She bent gently on the Gulmarg north slope and asked for my hand,
\nI pulled her up and the two of us started walking in the moonlight,
\nThe mountainous halo draped Gulmarg in quiet elegance.<\/p>\n
Why is Gulmarg so beautiful?
\nIt is because here the mountains and skies meet in such a majestic way,
\nAnd the pine trees stand in such graceful solemnity to point to the almighty.<\/p>\n
Kinara pulled me down to the ground wanting to sit down,
\nI obeyed her without objection,
\nWe looked at each other\u2019s eerie moon-drenched faces
\nAnd instantly and
simultaneously realized
\nThat there could not have been a more romantic scene than that.
\nShe pulled my hand to her torso and said, \u201cTell me, you will never leave me.\u201d
\nI looked deeply into her eyes pondering her question,
\nBut before I could frame an answer she replied for me,
\n\u201c In front of the eternity that we are witnessing at this moment,
\nLet us take an oath that only an eternity could break us.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was as light as a bushel of conifers:
\nPetite and sleek, a shaft of velvet gleaming in the moonlit skies.
\nI lifted her with one arm and threw her away in front of me
\nTo see how light she was.
\nShe was not hurt but shrieked with cherubic delight.<\/p>\n
The moonlight slow-danced with mellowed euphoria,
\nHallowing Gulmarg\u2019s starry dome above.<\/p>\n
She asked me if I had gone out with any other woman in Gulmarg\u2019s moonscape,
\nI replied that it might have been only in my dreams, which she did not believe.<\/p>\n
Love is the reward for sacrifices one makes,
\nPain is the catharsis for one\u2019s freedom,
\nDeath is a punctuation mark in the search for the absolute,
\nLife is merely the vehicle of a being,
\nGulmarg is not the truth but a road to it.<\/p>\n
Suddenly we came to a stopping point
\nAt the Gulmarg boundary leading to Tangmarg,
\nI realized that we had to part and was struck by pain,
\nKinara would not leave my hand,
\nShe asked me if I would see her again.
\nAs I was coming from Pakistani intelligence I was hesitant to lie,
\nSo, I suddenly pushed myself in the direction of my unit,
\nGlancing briefly at her crumbling face,
\nTears flowed unabashedly on it,
\nUltimately, she released her grip on my hand
\nAnd after one heart-full look at me told me,
\n\u201cAdil, let\u2019s never forget each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
I ran toward my unit on the other side of the mountain,
\nSuddenly I was startled by a helicopter noise,
\nI looked and saw a Pakistani helicopter descending in front of her,
\nI ran toward it yelling that she was my friend, not a spy,
\nParatroopers jumped to the ground and pounced toward Kinara,
\nSpraying a hail of bullets,
\nShe shrieked violently, \u201cI am not a spy, I am a child of God,\u201d
\nBy the time I reached her she lay in a pool of blood –
\nAs if draped in a red sari –
\nInundating the ground around her,
\nIn a few moments a face that smiled so well became still.<\/p>\n
I hurled obscenities on troops,
\nThey banded my mouth and handcuffed me,
\nI shook my arms and legs in protest
\nBut was tossed into the helicopter,
\nWhich became airborne momentarily,
\nI saw Kinara lying below as if in deep sleep
\nBut the grand mountains of Gulmarg stood silent.<\/p>\n
After I reached my unit
\nThe universe seemed broken into a billion pieces,
\nHeaven and hell disappeared,
\nI was not sure if God existed.<\/p>\n
Suffern,
New York,
May 30, 2015
\nwww.kaulscorner.com
\nmaharaj.kaul@yahoo.com
\nNotes:
\nRev. 3: May 30, 2015
\nRev. 2: April 7, 2015 (This revision is not in the book A Remnant of Time)
\nRev. 1: October 4, 2014
\nOriginal: September 8, 2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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