The incoming flight was delayed from Lucknow Airport to Delhi. 2007, if I correctly remember. The day before Holi. I had just shifted to Gurgaon then. My daughter & wife were eagerly waiting for me to return, we were scheduled for an upscale holi celebration followed by cocktail & lunch at a neighbor’s, the next day. My recent relocation was taking its toll on my hobbies, I had almost stopped listening to music & used to read books only related to business. Bored, I settled down on one of those dirty, airport seats in a quiet corner & opened my laptop. The person next to me looked up from his book & smiled at me warmly. In his early 40’s, he had a very soft face almost like a girl’s. With a sharp nose, done up eyebrows and a hint of kohl in his eyes, he looked very distinctive. A sandal colored Long kurta and a dark maroon dhoti perfectly complimented his lean torso. He wore his long, gelled back hair in a neat pony.
We spoke at length. Was fascinated to know that he could sing thumris and could dance Kathak at the same time. He had performed in most of Europe, US, and Asia pacific. He sang a beautiful Hori & a Purab Ang folk for me. We shook hands before melting in the check-in queue after an hour.
Many years later I have seen his live performances on YouTube, his dance steps were musical, voice ever melodious, and his whirls were like a dervish’s…
Purandar Bhaskar (Puru), Mumbai, 2009, the day before holi…
I spotted him at the Film producer’s party in Bandra. I had composed & choreographed two dance numbers in that box-office epic. He came to say a quick hello to me. A budding actor, was stunning as a sinister drug mafia in the chartbuster. Tall, muscular, with a chiseled face & body, he was destined in my life. We took exactly a week to move in together in our newly rented Bandra abode. He was always short of work, I started using all my personal contacts to get him ‘enough’ work. I even melted my FD’s to buy a second hand Tata Safari for him. He started dating a starlet, off and on. It irritated me. Whenever he used to go out for searching work or to some shooting location, I started tracking him, he stopped replying my text messages. Last night we had a bad fight, when he came back from an outdoor shoot, he was modelling for an upcoming shirts brand. I was in the middle of a composition where a courtesan is begging for a roof repair of her dilapidating bungalow, he walked in to the living room, drunk. I tried to hug him, he shoved me off. He switched off my video camera, where I was recording the dance composition while singing the folk which I had collected from interior village of Uttar Pradesh, a couple of years back. He went straight to the kitchen, heated up some leftover khichdi & ate in the kitchen before crashing on the living room sofa, ignoring me completey.
I decided to end it. Call it an affair, a relationship gone bad, I couldn’t take it any more. I had texted the starlet about us the previous day, and he came to know about it soon. He was bitter. Last night when I straddled him thinking to make up for our fight, he pushed me so hard that my head hit the solid wood lamp table. It still felt hurt, had an inch long cut which took some time for me to stop the bleeding. I curled into the sofa next to him silently for one last time, his breath smelt of alcohol and tobacco. The next morning it will end, all of it. How I loved the way he used to spoon me when we slept together. I wiped off a tear rolling down my cheek.
I suddenly woke up to my surprise. It was almost dawn. I was forced on all fours. He was coming up heavily on me. I almost fainted with pleasure, after a very long time. It was time to forget all our differences. Then, suddenly, I could feel the intense pain on my back. The sharp knife had almost pierced my left lung. He kept on stabbing me, though I couldn’t feel the pain anymore. Blood was creating a large, red puddle beneath me. For one last time, a Thumri strain came out of my voice, very faint. All the musical notes were just perfect. I heard myself singing the Hori for one last time… ‘Aaj rachaungi saanvre se hori, daiya’…..
*this story purely is a work of fiction. Doesn’t represent or refer to any published news or a real person, dead or alive.
arunprakashray 
Daroon…fluid and grasped me completely