Kabir

The fire crackled and sputtered. But I wasn’t in a small wooden house in the middle of nowhere. I was far away in a crowd, watching a stage bathed in bright lights. Watching as a boy and girl walked on to it.

‘And then?’ I said to Aman.

His eyes were shining. He shook his head. ‘It was almost a disaster. I saw her freeze. Saw her hear the opening music, look at the crowd and just freeze. I stepped forward and gently touched her shoulder. She began to breathe again. Then she started singing.

‘You should have seen that crowd. Huge. Noisy. Uncontrollable. And then she began to sing, and all the noise slowly began to die down. Her voice did that. I think the whole hall was holding its breath. By the time I joined her in singing, they were listening to us. Really listening. We had them.

‘We sang a song that I had written. I wrote it for her.’

The stars you named,

Became ours forever,

They watch in a still dark sky.

The love you named,

Can leave me never,

It can never die.

I will count the stars as I wait for you,

And make the whole sky ours.

This world is not enough to hold

Our love, so we reach for stars.