somewhere
I’m living here in pieces
You are also living in fragments
Stranger, call out to me from somewhere
Day after day, the silky breeze whispers
“Tell me” Where is that pure, innocent bloom?
Where is that light?
Where is that life?
I remain incomplete, and so do you
Wanderer, wanderer, foreigner Wanderer, wanderer, foreigner
You’re not here, yet your smiles linger
Your face is nowhere to be seen
But your footsteps still echo
Where are you, where have you gone?
Where is your trace?
Where is my world?
I remain incomplete, and so do you
Every night in my dreams
I see you, I feel you
That is how I know you go on
Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you go on
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more, you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
Love can touch us one time
And last for a lifetime
And never let go 'til we're gone
Love was when I loved you
One true time I'd hold to
In my life, we'll always go on
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on (why does the heart go on?)
Once more, you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
You're here, there's nothing I fear
And I know that my heart will go on
We'll stay forever this way
You are safe in my heart and
My heart will go on and on