by BS Murthy
"Self-actualization in the arena of attraction, surely it was."
"Writer-like again," he said, and continued, "but as luck would've it, for all its promise, my first love ended up as a damp squib; it's another matter that even as duds have girlfriends these days, in our time, the dashing too had to be content with daydreams. Though No.l and I didn't take our eyes off each other for the rest of the year, there was no way I could've made advances on her without causing a scandal in the college. Moreover, I loved her enough not to have caused any hurt to her orderly life; maybe had not I left for Ranchi to pursue that futile course in engineering, we would've come closer the next year. Whatever, the day before I left the town, I waited for her in the college corridor, hoping to bid her adieu; as she neared me, she stopped instinctively and I paced up to her intuitively. How disappointed she seemed at my impending departure and how elated I was when she Okayed my idea that we stayed in touch through correspondence. But in that moment of ecstasy, I failed to shake her hand, and maybe that lack of courtesy to love didn't go down well with it, and so it seems, it never gave me another chance to embellish my first love with the touch of my beloved. Yet oblivious of my fate but with the accrued empathy of my father's farewell tears I told you about, the next morning, I boarded the Howrah Mail with bountiful hope. Though she failed to keep her promise to correspond, yet I wrote to her unceasingly, picturing the love my heart bore for her but to no avail; but her indifference to my missives made no difference to my longing for her that began to wane my interest in studies."
"And that fetched you a scrape through degree."
"It feels nice that you have a feel for my plight," he said reaching out for my hand. "When I returned home for summer recess, there was no way of seeing her as she was wont to homebound, and so dying for a glimpse of her, I spent the best part of my holidays in the mango grove opposite her house; towns were yet to turn into concrete jungles by then, and needless to say, Raju kept me company in my wild goose chase.
Next year though, I fared better "not at studies but at her hands' for she wrote a couple of noncommittal letters, one of which was virtually a thesis on spirituality. Whatever, the following summer, I barged into her house and forced the issue by proposing to her; don't imagine that I tried to emulate my father, for I didn't hear about his exploits by then; but how my failure to win her over contrasts with his teenage ability to wed his beloved is another matter. When she said that we could think about crossing the bridge when we come to it, her eavesdropping mother, who was averse to me, I know not why, asked her to clarify her stance, and at that she said that she was confused about the whole thing. Why, it was apparent that while her enamored heart pushed her towards me, her constrained mind tended her to hold on to her widowed mother; and if anything, the tragic death of both her younger brothers later in a road mishap made her more incapable than ever to displease her parent. Oh, how the deaths on the road came to shape the course of my life; when I called on her to console her, as she seemed solaced by the empathy of my soul, I knew that she needed me more than anyone else, and hoped she would realize that in time. That was why, without ever having touched her little finger, I was lovelorn for long; but, when I went to see her as she was moving out of the town to take up a job, she wanted me to return the letters she wrote, of course, at her mother's bidding. How silly of her for I loved her in spite of her indifference, and how sheepish she looked as I assured her that I was going to shred them anyway; I kept my word but failed to forget her. Of what avail was my unrequited love that only earned me a scrape through degree, I would never know"
"Didn't Ghalib say, if not undone by love, I would've been second to none."
"What a heady mix sher-shairi and unrequited love make," he said. "I've had its brew to the brim to savor to its dregs but in the end it was this celebration of selfdeprecation that had put me off from that. But by then much water had flowed to waste under the bridge of my love-less love and my career course too had headed towards the deserts of failure; so sometime later I sent her, so to say, my letter of resignation, in which I wrote that when I sought her hand, I hoped to be her lover at home and a peer at the workplace, but with my fledgling career leading me nowhere, there was no way I could aspire to lead her to the altar. How I beseeched her to hold my hand of friendship as I had burnt the desires of love in the groins of failures; why not she let my boundless affection for her be the balm of her life."
"Isn't it an idealistic proposition impracticable in practice?"
"You would know when I tell you about my platonic relationship with that sweet sixteen cousin of mine," he continued. "But sadly, my first love's reply was a backdated letter she herself penned in her mother's name, warning me to leave her daughter alone; what a merciless blow upon a hapless surrender that I couldn't even gasp 'Et tu, Brute'; how could I have for she never showed any signs of like devotion towards me to warrant such a lament. But whither went her innocence; or was it merely a figment of mine own imagination; how I came to value her with a skimpy acquaintance; what was left of it, after all that; didn't someone say that women's looks were his only books, and what pretty follies they taught him; why it was her loaded looks that goaded me to plunge into the voidness of love-less love. As I turned despondent, I felt that I might forget her in time but I would never forgive her meanness, and that's what I wrote to her; well, in remorse, she asked our common friend to tell me that some devil might've possessed her when she penned that impersonated letter, that she was at a loss as to why she failed to tell me that she felt one of her colleagues was better suited than me to be her man, and that she would pray for a better spouse for me."
"What to make out of her character?"
"I didn't know about it then and it doesn't matter now," he continued. "Some time later, our common friend telephoned me to inform that she was on an official visit to his branch, and that I may like to see her for the old times' sake that is one last time before her impending marriage. How I vacillated before boarding the train, and when he told at the railway station that she came with her fiance, I asked him what was his idea in inviting me to see the one to whom I've lost in the battle of affection, and he said that one's balance sheet of life is prepared only near one's end. Next day, as I crossed her walking in step with her beau, having sighted me from a distance even as her eyes caressed me in wonderment, her feet induced her to fall behind the man she had preferred over me; I thought her misstep had conveyed to me what I wanted her to admit all along. Yet, the irony of the encounter was that, absorbed as I was in espying her, I had no eyes for my rival, and so, I have no idea of the persona of the man who won her favor; whatever, the memory of that misstep lingered on in my mind until that mishap of a recent meeting with her."
"It's as well that she didn't make a misogynist out of you."
"Thank god for that," he said and continued with the intriguing character of his No.l. "I heard that all along she and her man were spiritually inclined, and midway their career, they even gave up their jobs and joined some institution devoted to social service. When I came to know that sometime back she was widowed as I called on her, what a cold reception she gave me; how stony she seemed when I announced myself and how that left me clueless about the soul of the woman who made a name as a savior for the needy. M aybe she's a complex character without a basic character; how else can one explain her behavior towards a man whom she had confused if not wronged; whatever, the moral of the lesson is that it's futile seeking an update on the past memories for the fear of fouling with them."
"If you think it's not inappropriate, why not we review the reality of life over a couple of drinks."
"Inappropriate my foot," he said, "it's just a matter of culture and convention, and they differ; who could decide which culture is right and which convention is wrong? If something is okay with you, it should be appropriate for you, provided you won't tread on others sensibilities. I too need some drink for I wish to kiss and tell; well, the less inhibited one is, the more forthcoming he
would be. Don't mind picking up that Laphroaicfor us."
Chapter 17
Flights of Heart
"Though I was pained by her indifference, my psyche didn't suffer for her rejection, and I owe that to the girls who buttressed my self-worth with their sensual attentions," he began reviewing his life and times over our drinks. "Back home during holidays, I used to hang around a lot at a friend's place; though I didn't develop any romantic designs on his sisters, I was a hit with his cousins who were wont to visit them often; one girl was so enamored of me that she rarely let me be alone; her praises of me still hum in my ears after all these years and after what had happened. When it was time for me to go back to college, the Vizag Steel agitation took an ugly turn disrupting the train services, but my dad wanted to dispatch me to Berhampur in a goods lorry for my onward train journey to Ranchi. Oh how she begged me to stay back till the train services were resumed and I also wanted to enjoy her attentions
that much longer but there was no way I could've negated my dad's idea though it was 'neither here nor there' for me, as my heart was not in studies anyway; and it turned out to be a double jeopardy for me as she came to shun me whenever we met later. Wonder how she could feel so slighted!"
"M aybe that's why it's called calf-love."
"But I was the object of a durable calf love as well," he continued. "I happened to meet a charming visitor to another friend's place, who was no less charmed by my charms; but the thrill of it was when we met again as she revisited them after three years; the first thing that she did after she landed there was to ask my friend to fetch me forthwith, but then maybe as she was older than me, she didn't deem it fit to build upon our mutual attraction, well that was the last time we ever met. Barring a couple of more adolescent infatuations, what Cheiro said about No. 9 people, didn't he aver that they tend to love the wrong ones and end up without the final favor, sadly for me proved right, oh, how stars foretell?"
He paused for a while, apparently lost in the loss of his lost loves, and then had a couple of sips of his drink as if to uplift his spirits.
"While the flood of my obsession for my first love began to ebb, the tide of my fascination for my cousin turned into a hurricane," he resumed his narrative. "When we first met, she fell head over heels for my boyish looks, and the next time, it was my turn to lose my heart in her womanish curves. What with my accentuated feelings for her, her attentions made me feel a special being; but then leaving me alone, as she went to a movie with another relative, I couldn't bear her neglect; but when she returned home at the interval as my sulking face haunted her, as she put it, and seeing me delighted at her return, she told me that as she left the theatre, she knew that seeing me happy would be far more satisfying to her than watching the rest of the movie. Well, that set the emotional bond of our unbound affection, cemented by the small pleasures we began to steal; but the improbability of our marriage made her resist my desperate attempts for our sexual closeness; but once in frustration, as I tried to break up with her, she cajoled me back into her loving fold without conceding the favors of sex. When I was still in collage, she got married and since I came to respect her sensitivity to her chastity, I gave a platonic turn to my passionate love; and as she became a proud mother, believe me, she swore, by placing her hand on her boy's head, that she loves me more than she loves her son, and as if to prove the sincerity of her love, she was wont to grant me the motherly warmth of it."
He stopped for a while savoring some more of Laphroaic seemingly cherishing the recollections of those past moments.
"What a solace it was for me to sink into her lap to feel the depth of her love for me," he said on resumption, "how fulfilling those small pleasures had been for both of us, it's as if the mother in her that granted me what the lover in her had denied me. Oh, in those moments of pure love, how we used to feel the fusion of our souls; who knows an illicit affair would have fouled our platonic union; anyway true to the oneness of our being, while on her deathbed she had communicated her longing for our togetherness, and given that she had conveyed it telepathically, you could imagine the intensity of her feeling; she fell ill suddenly and being in Cal at that time, I wasn't in the know of it, but that midnight I woke up to her thoughts from my deep sleep, and stayed awake disturbed for long; the next day when the telegram carried the news of her midnight end, I knew that she lived her last moments thinking about me; oh how she kept her vow even as death snatched her away from my thoughts."
"What a poignant end to a platonic love; maybe had your No.l remained in touch, surely your first love wouldn't have seen such a cold end."
"It's one of those ifs and buts of life," he said. "But when alive, how my soul-mate looked forward for my marriage; why she wanted to stay with me for a couple of months as and when I settled down with my wife; how she developed ideas of her own about my wife; well, for her I was the perfect man there ever was, and no prospective match ever satisfied her. Sadly she was not around when Rama came into my life, but surely they would've loved each other for their natures matched; what an unusual love triangle it would've been; maybe, we can divine the limitations of relationships through unfulfilled expectations but it's the incompleteness of life that gives us the complete understanding of it."
"What a poetic idea it is."
"But as the women I loved afforded me only emotional satisfaction, the physical fulfillment of love was still a far cry," he continued. "It was then that a girl in her prepuberty was enamored of me, and I used her body as it could afford, to satiate my newfound urges; you can't brand me a pedophile for both of us were juveniles then; well it was possible that the innocence of her infatuation combined with the curiosity of her sexuality made her a willing mate in our incomplete unions. But when she matured, I took stock of our affair; even as I visualized the hazards of our continued escapades, it was clear that I had no emotional urge to make her my woman; so I told her not to give in, even if I persisted because our marriage was not on the cards. Oh, how shocked she was at that the poor thing; she was too young to accuse me of betrayal and I was not old enough to grasp my folly; whatever, there was no bad blood between us. Why, she continued to adore me but I kept a healthy distance from her, and even after marrying a worthy though she remained fond of me; I never thought of exploiting her weakness for me to curry her favors with sentimental trespasses. M aybe, I loved her more than I had lusted for her."
"Sorry to say, your saga seems to blur the line between love and philandering. Surely I need an explanation for the sake of the prospective readers of your memoir."
"I see that 'one life, one love' is a canard spread by the lunatic poets," he said a little hurt. "Haven't psychologists testified to the fact that one can love more than one at the same time, and that applies no less to the second sex; well, love, like friendship, is a feeling and to say 'one love only' is like averring 'one friend only'. If any of your readers feels that all his friends save the first one are mere acquaintances, then I have no problem even if he takes me as a philanderer. Moreover, an eternal love is an absurd proposition that is if you mean sexual love, for it's in the nature of desire that it wanes with continued fulfillment and dissipates through prolonged longing."
"Be assured that I would solicit my readers' understanding on your behalf."
Thanks for that,' he said and continued with the remarkable saga of his life. "But as her man's career graph rose and mine never took-off, her interest in me began to wane; why not, as the promise of my life that induced love in her was belied, her love for me would have lost its force; but then, why blame her for that's the reality of love in the realms of life; and falling in and out of love, I too had learned not to let my unrequited loves affect my life. But whenever I recall my journey through the deserts of disappointment, my tryst with a rare stunner in the oasis of sex stands apart; while I was cooling my heels with that scrape-through degree as you called it, I saw her in a mall; I was so overawed by her womanliness that I lost my eyes to her, and as if she appreciated my
eye for feminine charms, she conveyed her compliments through her body language. But even before I had a full grasp of her enticing poise as she left the
place in her majestic gait, I followed her in a trance, but even after she left in a rickshaw, I stood transfixed as if she fixed me in a state of pure joy that was until a friend woke me up to the reality of her, Sumitra the common girl; but then the devastating revelation didn't dampen the pristine feelings her angelic persona induced in my enamored heart."
"Love seems to be obstinate in holding on to the first impression, won't Napoleon's love for the unfaithful Josephine illustrate that."
"But then his divorcing her to sire an heir of royal blood to usher in his dynasty underscores the power of the ambitions of life over the fulfillments of love, well it all depends as Edward VIII renounced his throne to wed the woman he loved," he said (though he didn't name the beloved, his infectious memoir of love and loss impelled me to record her here as Wallis Simpson). "Marking her movements from then on, I began shadowing her during the day, and for my apparent adoration for her, she was wont to bestow me with her coy smiles as and when we crossed our paths. Once, when I followed her right up to her gate to mark her place, her young sibling told me that her sister was expecting me, but then while Cheiro's theory of numbers denied me the favors of those who fancied me; it was my principle not to buy sex with the paternal bucks that distanced me from her sensuous embrace. But in hindsight, I feel that it was nothing but sentimental nonsense for, all along, I wasted my dad's money like nobody's business; any way, my dilemma ended as I left home on a six-month assignment as a graduate trainee, and though I was a spendthrift, I had strived to save enough to savor her in a couple of flings or more. But when I returned home, I learned that she was out of bounds as she became someone's keep; oh what a KLPD it was as they say in the North, and how the development depressed me for days on."