Mohabbat Ke Rang

It happened quietly, like the sun slipping over the horizon. Your eyes met mine for a moment too brief, yet it stretched into forever. I wondered, could a nazm begin with silence? For in that stolen second, my heart wrote its first verse, and the world ceased to exist. Love, at first, is a garden in spring soft, fragrant, and full of life. Your laughter sounded like ghungroo, ringing softly in forgotten corners of my soul. We tiptoed through stolen time, afraid to breathe too loud lest the spell break, and reality reclaim us. The words escaped me that day not perfect, not rehearsed, but real. I love you, I said, and for a moment, the world listened. You smiled, the kind of smile that made me believe even the moon waited for our story. And just like that, I belonged to you. Love, in its fullness, is a quiet joy like the smell of mitti after rain. Your hand fit mine so effortlessly, I began to wonder if fingers were made to intertwine. Even the ordinary turned magical a walk, a glance, a cup of tea shared. The world moved fast, but we chose to move slowly, in a rhythm only we knew. Even love stumbles sometimes like a dancer missing a step. The words were sharp that night, piercing the air like broken glass. You turned your face away, and I realized how painful silence can be. Yet beneath the anger, love still smouldered, waiting to be spoken again. It wasn’t sudden love doesn’t disappear overnight. It slips through cracks, unnoticed, like sand escaping a closed fist. Your voice grew distant, your gaze wandered, and the ‘us’ in our stories became ‘you’ and ‘me.’ I held on to what remained, but even my hands grew tired. Some goodbyes aren’t spoken, they are felt like the heaviness of air before a storm. You walked away, but left pieces of you behind a song, a scarf, a memory. And here I stand, in the ruins of what we built, wondering if love ever truly leaves, or just learns to live differently. Love ends, they say but it doesn’t. It lingers like an old fragrance, stubborn in the folds of my soul. Some days, I forget. Some days, I see you in the crowd. And though time has moved on, I still pause to ask myself, Did you feel it too? by Shreyas Nair