Kiska Rasta Dekhe?

on romance

I have been walking a lot lately. It has made me observant in ways I did not expect. I notice the way people walk, some people walk in a very trained, almost rehearsed way while some walk in a very laid back manner. Some people keep their hands in their pocket at all times, some always have their phone in their hand, some like to wear their bag on the left shoulder, some on both. It is flabbergasting how much I observe people within 5 seconds of seeing them.

I have been listening to Kiska Rasta Dekhe by Kishore Kumar almost every day, at least two or three times, on my walk to the library. You can listen to it exactly one and a half times before you reach the library.

Last night, while walking back to my hostel with my friends, one of the girls pointed towards the sky and said that the moon looked beautiful. My writer brain immediately went, “Sabki apni aankhein, sabka apna chand.” (Everyone has their own eyes, everyone has their own moon). Everyone was all smiles and ‘wah wah’ But I think beneath all these layers of poetry and fancy words there exists a very faint heart, waiting for Cupid’s bow to pierce through it. There’s a certain irony in it. I spend so much time convincing myself that I am merely romantic about the world, when perhaps some small, inconvenient part of me is still waiting to be a real romantic.

I have been feeling particularly romantic these past two or three days. Not romantic for someone—I don’t do that. Just romantic, rather. And yet, there is something almost amusing about someone like me suddenly feeling romantic when Kishore Kumar keeps asking,

Kiska rasta dekhe, ae dil, ae saudaai?
Meelon hai khamoshi, barson hai tanhaai.

(Whose road are you waiting for, restless heart?
There are miles of silence, years of solitude.)

“Kiska rasta dekhe.”

The question stayed with me. I thought koi is raste dekhe toh unki nazar ko motiyon ki tarah pehen lu. (If someone were to look down this road, perhaps I would wear their gaze like pearls.) I read all kinds of romantics, Faiz, remains to be a favourite.

There exists a grave risk in looking into someone’s eyes. Either you see your world or you lose your world; either you swim the deepest oceans or drown in a few drops; either you bow down and pray or you spit and curse. And the irony is, you often do both into the same eyes.

Last year, I told someone that no matter what I feel, the sum of energies in this world will always remain the same. “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.” But lately, I have been thinking that perhaps they did destroy some love. There aren’t many romantics in the wild.

Na koi tera, na koi mera, phir kiski yaad aayi?
Ho, kiska rasta dekhe, ae dil, ae saudaai?

Sometimes I wonder how many of the things I find beautiful exist only because I am looking at them. How many things pass by my eyes, they reside inside my orbits, do they reside in someone else’s too? When I look at the fallen flowers near my hostel, I feel inexplicably happier when they have fallen in pairs. At least they have their partner. When I hum a song, does anyone think of the same song?

Perhaps this is what walking has done to me.