उसके घर से दूर नहीं है मेरा घर, पर रस्ते में ज़माना पड़ता है!

उसके घर से दूर नहीं है मेरा घर, पर रस्ते में ज़माना पड़ता है!

Her house isn’t far from mine; the birds could glide the distance between our terraces in a single slow wing-beat. Yet on the road a whole era unrolls—rickshaw bells, gossiping chai-stalls, mango trees and monsoon clouds arguing in bass thunder.

Each evening I traverse that corridor with the impatience of a lover and the devotion of a pilgrim, carrying the small lamp of our love cupped inside both palms.

Traffic lights blink like arrhythmic heartbeats, aunties whisper their editorials, and the universe adds extra seconds to test the stamina of romance, but I collect them like pearls for your necklace.

We are two pages of the same diary separated by a thumb-worn bookmark called society, yet ink keeps seeping across the crease, spelling a relationship written in defiant whispers.

What is a mile to romance when the soul has already arrived?
Between your veranda and my balcony lies an invisible gulmohar avenue where promises bloom out of thin air, scattering petals onto auto-rickshaw roofs below.

Some evenings the distance shrinks to a sigh when the wind carries the coriander scent of your kitchen; other nights it stretches to mythology, yet our longing threads the constellations like fairy lights refusing to switch off.

And when at last you open the gate, the clocks surrender, the crowd fades, and the city bows out, leaving only us—love, relationship, romance—and the sweet knowledge that I would cross a thousand eternities just to hear you say my name, again and again, no pause.