Yaadon Ki Baaraat

A self-proclaimed intellectual will

Always negate what people around them

Feel about the tiny pleasures of life,

Like touching the wings of a butterfly,

Or watching your favourite sports team win,

Or lying on your mother's lap as she walks

You back to childhood with stories from your past;

But sometimes, it is the drifting of

Long lost melodies from the radio

As you are driving back home on a rainy night;

You almost ignore the song when your

Once-cherished lines hit the note -

Your hand slowly reaches the knob to turn up the volume,

While you sing the song, surprised that

You still remember most of the lyrics;

Sometimes the lyrics coming through are

"Paas aayiye ke hum nahi aayenge baar baar",

Taking you back to when you first fell in love,

And wrote down "Lag Jaa Gale" in a letter to your lover -

You wonder where they are today,

Whether they remember you like you do;

On some other days, it's "Yaaron dosti badi hi haseen hai",

And you think about those carefree days

When you'd be sitting with your squad on the back bench,

Making paper planes and hiding under the table

If it accidentally hit the strict Physics teacher;

"Thande thande paani se nahaana chahiye" sends you laughing,

As you go back to the cold December mornings

Of your childhood, running around the house

Refusing to bathe, while your grandfather would

Sing this to you, and you'd eventually give in;

You almost end up calling your best friend from school,

When "Tere Jaisa Yaar Kahaan" brings up flashbacks

From that one time when he saved you

By lying to your parents that you were with him,

When you were busy puppy-loving with your crush from class;

You hear Palash Sen singing "Maeri yaad woh yaad woh aayeri",

And shed a silent tear because you fought

With your mother last night over a phone call;

All of these memories running in your mind,

You don't realize that you have reached your home,

When you finally do, you leave the car with a smile,

And infinite imageries from the past;

It's funny how songs whose existence you had

Most certainly forgotten stir up a riot

Of emotions in us, even when the people

Who gave us those memories may not be in our lives anymore.

//NaPoWriMo, Day 21