A Pack Of 18 Pencils

I stayed in the attic today most part of the day. Cleaning, mostly memories and partly books  ..

One of the most colourful tangible as well as intangible discovery was a pack of pencils, colour pencils. Bought in some other life yet only a few calenders back, the pack brought with it a gushing spring of varied emotions.

I remembered that hot humid afternoon, that narrow street during the Hajj days crowded by pilgrims from all over the world, that huge chocolate cone melting in my hand without which I never made a return journey after each prayer (talk about being spoiled :P), that small shop where I had hopped in only after amman had promised that it wont take her long, the agility with which I had looked for what could easily be compared to ammunition for a soldier. And how I beamed as I stood at the counter way before her and the tender loving smile that spread on her face on seeing what I had in my hand, like it can only on a mother's face. 

And the frame just freezes here.

I keep looking at that face. That knowing smile. Those tiny beads of sweat shimmering at her forehead. Those eyes looking at me with their characteristic gentleness.

That smile.

Whats wrong with this laptop screen! it gets blurred again and again. How would I tell then how she looked? How did she smile when she saw those colour pencils and writing pad set on the counter in front of me? 

I remember that scent of her as I hugged her when we were back at the hotel. I always used to, whenever she bought me anything. Like everytime after finishing that cone which she'd buy me after each prayer at Haram from the ice cream parlour that lay in our way to hotel!

I couldn't live without paper and pen. She knew it. I loved to write. And I loved to draw. Its not that I am professing some inherent genius of a writer with in. Its just that I was too used to scribbling. Writing random ideas. No full length manuscripts, just plain random musings. Ideas. Thoughts. To do's. Sketches. Drawings. Anything. I liked the smell of the paper, the sound that a pencil mark makes on its virgin surface. 

She knew it. 

I look at this pack of 18 pencils, their coloured tips. And I look for the face these can never draw. The radiance these can never colour.

Yet I clutch the pack fondly for I saw that face as I drew that pack out of a dust laden forgotten box. 

I try to imagine the drawings these pencils carved, but I guess those fell into the same bin as those manuscripts that I scribbled - a log of each and every moment of one of the most exquisite experiences of my life. Its the bin of the Arctic zone that I stepped later in life. 

Thinking of the Arctic zone, my mind again gropes for the warmth ...

Guess what else did I find with that pack of the most colourful pencils?

Its a book mark. Wrapped safely. With care and wonder I unwrapped it trying to recall why would have I kept it like this. I couldn't recall the reason, but here I share with you what it reads ....

One hundred years 

from now,

it will not matter 

what kind of 

car I drove,

What kind of 

house 

I lived in,

How much I had 

in my 

bank account,

Nor what my 

clothes looked like.

But the world may be 

a little better place

because 

I was important

in the life

of a child.

I am sorry cant write more. 

Something is wrong with this screen, gets too blurry again. And for heavens's sake what is wrong with this machine! It just wouldn't stop playing this silly song over and over!