The Balcony

It started raining. I was in my balcony with a cup of chai. My Bluetooth speaker was belting out 'Ranjish Hee Sahi, Dil dukhane ke liye aa'

Every night you come to your balcony for a smoke. Maybe you know I'm here, but you never look to where I'm sitting. Some nights I hear the strains of the guitar coming from your balcony when I'm lying in my room, sleepless.

I know that you like your coffee cold with a spoon of sugar in it, pasta for dinner, you like to smoke cigarettes on your balcony every night after work and when it rains you sleep there. I know it sounds stalkerish, but when our Balconies face each other, it's inevitable that I know.

I don't know why, but lately I have this desire to talk to you, ask about your day and his. I haven't seen him since the lockdown began, the other day I saw you taking down all his pictures, you were talking angrily on the phone, you took out everything that looked like was his and threw it out. You smoked a cigarette right after. What is curious is I had never seen you drink.

Today you have a glass of amber-colored liquid in your hand. You are lost in thoughts. I watch you and wonder if grief becomes easier after we are inebriated or do we drink to forget the things that are making us feel. Maybe you are drinking 'cause it makes everything more bearable or makes it easier to forget him.

I wonder if you realised that love was fading. Did you notice the distance and silence that was becoming too much that even I could see the pain He wore like a cloak, that some nights your arguments could be heard in my room, that every time you said something hurtful I saw him breaking a little and how you hid all your pain and helplessness in that angry silence. Maybe you both just needed to remind each other that there is love, just lost in between the silence.

Maybe He will come back, I hope he does.
.
The song has stopped playing, but I can hear you humming-
.
"Ranjish hee sahi, Dil dukhane ke liye aa.
Aa phir se mujhe Chhod ke jaane ke liye aa"
.//