Trader Of Dreams

In the song Zindagi Zindagi Zindagi from the Hindi film Janam penned by Suraj Sanim, the poet asks life what have you given me? Each you gave me something you took away something from me. Later he realises, that life isn't meant to be possessed. It is meant to be pursued, celebrated, questioned, mourned—and occasionally, when the stars aligned, felt. Here I have tried to express those thoughts in a ballad like form (for the first time) as an unfulfilled love story of Advik and Myra.

In a town where rivers forgot to flow,
And hills wore dust like winter snow,
Lived Advik, once a poet bright,
Now lost in echoes, void of light.

His pages blank, his verses gone,
He wandered streets from dusk to dawn.
A heart once full of rhythmic fire,
Now haunted by the ghost of Myra.

She was his spring, his moonlit muse,
A laugh that danced in every bruise.
But one day, like a dream denied,
She vanished—no farewell, no guide.

He searched her face in every breeze,
In silent nights and rustling trees.
But life, he learned, was not a friend—
It gives, then takes, and does not mend.

Like a trader dressed in fate’s disguise,
It sold him stars, then stole his skies.
It gave him love, then took his peace,
It gave him voice, then made it cease.

One evening in the market square,
A gardener stood with flowers rare.
Advik asked for one rose red,
The man just smiled and softly said:

“This bloom will cost a cherished sound—
A memory where joy was found.”
He gave away her laughing grace,
The rose soon wilted in his embrace.

Years passed by in quiet trade,
Of fleeting joys and hopes that fade.
Rain on skin, a child’s bright eyes,
But always loss beneath disguise.

One night he stood by river’s bend,
Where moonlight broke but wouldn’t mend.
He asked the wind, with aching plea,
“Life, have you ever answered me?”

No voice replied, no truth was told,
Just silence deep and water cold.
Yet in that hush, he found his flame—
Not to possess, but chase the name.

So once again, he took his pen,
Not to reclaim what might have been.
But to pursue, with heart unchained,
The beauty born from what remained.