Attachment, Bhikku, will necessarily bring pain with it. But sometimes, I wonder if it's worth it after all.
-- The Diary, Spring 511 BC
"I have been thinking about him a lot lately", she said. He was driving. He turned to glance at her sideways.
"Hmm."
"Relax. I'm over it now, completely. And don't try to be sensitive. You look like a dead fish."
"Yeah, whatever. So?"
"Don't so me. There's nothing really. Last week, I had gone camping with some friends. And I was thinking of the times we all used to go camp together. He was the one who started me up on it, you know? You remember the time he tried to build a fire to cook pasta, and got only smoke, but still soaked the pasta in water for half an hour and said it was cooked? And then, we were singing on this trip last week. I sang a song he used to like."
"Which one?"
"You won't know. You are an uncultured brute. OK, don't sulk. Suttum Vizhi chudar Thaan, it is a song by a guy called Bharatiyar. Everytime after I sang that, he would go quiet for a while, and keep looking at me longingly like some teenage Romeo. Makes a woman happy, you know?"
"Whatever. Some senti girl stuff."
"Anyway, things like that. It is almost like I'm reaching into a box full of my childhood toys. Everytime I come up with some such old relic, I feel like I'm living it again. That it will all happen again tomorrow. And yet I know that it was not all love-love and kiss-kiss. Through all this, there was also jealousy and possessiveness and impatience and mostly just routine nothing. Strangely, I don't think of those. Everytime I talk to him now, we are friendly and cheerful and nice and boring. And after every one of these calls, I could kill him for his breeziness. It feels like I'm reliving the highlights of the past, and he's just forgotten it all. I would have been happy even if he had at least remembered our quarrels, and been nasty."
"Well. It was as much your decision as his, remember?"
"Ouch! Maybe you should be sensitive after all."
"No, you fool. What I meant was that I'm sure you'll find your new box or whatever with someone else, and soon too."
"That's precisely what bothers me. I liked him as much as anyone liked anyone else. And I'm sure he did the same. But he has found the same liking for someone else, and I'm sure I will too. So what is this love stuff? Just that you like somebody because they like you, and you just go on finding greater and greater delights in some mutual idiosyncracies. I mean, that's just sentimentality, right? Looking back at our time together, all that I can come up with are some vague cute-sounding details, nothing that really has anything to do with me or him. Isn't there supposed to be some kind of deep intellectual connection or some such fancy thing?
"But...Basically...Well, see! It seems to me that those details are the beauty of the thing. If you take away the little details, what is left in life, or art, or music, or all the other high-sounding stuff you are talking about? It is not all linear, boring intellectual connection, is it?"
"Don't talk nonsense. I never said a couple should sit and discuss philosophy all the time. But how can it be that the details override everything else? It is almost as if it doesn't matter who the two people concerned are. They'll just drown each other in an orgy of mutual liking, which is really nothing more than animal instinct."
"But that's precisely my point, that the beauty of the thing is beyond individuality. This whole "mere animal instinct" that you are talking about is really life, or god, or whatever you want to call it. It is proof that life is bigger than you and your silly notions about how things should be. In fact, I'd say it's the highest, most creative, most universal instinct there is in humanity."
"Come on, that's just sentimental crap. If you can love everybody, then you really love nobody except yourself. And going by your logic, I should elevate nationalism, casteism, love of Allah and every other stupid self-loving sentimental bull to some kind of divine Life Force thing. If it is OK for me to love my man just because he happens to be my man, why isn't it OK for me to love my country just because it is my country? And yet don't you agree that this jingoism is repulsive and vulgar?"
"Well. I don't know about nationalism and moral behaviour and all that, and I don't care. I'm not talking about some faceless comman man, I'm talking about you. And I still say that what you call sentimentality is really the essence and the beauty of the thing. In fact, I'll say that without this so-called sentimentality, even your so-called intellectual compatibility will come to nothing. Take this converastion: there is nothing even remotely personal here, you and I are just talking about some vague ideas. Yet you cannot have this conversation with anyone except me. Though you know lots of people who are more intelligent than me. What is this then?"
"See, you have always been a goody-goody oh-so-popular boy. You're just projecting your own everybody-loves-everybody stuff onto others. What about real sentimentality and real pettiness? Are you just going to say they are part of your life force too?"
"I don't know. And if the fact that I've been fortunate makes me less typical, so what? Maybe being fortunate is the right way. Maybe all the rest of you are wrong, because you've had it bad."
They were silent for a while. They were both peeved, as people always are after an argument. But they went back a long way. They had sown trust and reaped the knack of hitting the right note at the right time. This time, she did it first.
"So you think I'm love with you and only you, huh?"
"Well, for your sake, I hope not. I want a 36-24-36 jhakkas maal, not an ugly chick like you."
"Which jhakkas maal will go for you? You'll come back to me begging, and I'll refuse."
"I won't come to you, and even if I do, you won't refuse. You can't."
"Is that a bet?"
"It is."
They shook hands. She turned on the CD player, and slowly drifted off to sleep. He glanced at her, and felt a sharp stab of tenderness. They were just right now, far enough apart that the winds of heaven could breeze between them, but close enough that it carried her voice to him. Some day they'll grow more distant and her words will be muffled by the distance. He wanted to store the tenderness of this moment to remember her by. But he knew he couldn't. His memory was slave to his moods, and this moment's beauty alone will not protect it from oblivion. But it will be in there somewhere, he thought. Better, it will spread out thinly over his entire being and make him kinder, nobler, gentler in ways he himself didn't know. And if that isn't reason enough to love and be loved, what is?
He switched off the CD player. Music was OK, but he preferred silence.
-- The Diary, Spring 511 BC
"I have been thinking about him a lot lately", she said. He was driving. He turned to glance at her sideways.
"Hmm."
"Relax. I'm over it now, completely. And don't try to be sensitive. You look like a dead fish."
"Yeah, whatever. So?"
"Don't so me. There's nothing really. Last week, I had gone camping with some friends. And I was thinking of the times we all used to go camp together. He was the one who started me up on it, you know? You remember the time he tried to build a fire to cook pasta, and got only smoke, but still soaked the pasta in water for half an hour and said it was cooked? And then, we were singing on this trip last week. I sang a song he used to like."
"Which one?"
"You won't know. You are an uncultured brute. OK, don't sulk. Suttum Vizhi chudar Thaan, it is a song by a guy called Bharatiyar. Everytime after I sang that, he would go quiet for a while, and keep looking at me longingly like some teenage Romeo. Makes a woman happy, you know?"
"Whatever. Some senti girl stuff."
"Anyway, things like that. It is almost like I'm reaching into a box full of my childhood toys. Everytime I come up with some such old relic, I feel like I'm living it again. That it will all happen again tomorrow. And yet I know that it was not all love-love and kiss-kiss. Through all this, there was also jealousy and possessiveness and impatience and mostly just routine nothing. Strangely, I don't think of those. Everytime I talk to him now, we are friendly and cheerful and nice and boring. And after every one of these calls, I could kill him for his breeziness. It feels like I'm reliving the highlights of the past, and he's just forgotten it all. I would have been happy even if he had at least remembered our quarrels, and been nasty."
"Well. It was as much your decision as his, remember?"
"Ouch! Maybe you should be sensitive after all."
"No, you fool. What I meant was that I'm sure you'll find your new box or whatever with someone else, and soon too."
"That's precisely what bothers me. I liked him as much as anyone liked anyone else. And I'm sure he did the same. But he has found the same liking for someone else, and I'm sure I will too. So what is this love stuff? Just that you like somebody because they like you, and you just go on finding greater and greater delights in some mutual idiosyncracies. I mean, that's just sentimentality, right? Looking back at our time together, all that I can come up with are some vague cute-sounding details, nothing that really has anything to do with me or him. Isn't there supposed to be some kind of deep intellectual connection or some such fancy thing?
"But...Basically...Well, see! It seems to me that those details are the beauty of the thing. If you take away the little details, what is left in life, or art, or music, or all the other high-sounding stuff you are talking about? It is not all linear, boring intellectual connection, is it?"
"Don't talk nonsense. I never said a couple should sit and discuss philosophy all the time. But how can it be that the details override everything else? It is almost as if it doesn't matter who the two people concerned are. They'll just drown each other in an orgy of mutual liking, which is really nothing more than animal instinct."
"But that's precisely my point, that the beauty of the thing is beyond individuality. This whole "mere animal instinct" that you are talking about is really life, or god, or whatever you want to call it. It is proof that life is bigger than you and your silly notions about how things should be. In fact, I'd say it's the highest, most creative, most universal instinct there is in humanity."
"Come on, that's just sentimental crap. If you can love everybody, then you really love nobody except yourself. And going by your logic, I should elevate nationalism, casteism, love of Allah and every other stupid self-loving sentimental bull to some kind of divine Life Force thing. If it is OK for me to love my man just because he happens to be my man, why isn't it OK for me to love my country just because it is my country? And yet don't you agree that this jingoism is repulsive and vulgar?"
"Well. I don't know about nationalism and moral behaviour and all that, and I don't care. I'm not talking about some faceless comman man, I'm talking about you. And I still say that what you call sentimentality is really the essence and the beauty of the thing. In fact, I'll say that without this so-called sentimentality, even your so-called intellectual compatibility will come to nothing. Take this converastion: there is nothing even remotely personal here, you and I are just talking about some vague ideas. Yet you cannot have this conversation with anyone except me. Though you know lots of people who are more intelligent than me. What is this then?"
"See, you have always been a goody-goody oh-so-popular boy. You're just projecting your own everybody-loves-everybody stuff onto others. What about real sentimentality and real pettiness? Are you just going to say they are part of your life force too?"
"I don't know. And if the fact that I've been fortunate makes me less typical, so what? Maybe being fortunate is the right way. Maybe all the rest of you are wrong, because you've had it bad."
They were silent for a while. They were both peeved, as people always are after an argument. But they went back a long way. They had sown trust and reaped the knack of hitting the right note at the right time. This time, she did it first.
"So you think I'm love with you and only you, huh?"
"Well, for your sake, I hope not. I want a 36-24-36 jhakkas maal, not an ugly chick like you."
"Which jhakkas maal will go for you? You'll come back to me begging, and I'll refuse."
"I won't come to you, and even if I do, you won't refuse. You can't."
"Is that a bet?"
"It is."
They shook hands. She turned on the CD player, and slowly drifted off to sleep. He glanced at her, and felt a sharp stab of tenderness. They were just right now, far enough apart that the winds of heaven could breeze between them, but close enough that it carried her voice to him. Some day they'll grow more distant and her words will be muffled by the distance. He wanted to store the tenderness of this moment to remember her by. But he knew he couldn't. His memory was slave to his moods, and this moment's beauty alone will not protect it from oblivion. But it will be in there somewhere, he thought. Better, it will spread out thinly over his entire being and make him kinder, nobler, gentler in ways he himself didn't know. And if that isn't reason enough to love and be loved, what is?
He switched off the CD player. Music was OK, but he preferred silence.
14 comments:
I can't say anything now, except that it was worth the wait -- your post!
s.
worth its weight in gold indeed...
sniff, sniff. B~ is all grown up now...
L~ T~
aila. senti post. great stuff nevertheless.
~N
You write so well so bloody well just had to say this get published somewhere its not a joke
Aww you've gone all adult and mushy!
Lovely piece of writing. I'm going to ask all my friends to read this one. You don't post often but when you do....all I can say is its worth the wait!
aila! again.
looks like your fans are increasing exponentially in number ;-)
~N
we are all so much nicer as people when we are in love arent we. i was happy to hear you say this - "...and make him kinder, nobler, gentler in ways he himself didn't know. And if that isn't reason enough to love and be loved, what is?"
raspberries to the cynics :)
my dear fellow, you seem to inspire mushiness in even the most cynical. * clap hand on back *
soooper !
@jake: aaaah shaddup! :))
Dear chaps,
It is quite a kick to note that nine different people have read one's stuff. Thanks, me hearties.
Some of you have said really nice things. May your children be born potty-trained and grow up to be well-adjusted morally sound individuals, unlike that arch-villain L~ T~.
Thanks again.
Saale, my boy,
It will take me 55 words to get past "Once upon a time..". No can do 55-word stories. Sorry.
Make that ten dear boy.Nice piece.
Awesome! All the camping is doing so good :-)
~P
AMAZING post!seriously, get it published, no kidding.
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