Reading Vinod Kumar Shukla’s “Deewar Mein Ek Khidki Rehti Thi” Living in a world where people are constantly running towards materialistic things that seem to have no end, it has almost become a crime to want an ordinary life. Everyone is looking for an extraordinary partner, carrying expectations so high that marriage sometimes feels like a lottery, you never really know what you are going to get. We are all in such a hurry to reach somewhere, and yet, we don’t know where we are actually going.
In the middle of this fast moving world, I came across a book that forced me to stop. Deewar Mein Ek Khidki Rehti Thi by Vinod Kumar Shukla. The book felt like an endless serenity. It made me slow down and look at something the beauty of an ordinary life. I had never been particularly fond of the idea of marriage. But after reading this book, I found myself falling in love with the ordinary life of Raghuvar Prasad and Sonsi. They made me realise that perhaps you don’t need a big mansion to build a beautiful life. Sometimes, a single room can be enough to hold an entire life, just as it was for Raghuvar Prasad and Sonsi.
When two people are in love with each other’s ordinary, they create their own extraordinary world the world that belongs only to them. Exactly like Raghuvar Prasad and Sonsi, who created their own little paradise outside the window of their room. During the day, they were busy with life, just like everyone else. But at night, beyond that window, love seemed to bloom.
At night, Raghuvar Prasad and Sonsi would step into that world together, leaving behind the smallness of their room. where they could simply be two people in love. He would carry her on his back they would bathe in the pond, play, wander around, and spend time together without needing any grand occasion to make those moments special. There was something so innocent about the way they found happiness in these little things. They didn’t need expensive dates or flowers to prove that they were in love. They had something much simpler a world of their own, where being together was enough.
There is another part of their love that stayed with me the way even nature seemed to become a language between them when they were apart. “आकाश एक दूसरे को लिखी चिट्ठी होगी।”it is a line where the sky become the medium of communication between them ,when they missed each other.There are a few books that quietly create a space in your heart and then live there rent free. This was one of them. It made me imagine a kind of life that, perhaps, anyone who reads this book would secretly crave to live a life that isn’t extraordinary in the way the world usually defines it, but is extraordinary because of the love, imagination, and little moments it holds.
“मैं कहाँ हूँ?” रघुवर प्रसाद ने कमरा झाँकते हुए सोनसी से पूछा…
“मेरे पास हो।” सोनसी ने कहा।
