The Borrowed Pulse

Sometimes,

I feel a lump in my throat
for someone else's sorrow.
A stranger's grief, a character on screen,
a friend's silence after a smile.

And I wonder—

“कौन रोता है किसी और की ख़ातिर ऐ दोस्त

सब को अपनी ही किसी बात पे रोना आया”

 (Hum Dono movie: Who weeps for someone else’s sorrow, everyone remembers something of their own)

 

Maybe we cry for echoes, not people.

Because someone else’s heartbreak reminds us of our own unfinished chapters.
A goodbye we never voiced,
a hurt we folded and kept away
in a drawer named “later.”

 

Then again, we hear a happy song, someone giggling loudly across the street,
and we smile with them. 

“ज़िंदगी ...कैसी है पहेली, हाए; कभी तो हंसाये, कभी ये रुलाये

(Movie Anand: Life is a puzzle, sometimes it makes you laugh, and sometimes cry)

So strange, how happiness, too, can be infectious
like a long-lost fragrance returning unexpectedly.

Is it empathy?
Or memory dressed in someone else’s costume?

 

I once read of a trekker,

who conquered Everest against all odds—

and somehow, a stranger’s triumph felt personal

as if their summit reminded me that even foolish dreams aren’t beyond reach

 

But why does the heart bend at corners that don’t belong to its own house?

“है मीठी उलझन, बैरी अपना मन

अपना ही होके सहे दर्द पराये, दर्द पराये” 

(Movie Anand: The problem was deeper, my own heart became the enemy
even though belonging to me, yet bearing the pain of another)

 

Our hearts betray us—
feeling pain that doesn’t have our name on it,
feeling happy flutter
as if we earned it

But maybe that’s the secret:
We’re not meant to be islands.
We are oceans,
where every wave remembers
the tide before it. Deep down we all are connected.

We rejoice, because we have longed.

We ache, because we have loved.

We dream, because we have hoped

And sometimes,
We simply feel because we are alive.

 

So if you find yourself crying
at a movie ending,
or smiling at a stranger's wedding,
don’t ask why.

Just know—
somewhere inside you,
a forgotten song remembered its tune.

"कभी किसी को मुकम्मल जहाँ नहीं मिलता; कहीं ज़मीन कहीं आसमाँ नहीं मिलता."

(Movie Ahista Ahista: No one ever gets the entire universe)

And maybe that’s the quiet truth—

completeness is rare,

but in the warmth of shared emotion,

in the glimpse of someone else's joy or ache,

in these connections,

we find something just as precious

 

Because maybe, their story
helps us believe
in the possibility
of our own.