Tempest

Friday, 25 May 2007

Never before, Ever-after or the road in-between...

She was in love with him for four years. It was pure passion. She’d talk to me about him all the time. She would say so many things and yet there’d be a thousand other secrets gleaming beneath the shadows in her eyes that she wouldn’t share. There was this excitement lurking somewhere inside her all the time. She’d say it a thousand times. She’d call me up and say it. She’d tell me at sleepovers. She’d tell me every time that we’d meet up for coffee and gossip. Lilith’s eyes would glow and she would say ‘I love him’ to me a zillion times. She loved him because she couldn’t keep her hands off him. She loved him because he couldn’t keep his hands off her. She loved him because they played table tennis with the same passion and every time either of them would lose the other would bear the brunt of it for days. They were like raw wood and match sticks together…the flames would ignite almost instantaneously anytime, anywhere. She’s the adventurous sorts and she loved him because he promised her a tomorrow. Four years is a long time to test the endurance of any relationship and theirs could not survive it. His tomorrow was not long enough. Her sense of adventure needed fresh passion. It ended. She came to me and she wept. Many weeks later she met this guy who she tells me about all the time. The passion isn’t there in her voice or in her narratives but she says he makes me feel like I’ve never felt before. He makes me feel like am the only woman alive on the planet. He is so devoted he makes me feel completely unafraid that he’ll ever let go. She says it’ll never be like the first love again where you give everything you’ve got away but I do love him. And so I smile for her hope things go her way as long as she is happy.

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He was in love with her since 9th grade. He’d tell his friends he’s crazy about her and they’d take it as seriously as any 9th graders possibly can. The next year they started seeing each other. Those were the years of innocence. He was always one of the duffers in class. She did marvelously well and almost always topped. It didn’t seem to bother either one of them. He might have lacked academic brilliance but he always had a way with girls. Easy arrogant charm seemed to win him brownie points with almost any girl. She went away to college and he continued in the same city flirting ‘harmlessly’ according to him with every girl that favoured his eye. ‘Men always appreciate beauty’, he’d say to me with a wink. They broke up often and I was beginning to get unaffected with their constant hits and misses. Gradually because of understanding how important it is to do well in this world and how compared to her parents standards he was literally incompetent, she broke up with him with finality. I never thought it would hurt him bad. I mean I am his confidante and he did flirt around. How serious could his intentions be? But it did hurt. And I had to reconsider another stereotype you learn as you grow up. Maybe it was his ego, maybe it was because he truly loved her and maybe it was a combination of both. Jackass pursued her with staunch determination and used every rule in the book to convince her make her jump back into his closet. And she did…she’s still in there and they are happy. There are ups and downs, but then Jack and Jill dealt with them didn’t they? I don’t know how far it’ll go but I have faith and am biased towards this couple…I think am looking forward to their marriage.

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I believe in love. Maybe that’s the wrong line to start this quarter with because I don’t really know. But I’d like to believe that I believe in love. I love the thought of romance, the smell of dew drops and the glimpses of misty nights that I see on television and read in books. Even then, I have never been against arranged marriages. In fact it could turn out to be love if you give it a chance. They love each other, but there’s no romance to be seen. They’re partners for life but their every little step in life is not taken in partnership, they do not share those special warm moments often. There must have been many things they would have liked to tell each other years ago but even those underlying whispers have now completely vanished. They do not share their every woe or sadness and joy or happiness. But they have pledged to stand together until the end. In the face of what…I do not know. Maybe they are happy and I being young and idealistic am looking for a single tiny flash of love or passion or affection…I wish them all the love and happiness in every moment of their lives.

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My aunt and uncle have always been my picture of happily ever-after. They’ve been married quite a few years and have kids who’ve lived over a decade each now. There is tenderness in their every glance. There is familiarity and understanding in every nod of the head, every smile, and every spoken word from even across a room. Like she knows him and he knows her. Like they blend together in a symphony. Like they are two different instruments and the song is one. I know it sounds like a cliché but then all clichés have been proved true a million times. I always wondered what happened to the Prince and Cinderella after they got happily married. Chitti and Chittappa proved my sequel. Theirs was an arranged marriage and blossomed into everlasting love. Everlasting…I know the word seems like its been added to the dictionary simply so we know that something stands for its meaning. The word seems like the literary equivalent of the numerical infinity…undefined…unseen…yet desperately desired. Yet somewhere I believe their love is. Touchwood.

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I have always wondered what love is. When Lilith would talk to me with exuberance of it I’d think am I even capable of feeling such a feeling? I have always had this notion in my head that love is meant to be enduring and everlasting for it to be true. It shouldn’t be frivolous or taken for granted or be tried and tested at every nook and corner. Yet even though heart broken once, Lilith did find love again soon. When younger, I’d always wonder about the morals of people who’d have a change in boy friend or girl friend with every season. But since she was my friend, I accepted it without the blink of an eye. Gray shades.

And then in spite of frivolous meanderings, Jackass pursued his ‘love’ and pledged himself to her. This he said was true and that I never doubted. Yet, there had been harmless flirtations. But he does love her. Gray shades.

I had always believed the boy on the burning deck to be right in spite of the fruitlessness of his duty to his pledge. I have always believed such blind commitment to promise a major part of love if not love itself. I respected this feeling of loyalty and honour. I still do…its ingrained deep inside of me. But, somewhere there lurks a doubt that if it isn’t completely right, if it isn’t paradise on earth if forget paradise, it simply doesn’t make you just happy…does such a binding to the commitment count as everlasting. The everlasting where everything is perfect just because you are here with him or her. Does it? Gray shades

I believe in ever-after. I believe in forever. I believe in together. But, I am not completely idealistic. I also believe in compromise, in communication, in support, in ups and downs, in endurance. I wonder why we love fairytales. Is it because there is the fantasy of being whisked off your feet out of the blue? Is it because it makes it all easier to just keep dreaming? I have always believed that life is about meeting tons of nice people but that doesn’t mean you wade through them until you find your hero. But maybe I have been sticking to the road too much. Maybe you do meet tons of nice people but there are only some that ‘click’. Maybe in my staunch fantasy of being true to whoever he will be I have never given any of the ‘HIMs’ a chance! Maybe love and life is about straying off the road a little bit to meander in the fields. Maybe you’ve got to give things a chance. I always thought it was easy to trust and believe. And so I got so used to training myself not to do either that it’s hardest to now trust and believe. Maybe am right to be the way I am. Cautious. But maybe I do need a walk in the fields to give life a chance. It is scary. To have even thought this thought and gone against most of my strong convictions is scary. I wonder why it is so scary. But I’ll leave that for another day.

It isn’t like I’ve ever believed in the perfect man. I mean in the logical recesses of my mind I don’t have such a concept…there are many who make you laugh, there are many who are sophisticated, there are many who leave you precious breathtaking moments. Yet, every time my pulse would beat a little faster I’d brush it aside and say this isn’t it…why waste my time on it? My aunt said to me laughingly yesterday, ‘Never let romance pass you by’. I do not regret any of my past decisions; I’d probably still make them. You always know when something is right or wrong. But I’ll try and shed the cautiousness, the suspicious alert mind which is ready to pick up on any fraud at all times…constant vigilance!

I wonder if love is about ever-after and forever. Maybe it is just about moments…precious moments. I still hold the forever fantasy close to my heart but I guess there must be some magic in the fields as well…

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I watched Hitch again today. I love Will Smith. I love the lines. I always laugh through the movie…

This time I confess to having shed a few unnoticed tears.

Posted by Pavitra :: 12:09 :: 8 comments