The Brook

Noor Ae Firdaus means heavenly fragrance, and I felt it when I was sitting very close to him. It was around the same time, at about 6:30 in the morning. It was a cold November morning; Vadodara is never this cold, but I guess I had never experienced Vadodara at 6:30 in the morning before. It was a long, chilly drive of around 30 minutes, and we arrived at the same place where he had taken me for our first date in August of the previous year. But this time, it was different. It was intimate, sensual, and pure.

We sat on the mat, yet we could still feel the wet grass beneath us. The cold breeze kept hitting us as we sat on the bank of that little brook. A lot was happening around us—me trying my best to make a portrait of a lady, birds chirping, dogs roaming nearby, music playing on his tablet (though I can’t remember which song), and he reading from an Urdu poetry book. I sat very close to him, close enough that our shoulders touched.

We didn’t say anything, didn’t even try to talk, but just stayed in that moment, almost pretending to be engrossed in our activities, in complete silence for what felt like a long time. There was warmth, peace, comfort, and a strange familiarity between us. I wanted him to sit even closer. I wanted to rest my head on his right shoulder and feel the cold breeze on my face—or maybe move closer still, to feel his breath, hear his heartbeat, or simply feel the warmth of his whole body against mine.