Amma among stars

Don't really remember whether it was the first poem of Kheya, but the song deener sheshe ghumer deshe is suddenly making all the way into my realm. Especially those lines, "ghore jara jabar taara kokhon geche ghor paane, paare jara jabar geche paare/ghoreo nahi paareo nahi, jejon aache maajhkhane, sondhebelay ke deke ney taare."
I have been listening to this song since how long I don't really remember. I heard it ma singing. Well she wasn't much of a singer, but she used to sing. Then it was Hemanta. His rendition of the song had a feeling of John Denver's 'Anne's song'--you fill up my senses.
With Hemanta singing the song, its like filling up one's senses. Just as Sam's Time Goes By filled up the senses of two individuals. One forced Sam to play it once more. And another barged out from the other end of the bar with a tremendous sense of rapproach and anger in his voice, "Sam, I thought I told you never to play..." and stops short. He never could finish the sentence and never could ask Sam not to play it again. Never.
These days, the evenings in Delhi are beautifully spread out against the sky. Sky, one may ask?It is the same sky that Tagore wrote "ghomta pora oi chaya". It is the same sky that Elliot spread out for Prufrock. Yes, the sky that Rick looked up and saw the plane towards Lisbon.
One can look up and see the quiet bedspread change colour throughout the day, through the seasons, through the year. Once evening tip toes in, like the sound of dew drops, the sky takes its favourite colour. It stays like that for quite a long while so that all the Ricks in the world can wait for all the 'Kids' to walk into their jin joints or walk into the darkness in search of a beautiful friendship.
Don't really remember when I heard it first. Maybe from my amma. She said when people die, they became stars in the sky. "So when I will die," --and I started crying instantly--she said with her fingers in my hair--"you just look up and you will be able to see me." Well, as life is, she died one day. And I tried looking up and saw just stars. It's too late but I realised she lied to me to keep me happy. Just as Rick lied to send Ilsa away to America. As captain Renault said, "She went, but she knew you were lying."
But when I realised that I will not be able to see amma when I look up, it was too late. Some lies just are forever.