Stories of wander

Picture clicked at Angkor Wat

“We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us. Even while the earth sleeps we travel. We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered.” 
                                                                                                            ― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet


I am sure you would not have realised that I have been suffering from this writer's block. While I was able to weave ideas in my head, even narrate stories to my little cousin, but when I tried to write them on paper, it did not make much sense.

Last night I narrated a story about one of the serendipitous experiences of a well traveled woman. The story starts with the woman discovering a breathtakingly beautiful mosque while strolling around in Yousmarg, Kashmir. The mosque was so beautiful that it triggered a strong urge in her to witness the mosque from inside. But then, she noticed a board in Urdu which mentioned that women were not allowed in the mosque. She was remorsing over the idea of women not allowed in mosques and about other basic discrimination against women, that she saw a man (traveler looking) stepping out of the mosque. She reached out to him as to how mosque looked from inside. He also affirmed that the mosque was one of the most beautiful one he had seen, truly a hidden gem, ten times more beautiful than the ones in Istanbul or Iran. He showed her pictures (in his phone) of the murals and the engravings in the mosque's walls and ceiling. She realised that the mosque was really beautiful but the man was a bad photographer and he had not done justice to the beautiful mosque. Her craving to witness the mosque and click pictures increased multi-folds. The man, seeing her sad face, advised her that she could really sneak in; as there was no one inside the mosque.
The woman finally overcame her fear of being spotted by someone and sneaked in the mosque after he also agreed to come along her. She was overwhelmed with the beauty of the mosque and the artists who had created it. While she took out her DSLR camera to click pictures, one of the imams of the mosque came in. The imam calmly asked as to what was she doing inside as women were not allowed. The accompanying man (gave an expression of oh-is-it-women-are-not-allowed) told the maulvi that they did not notice any board outside to which the girl (also giving an expression of oh-is-it-women-are-not-allowed) nodded her head. The imam smiled at the girl and said that "I think females should be allowed in the mosques but lying shouldn't"....
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And by then my cousin had slept on my lap and looking at her fairy like sleeping face, I thought of putting  the story on paper... .