ہم درگاہوں کے مجاور

**The writing prompt had been 'platonic love'.**


Subcontinent is a hot climate region. The geographical temperament of the region reflects in its culture, its customs, its traditions, its mood as well.

Our spices are strong. Our festivals are loud. Our stories are intense.

Hum haal khailnay walay loag hain.
ہم حال کھیلنے والے لوگ ہیں.

We dance when happy, we wail when upset.

When we like someone, we love.

Bus, that's how it works.
Oscillating between extremes. Irrespective of gender, irrespective of our mutual unawareness of each other.

We move too fast to be intimate. Touch too strong to be tender. With all that who we've evolved as, all our senses are hyped. We expect and lose hope too quick. "we've forgotten how to linger. to drift lightly— be near to things and people and to not always touch. to appreciate how a thing will open toward us, in slow phases like the moon".

And since the only way we know of acknowledging others is by loving ... loving our way, we know nothing of how to inhale and grasp the essence of the other. We know nothing about connecting and building bridges. We know nothing about how to allow a passage of exchange of ideas, about how to make room for the other... We move too fast for it.

We know Sachal Sarmast. We recognize Anarkali.

Our love converses the way we do. Over the top.

And when it comes to loving, the best we know how to love is by building a shrine. Be the person dead or living.