H: The paradox of an evergreen love
A look at her and all the feelings, which I thought I had locked away for good, came tumbling down the hill with the force of a million avalanches. It’s surprising isn’t it, how the heart of a cynic can start dancing to the tunes of Coldplay melodies the moment it is reminded of what it means to experience feelings in their raw form. We tend to part ways with pieces of our hearts weekly,monthly and yearly, in the form of painful installments in the name of worldly pragmatism and impersonal objectivity. To throw so much away, only to realize that you were carrying it all along is a welcome realization, albeit the melancholic in me tends to disagree.
The chief feature of a man lost in time is the inability to take into consideration temporal and spatial distortions and consequent impact on human relationships. My inability to be a social and rational human has landed me in the current quagmire- I was asocial enough to never talk to her after that, while simultaneously not being rational enough to forget her. So this is the condition that ails me: I am smitten with her, still, while knowing nothing of her. I am essentially swelling up with feelings for a temporal shadow of this woman. What a shame! To have opened myself to you only to turn you away and reminisce it six years after, when we are practically strangers: Oh what a lovelorn fool I am!
The tragedy and the eventual comedy of this episode is this:my feelings are so fleeting that I’d admonish my own heart a million times the morning after for conceiving of a possibility of “me and you”, which entails that I welcome the cold shoulder you have given me, for you are an eternal optimistic while I tend to dig the wells of pessimism far and wide, all along the axis of human existence. While you are constant, fair and evergreen, I am the fire in the Tundra, that is too bipolar for it’s own good.
Am I an extension of what I am six years back or am I a new person? I do not know how to know myself; how possibly then can I know you. My brain has been dying for serotonin and oxytocin with a bunch of psychiatrists suggesting many a ways and along come you with those eyes of yours, and I go back to being a nineteen year old on the fateful autumn night, when I professed to you my love for you and a “secret”. The way tears welled up in your eyes after I showed you my scar, convinced me of the humanity you exude and I was never the same thereafter. I do remember quoting a nobody, “It’s pretty simple. You just look in her eyes and tell her you like her,” as I looked at you in the moonlit night. You looked beautiful and so laden with moon’s beauty.
The next afternoon, you wore a pink coloured kurta. And there was this layer of collyrium you had applied in your eyes, which made you stand out from among the mere mortals that surrounded you. As we enjoyed a spirited and colourful dance performance where we both agreed on how the philosophical basis of supporting Batman against Superman was the inherent glory of backing David against Goliath coupled with my general repulsion towards celestial omnipotent beings. As I gathered courage to ask you out for a coffee, you read my intentions before I could spell them out. We sneaked out from the auditorium into the backstage canteen and as unsophisticated as that Chai date was, I finally asked you out for prom and you said yes. As fortunate or unfortunate it is, that was the last good “yes” that life ever gave me.
The prom night was magic. I had borrowed a most improper tux from a college mate and you being you had decided to lend your prom dress to a friend in need. It was on that dimly lit road that I saw you in your black dress and glasses and I just ran awkwardly towards you in the most anti climactic fashion, blabbering in a self deprecating tone. As we danced to the tune of the most soulful indie songs, I tried to hold you closer, notwithstanding the hesitant goofiness that accompanies me. While all the other couple danced in the centre hall, we drifted to the side corridor:it was dark and cold but we did have each other. As we oscillated up and down the hallway, we told each other things we hadn’t told anyone; we laughed, we cried and we lived and as my emotional state today dwindles into a vortex of pain and anger, I can remotely locate my time with you in that corridor as one where I was truly alive.
As dawn knocked, we ran to view the sunrise. While I offered you my coat, which was the only un-Chandler like thing I did that night, you chose to take on the morning chilly winds all on your own. We then visited the Saraswati Temple where I fell asleep and you let me fall asleep and for some reason, that was the closest I have felt with a woman. There is something intrinsically visceral in letting someone watch you sleep. It’s that delicate moment when the other person is empathetic and in love, just enough, to enjoy the latent idiosyncrasies of their beloved.
As you left the college after telling me that you liked me too, we made promises about never losing touch, about meeting regularly and being true to ourselves. I didn’t hug you then for some reason and I still do not know why. Perhaps I was too much of a coward. All along the only thing you wanted of me was for me to be happy and as simple as it was for me to be happy, I just couldn’t give you that and eventually my obstinate pessimism could no longer be contained by the ocean of compassion that you were bringing to the table.
Since then, I have occasionally and cowardly flirted with the idea of being with you. But it has been dishonest, fickle and lacking in integrity. The sad fact of the matter is that while you loved me, you were consistent, sincere and honest; while I have been intense, obscure and all over the place with my feelings. You have told me that there is no scope for a romantic future for us and I respect it. But my definition of soulmates is liberal and takes into account the multi-facetiousness of human emotional state. There is a line by Edgar Allan Poe:
“And all I lov’d — I lov’d alone..”
My interpretation of this line has two aspects:one being the general sense of isolation and loneliness that I have felt all my life and how that makes me unique, and second being that every “liking” of mine has been “love” for me. I am not in the business of attributing a hierarchical structure to emotions-whereby “liking someone” is somehow subordinate to “loving someone”. Every woman I have liked, I have loved. And despite losing each others’ essence in translation, you are my soulmate and I am yours, and we may have many other soulmates too. Your very existence has given me the strength through various stages of my life — just thinking of what you would think about my reckless actions — has prevented me from giving up on life and even harming myself. While my feelings for you will always remain, the manifestation will always be in the form of love, eternal gratefulness and respect.
