Butterflies Cling

Butterflies Cling  Something that clings is a leech like substance in mothers womb. It shapes into bones and flesh, and then soul enters into it after sometimes to create a life.

Staffroom in our college Bhaderwah has a unique aura and ambience within and outside. It has men and women with varied dispositions carrying smiles and frowns. It has a beautiful garden outside with a Chinar tree branching out amidst of the garden since time immemorial. And small plants whose fragile branches carry few birds left to chirp in the evening. Some flowers attract butterflies and few honeybees. I have seen these butterflies donot sit rather they cling. The main entrance of the garden has a long pole on which the tri-color Indian flag is unfurled. Somedays the wind blows the folded flag to stretch its shadows on the college library. 

But the story begins with the butterfly because whenever it sits, rather clings on a flower, a beautiful women with eternal aesthetics unlocks the camera and shoots the scene. I feel for the fragile wings that try to sit, it flies and lands many times, circumambulates the flower and finally clings. I don’t know with what affinity she sucks the flower but the eye that catches the moment feels happy. So do people in the staffroom while kissing the brim of their tea cups prepared after a long discussion. 

Tea in staffroom is a blessing that puts Riyaz on toes. Riyaz ji, as one beautiful soul calls him by this name, speaks volumes of human character. “He knows nothing about making tea” is the exposition scene in our staffroom. Deep Rawat a man who walks on earth with humility and lives with simplicity hates his tea making. For Deep sir Riyaz hides the keys and masala like a mother-in-law of 90’s. He controls the Parle biscuits of staffroom. 

Sun always shines outside the staffroom over the shoulder blades of Himalayas. It peeps through pine and oozes the rays in the lawn of staffroom. It shines with a purpose. Humans need vitamin D and flowers need butterflies when sun rises. They transfer the pollen from one flower to another, suck the nectar and continue life. When sun falls on our shoulders, the warmth it gives is immensely powerful and warm. Its warmth is like a balm over pain while eyes soothing after watching the honey bee dance on a flower. 

I have seen fish swimming for love and life. It does surprise me to see the moon rotating for sun  and sun expressing for us sitting in that lawn on plastic chairs. But the camera, mind and the eye that catches this moment has a sacred soul. The women who catches everything in staffroom in her camera. Be it you, me or butterfly or the rhymes of discussion, and may be few poetic lines sung after the Pitza parties and eating brownies. She never misses the changing color of Chinar or the leaves fallen thereby around the stem of chinar. 

I caught that moment when leaves grow old, turn green, then red and yellow, and then fall. Then a broom of a staff member collects them, burns them into ashes. I never miss this rise and fall in nature. In Kashmir we use these ashes for Kangiri, for warmth during intense cold. In Bhaderwah dead leaves are buried under snow and enriches the soil. The snow also falls on the mountain of Kalash above which rises that sun that makes the butterfly dance on that flower. 

These days snow is gradually melting, letting the water cascade from mountains that runs, murmurs, babbles, ripples and sings while striking with the stones and finally falls into Chinab. The gentle sound of the water is peace and power to my soul. In the staff room, we drink the water that springs from the Himalayas. It is the same water that boils and lives in the tea cups sipped and puffed in front of the dancing butterflies which were clinging to flowers while a camera catches it. I wanted to thank her for directing and producing this writing piece. The scene has overwhelmed and excited me, making me eager to see it in my writing. They say poets and writers die, but their ink never dies. She will wither someday like that leaf of a Chinar, but her presence has been felt like the shadow of a Chinar in the summer that gave respite to fellow travellers in mediaeval times.

I have taken a shade from her in the heat of travelling, like the butterfly has sucked the nectar. But is this not a complete life flown through a stage?  Let’s exile from the campus and search a new story. Let other people come and enjoy the sun over Kalash and Chinar and butterfly and Tea on a plastic chair. I have drunk my part of nectar. 

Thank u butterfly! Thank you, camera women!