In the stealth of night the earth was in dead sleep. But I was wide awake and waited for that voice and that tune on the violin. It struck 1 am and now I heard that painful tune on the violin, once again. It was being played at a short distance somewhere hidden in the thickness of the dark. I had never seen the musician-singer. But it was a lady with a broken and exhausted heart. I had never seen her. But every night she would come with her poignant songs and her songs would disappear when the greedy jackals would start howling from the nearby forest. Sometimes I had heard her crying too. Every night that unseen lady’s voice and the heart-rending tune of her violin would make me cry.

A smoke of mystery had covered her thickly because she loved to stay and sing only in the DARK.

The voice inexplicably and mysteriously pained my heart day by day……..I loved that voice and that aggrieved lady………

She used to sing beautifully playing the violin herself. And I knew she is a fountain of LOVE and PAIN.I loved her sad voice, I loved her heart-breaking tune on the violin and I also loved her miserably coughing in the intervening periods. I knew not what was there but I simply loved her. The dark nights, the foggy atmosphere and her painful voice were my soul’s solace. I knew she did not know me but she understood me…..

That night also the clock struck 1 am. And the tune was today excruciatingly mournful. The sea of pain was in high tide…….when I listened her I was lost in the labyrinth of my unhappy past and the decade-long loneliness that I was in……

Abruptly, I heard a terrible spasm of smoker’s cough! And I heard the music stop and the song too. The lady could not sing further. I heard her violently coughing. The night was cold and dark. And I pined for the lady singing again. In my mind the song lingered, also the painful tune on the violin……..But she did not sing again nor the tune of the violin filled the air……..

I knew not how I moved in the direction of the singer-musician. But I neared her. I neared her more than I was nearer to my SOUL. Now I found her to be half-asleep on a cold cement bench because of her life-long exertion. She had peacefully leaned on the cement bench after spitting blood out of her ever smoking lungs. She had already smoked a lot and the hard and burning smell of tobacco was the only sign of her presence in the mid-night ……. I felt she was one whom I knew from the last MILLENIUM. And I love her so much. I raised her with my trembling hands and held her sleepy motionless body in my arms and pressed my cheek in hers and saw tear drops from my eyes rolling down and touching her silent lips those smoked and sang so much…….. THE NIGHT WAS DARK AND DEEP BUT I LOVED TO STAY IN THE DARK FOREVER, WITH HER. I simply loved her because SHE WAS LOVE AND PAIN……