The Indian handmade paper
welcomed him with splayed arms. Unlike the machine mades she might not be
smooth and bright but she enthralled him like the Banaras saree draped Indian
beauty personified. Her aroma, the scent of a freshly unrolled parchment, is
intoxicating. Yet he is not bewitched by her charm today.
The pen perspired as he thought
‘Creative writing is nothing but an art of spinning something out of nothing…. But…How
am I to do that today?’ Of course he knew he doesn’t need a wand to do some magic.
With a single flick he can conjure either a Hogwards school of witchcrafty and
wizardry or a ‘nothing-so-special-about-me’ Esbella swan who dies to live with
a vampire with frozen heart.
A fat drop of ink sweated out
through his pores and slid down to the waiting parchment before he could wipe
his brow. She imbibed it like it were the first drop of rain. No pertrichor.
“Ouch” he yelped. “Never mind”
she reassured.
Moved by her passion and patience
he reached out to nuzzle her with his words of love. She blushed like the newly
wed. Though it tickled where he touched she didn’t wither away. He did. He
shook his head, as if trying to shove the apparently-not-so-good-idea at the
back of his mind, splashing more drops of ink. She smiled as she danced in the
pitter-pattering shower. More pertrichor.
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‘To write something you must risk
making a fool of yourself’ The American author Anne rice quoted quiet aptly. He
gathered courage and raced head-on to pen down his pent up thoughts. He ran out
of ink. The empty ink bottles, black and blue, mocked him from the desk. He
drank gustily from the bottle of red ink instead.
Recapitulated, he touched her eagerly. A blotch of red ink spread over her like wildfire. She appeared to
bleed. She never winced. He did. She bore the sindhoor ka tika like a tiara However he backed away from her as if he were charred holding red hot embers. He plonked himself on
the table hiding his shameful face under his cap, knocking the remains of the ink bottles all over her.
She is no more a white paper. His
signature is all over her. Yet he disowned her. She would have crumpled….but
she is not a toilet paper to be treated like S***. She held her head high with
a pride that never edged on arrogance. She did what she always did. Awaited
patiently, whether white or not, for the priceless moment of triumph.
Then she met him accidentally. The waters colours were his world in his youthful vigour. For
reasons known best to him he preferred to step off the pedal. He retreated to a dark colourless world that seldom sees through the day light. A look at her and she brought the memories flooding back. He thought she looked
like a lady doused in a curve hugging, wet, shiffon, white saree on the eve of
Holi, the festival of colours. He brushed her. She Blushed. A delicate shade of
baby pink. They made up with each other.
She had her priceless moment
of triumph when the pen signed “A creative mess is better than a tidy idleness”.
