Dada hari ni vav

Trickling droplets from some broken gargoyle-faced gutter, pierced the silence with its crystalline clarity.

Silence. This place was benevolently bestowed with silence, only to be enhanced by mild insect sounds and one's own footsteps.

And when it rains... the symphonic downpour echoes off from the time-washed walls. Every kink of stone etching bounces off the rhythmic sound and the place reverberates with a music, fit only for gods.

And two lucky mortals, who decided to sneak into this heavenly brewing of music on one rainy evening witnessed sights of ethereal quality.

Light and shadow seemed two lovers in disguise. One hiding from the other in haunting nooks and the other seeking it, drawing it out with an arrogant possessiveness.

As the sun sketched its route across th amber skies and clouds erased it with their dirty black rubber markings; as small drops of rain huddled and poured in pellets, light and shadow had a romantic tryst.

Birds called out from crevices unseen, egging one to find out the other. Behind a pillar, beneath that arch...they were playing all over.

And there was none to disturb their solitary romance until two mortals dared to walk in. Even then, they invited them into their game, wrapped them in a spell of silence, rendered them speechless with the beauty of their selves and made them stunned as prisoners to their bewitching game.

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Human hands had crudely scrawled a name in charcoal across those stone walls that were gently handled by the hands of time.


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Someday in those days of yore, a young lady must have walked in by moonlight, through the unguarded portals of the royal vav.

Cautious, coy and trembling with the fear of rebellion, she must have walked down, one step after another, anklet sounds resounding in treble its soft whisper.

Eyes alight with the prospective joy and feet suddenly throwing caution to the wind, the lady must have flown down those last few steps with an urgency that beauty must have triggered,

A hollow pit of moonlit water must have reflected in her beady eyes.

Slowly she must have begun to undress before her eyes met those of a handsome stranger. Her clothed beauty was unbearable to him, where could he muster enough strength to see her naked self. he had made himself visible, leaving the refuge of the pillar where some beautiful sonnets were being penned in praise of the moon.

Their eyes must have met and drawn meaning from one another; for suddenly they were strangers no more. Time stood still, reason lay dead, there was something too beautiful for even a poet to capture.

He must have tried to walk towards her and she must have walked a little away. They must have played this game of hide and seek for seconds, minutes, hours... or maybe years!

They must have continued and time must have hidden this place from mortal eyes, lest they spoil its sanctity. Love consecrated the monument. Things must have stayed still. For when my eyes first galloped across every inch of wall, every little carving, it told me the tale, of the beautiful lady called light and the handsome man named shadow and how, they continue their beautiful romance within...


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(This was written as part of our editing exercise's documentation process. We were expected to go visit places that we would like to document and write about it. This was the immediate response I had to the place- Dada ni vav, Ahmedabad.)