Moon and Stars

काश तेरे चेहरे पे 

चेचक के दाग होते 

चाँद तो आप है ही 

सितारे भी साथ होते.

Kash tere Chehre Pe 

Chechak Ke Daag Hote 

Chand to Aap hai hi 

Sitare bhi Saath hote.

"What does this mean? Tell me"

"Who gave you this?", I ask smiling slyly.

"Who else do you think? ", She asks with a beaming proud face slightly shadowed by her coy smile.

"I could guess...", I say, laughing and holding her hands. 

"So you have started exchanging notes too, like all lovers", I say with a big grin.

"Yeah. We have. But look how cruel of him to write this in a language I don't know. Tell me what this is. You know hindi right?"

I smile.

"He says ...he wishes your face has the stains of chicken pox. "

"What?", Her face falls flat and her mouth opens to a big O. "He said that?"

"Wait. Let me complete.", I say, but now I am stressed that she isn't pleased. 

"It's a poem." And moving my face back to the piece of paper I repeat...

"He ...", now she stares right into my eyes her face becoming a little dark, I feel her eyes looking accusingly at me. I fake a confident smile, avert her eyes and reread.

"He wishes your face has the stains of chicken pox. 

The stains would add stars to the moon that you are."

I complete my fatal translation, smiling at her, trying to look my normal self. 

But she is not pleased.

"Is that really what he wrote?"

"Well, it's a beautiful simile isn't it?", I ask her.

"Is he demeaning me? Isn't he pointing out the pock marks on my face? Are they that bad? Am I not looking better than ...", she names several girls known to the two of us.

Her long list really worries me. I am waiting for her to add my name to her list. But thankfully she spares me. She turns her head sadly after a deep breath signalling the end of list. And after a few minutes of silence looks at me and asks, "Are you sure that is what is written?"

I am almost in tears now, and taking my Hindi - Tamil dictionary show her word to word. She halfheartedly believes me.

The silence between us grows and my brain, overthinking and always on duty, starts wondering why my name didn't come up in her list of girls who were not as beautiful as S. And suddenly my evil inner voice laughs hard and tells me, you sadly didn't make it to the list of beauties.

Somehow while several of our conversations remain forgotten, this shayari and our conversation that day still remain etched in my memory. I have checked the meaning several times and I am sure I translated it correctly. But why did it make her angry I know not.

I have always thought it was the most beautiful thing to say. But I also wonder how can stars be present in the moon. Was that simile right? Though not a masterpiece, it was lovely wasn't it? Only now I understand it was not his original work, since it is all over the net. He must have written it from memory, or copied from some book or taken a friend's help.

How could she not see the beauty of it I wonder. There was a poet in her and we both discussed poetry for hours during those days, drooling over words, their usage, their use in other poems, and other similar poems.

Was her pock marks all that was in her mind then and kept her literary taste away? Thinking about it now, wasn't her beauty unique, only because of those light pink marks on her milky face? Weren't they highlighting her face brilliantly. How could that ever be a demeaning thing to say?