Love - Reloaded, Part 4, Finale

Surya waited for Tanvi beneath the Gulmohar tree, like he had done on numerous occasions. But he was not eager to meet her this time. He did not feel ready for the meeting. His stomach growled. He had forgotten to have lunch and his stomach was registering a strong protest. He was wearing the new sky-blue shirt which he had purchased only the day before. He was sweating profusely and the sweat created dark spots on the shirt and turned it into a darker shade. Surya felt anxious and dizzy.

Tanvi was coming towards the Gulmohar from the academic block. She looked very pretty in her motley-green designer sari. Christmas celebrations were in full swing in the college and all the students were dressed in their best possible holiday attire. Surya stared at her and continued to do so, while she was walking towards him.

She approached him, gave him a light punch on his arm and asked, “Why did you want to meet me? You sounded very serious over the phone. Did you commit any crime? Do you want my legal advice?”

She chuckled, but was perplexed when Surya remained silent. She stopped smiling and grew concerned.

“What happened?” she asked once again.

Surya did not know what to say. He glanced at her once but quickly averted his eyes and finally settled his gaze upon a line of ants scurrying across the ground. They looked very busy.

A few moments passed before Surya spoke. “I have to tell you something” said he.

Tanvi was convinced by then that something was troubling Surya and so she did not make any attempt to prod him for information. She wanted him to talk to her rather than answer her questions.

“I have not been completely honest with you. I have been acting like a good friend to you all this while. But the truth is very different.”

He looked at her once again and she was staring at him incredulously.

“I… I… I have been in love with you ever since I saw you the first time. Yes… I fell in love with you and still am deeply in love with you. I know that this confession might come as a shock to you, but it is the truth. I adore you and please do not think of this as a passing fancy or infatuation. No… I am not infatuated with you, but I love you… I always have. I know that you despise such approaches and think that it is very immature to fall in love while in college. Yes, I am in college but I am 22 years old and can tell right from wrong. I feel right when I am with you. I want to be with you for the rest of my life and promise to make you the happiest person if you would let me…”

Surya had stuttered a lot when he had begun but once love was mentioned, he had felt a knot ease from his chest. He still wanted to say more but could not find the words for it. All the while, he had kept his eyes on the ground and finally raised them to look at her. He wished he hadn’t.

Her eyes were blazing. She had listened to the discourse, first in disbelief which was soon replaced by anger and shock.

Surya took out a book from his backpack and opened it. He extended it to her. He was slightly unnerved by her angry looks but decided to see the whole thing through. Tanvi hesitated but finally snatched the book out of his hands. It was a diary. Across the flyleaf, it was written Tanvi, in bold letters.

She opened it. It was like a log book and every meeting that Surya had with Tanvi was recorded. But it was a poetic log book. Against the mention of each meeting, Surya had written a poem. Some pages had pencil drawings of her face. Surya was not a great artist, but greatness was not essential to capture the beauty of Tanvi’s eyes.

Tanvi did not lift her eyes from the book. She remained thoughtful as though in a trance for a long time. Finally she looked up at Surya. The awkwardness was unbearable.

“I hate you. I hate you not for loving me, but for pretending to be my friend all along. I have seen my share of suitors and I have rejected all of them because I know that they all had very immature, fanciful feelings. We have to be realistic in life. You seem to have watched a lot of movies and read a lot of romantic books, because the way you have written this diary is very childish and immature. You feel that my eyes are beautiful; you say that you will make me the happiest person; but let me ask you, What if I am not happy with you? In practical life, it is not possible to be happy all the time. Every relationship would have its ups and downs. People work at their relationships everyday to sustain it. All that requires emotional maturity and you do not have that. You are like a kid who still believes in Santa Claus. You shall not be my friend any longer. I mean, I will not consider you as my friend any longer. In reality, you were never my friend. You are a cheat who used friendship to get closer to me. I do not want to talk to you any further. We might run into each other in future, since we are in the same college. But I do not want you to approach me and try to talk to me. We are perfect strangers from now on.”

She threw the diary on the ground. Some of the ants were crushed under the book and their line was broken.

She wheeled around and walked away without looking at Surya, even once.

Surya stood rooted to the ground and a drop of tear rolled down his cheeks. He finally picked up the diary. He felt that he would never fall in love again. The ants had found a path around the diary by then and went about their work as usual.

End

Love - Reloaded, Part 3

“I see that you are reading a book”, said Surya rather sheepishly. “Great going, Einstein”, said he to himself.

“Yes”.

She smiled while she spoke.

Oh, her smile was like the shine of a thousand moons. It could illuminate the darkest corners and caves of the world. Her eyes twinkled with a bright sparkle when she smiled.

Surya wanted to say something that sounded intelligent and did justice to his near-perfect grades and his intellect. But he could not think properly. His heart was racing and he wanted to run away and keep on running till his feet bled.

“Hi, I am Thushar”, chimed a voice behind him. Surya wheeled around to find Thushar standing by his side. Thushar offered his hand for a gentle handshake with Tanvi. She shook his hands and smiled at him.

“Hi, I am Tanvi”

“I suppose you have joined the college recently because we have not seen you around here before”, said Thushar.

“Yes, I am new here”

Surya could not help noticing that her voice was perfect too.

“Which course are you attending here?” asked Thushar. He knew the answer already, as he was the one who played the patient listener while Surya had been going on and on about Tanvi, over the past one week. She replied and Thushar talked to her further while Surya looked on. He had regained a semblance of his confidence by then and joined in the conversation. Tanvi was talking with an ease and grace that commanded respect. Even Thushar had to admit that Tanvi was very charming.

The three of them, walked out of the canteen and set off towards the academic block. A gentle breeze was blowing. The branches of the Gulmohar trees swayed to the unheard ditties borne by the breeze. The afternoon sun, about to give way to twilight, reached out with its gentle rays as if to caress the earth before bidding goodbye. The walk was relatively deserted and the scene before them was so very serene that Thushar suggested that they sit down for a while.

They sat down underneath a Gulmohar. Nobody spoke for some time. Surya had regained his composure and by then had begun to enjoy the company of Tanvi without any awkwardness. Thushar got up and made an excuse about having to work on an assignment and left.

“He can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but he remains a dependable friend”, thought Surya with a smile.

The silence was broken only by the soft whistle of the wind. Tanvi seemed lost in thought and was looking at the red flowers littered on the grass. Surya watched her and wished that time would cease its journey at that moment. “If time stops now, I will never win her. But I will always be looking at her and be in her presence for ever. What greater joy can I hope for?” he thought.

Surya felt a welling of emotions within him and wanted to express it. So for the first time in his life, he created a poem in his mind. He did not know whether it was a poem or a mere arrangement of words to rhyme, but he felt happy when he recited it over and over again in his mind.

“Love is the rose, that blossom in the heart

And spread the fragrance, that never depart”

Tanvi finally got up and Surya followed suit. They said a few parting words to each other and left. They had not spoken much since they sat down underneath the Gulmohar, but both felt that they had shared a lot. The rustling of the leaves and the whistle of the breeze had done the talking for them.

Surya rode his bike home happier than he had been in a long time. Tanvi, felt intrigued by this person with whom she had spoken next to nothing and yet shared much. The Gulmohar stood in the walk and seemed pleased at having given its shade to the bloom of a new love.

Many years have passed since that day Surya and Tanvi sat underneath that tree. If you visit the college, you will still find the Gulmohar standing in the walk covered with blood-red flowers gently swaying in the breeze. If you listen closely, you will hear numerous ballads of love, crooned into the wind by this Gulmohar tree. Even to this day, young people on the verge of falling in love sit under the tree and feel the symphony created by it. All one needs to feel that heavenly music is to keep an open mind.

Surya and Tanvi had not realized back then that they had embarked upon a journey that intertwined their lives. They met again the next day under the Gulmohar and the day after that and so on until it became a ritual. They would sit under the tree and chat for a while and then quietly listen to the murmur of Nature. Their friendship grew stronger.

Tanvi enjoyed Surya's company and Surya adored her. He was in love but did not profess his love to Tanvi. He took great care not to betray his feelings while he was with her. It was painful for him to hide his feelings thus and Thushar was angry with Surya when even after a year, Surya had not confessed his true feelings to Tanvi.

"You are a chicken.", Thushar would say and with that would do a crude imitation of a chicken flapping around and it always infuriated Surya. He wanted to tell her everything but could not. He was happy to be around her and at the same time miserable.

Finally things came to such a pass that Thushar could no longer take any more of it and threatened Surya that he would tell Tanvi the whole story unless he did it himself. Surya and Thushar were in the third year of their college lives and were already making plans for jobs to apply for and the life after college. The Christmas holidays were approaching and Thushar set a deadline for Surya to tell all to Tanvi.

The final day of college before the holidays arrived.

[To be Continued]

Love - Reloaded, Part 2

Surya went to his classroom feeling downcast at having not being able to speak to the owner of those bewitching eyes. All throughout the lecture, all he could think of was about this girl. Her face loomed in his memory like an unfinished painting which was destined to be a masterpiece. His gloom was not lost upon Thushar, who at the end of the lecture asked, “What is bothering you, dumb head? You have been moody during the whole class”.

“Nothing”

Thushar was not a person who admitted defeat at the mere sound of a war-horn.

“There is something bothering you, of that I am certain. You could tell me the reason and get it off your mind or brood over it and be unhappy the whole day. It is your decision”, he quipped.

By this time, Surya was so confused and chagrined that he needed no further invitation to blurt out the whole incident. Thushar was awfully quiet throughout the narrative and wore a very serious expression on his face once Surya finished his story.

“This is nothing but silly infatuation”, declared Thushar. “It happens to everyone at this age. The prudent thing to do is to forget the whole thing including your wide-eyed beauty and concentrate on your studies.” He was brutally straight-forward and his thinly veiled sarcasm hurt Surya slightly. He nodded his head and kept quiet.

He did not meet the girl the whole day but not for the lack of effort on his part. He searched and looked around like a gazelle smelling danger, all day long. She was obviously a junior student who had joined the college recently and they had classes throughout the day. Surya longed for another meeting with her, but could not yet make up his mind as to what he would do in case he met her again.

He thought about saying ‘Hello’ and introducing himself, but decided against it. Thushar’s words rang at the back of his head and Surya hated himself for not being able to counter the logic behind Thushar’s tirade.

The college stood in a 15-acre campus and the academic block was the biggest building in it. Towering high at 5 stories and surrounded by manicured lawns, the academic block was an imposing structure. The library was the second largest building and was adjacent to the academic block on the eastern side. Surya and Thushar particularly liked the walk from the academic block to the canteen, since it resembled a boulevard. Gulmohar trees lined the walk and shed blood-red flowers onto the concrete path making it look like a red carpet under the soothing shade of the trees.

Surya, Thushar and a bunch of their classmates were sitting and chatting about a new movie one afternoon under one of these Gulmohar trees, when he met her for the second time. One week had passed since that fateful rainy morning and since then Surya had not stopped looking for her. Even though he had not been able to find her, he had described her fairly accurately to the junior boys in his hostel and had obtained her details. Her name was Tanvi. She was an Electronics engineering student and was staying in one of the new ladies’ hostels that had sprung up around the college campus. Surya had also made a few unsuccessful rounds on his bike in front of that hostel hoping to catch a glimpse of her. So it was with surprised elation that he watched her walk past him.

Surya nudged Thushar and pointed her out to him. He took one look and gave a derisive snort and continued to chat with the group. Surya was angry and swore at Thushar under his breath. He got up, made an excuse to go to the canteen and followed her. He could feel Thushar’s eyes burning holes at the back of his head and he knew better than to look back and confront that disapproving glance.

Surya had felt fairly confident when he was walking towards the canteen. But all that confidence oozed out of him, like sand in a sieve, when he entered the canteen and was replaced by wave of anxiety when he finally saw her in the canteen. There were ten rows of tables in the canteen, with an aisle in the middle. She had chosen the table closest to the serving counter. She had a book open in front of her and a glass of lemonade by the side of the book, from which she took sips intermittently, all the while having her eyes fixed on the pages of the book. He walked to the serving counter while trying his best not to cast a glance at her. He pretended to be suddenly interested in a sambar-stain on the canteen wall and tried to discern a pattern out of the stain. It seemed like the portrait of an emaciated man with a goatee.

Surya reached the serving counter and was at a loss. He was not hungry nor was he thirsty. The canteen-boy approached him with the usual disinterested expression as though he dared Surya to order anything.

“One coke”, said Surya.

While the canteen boy was going through an elaborate process to bring the bottle of coke, Surya cast a furtive glance at Tanvi. Her hair was perfect. Everything about her was perfect. She was the perfect girl with perfect, beautiful, round eyes. He longed to run his hands through her hair. But when he realized the turn of his thoughts, he was ashamed of himself. “Is my attraction to this girl merely a carnal infatuation?” wondered Surya.

Suddenly Tanvi looked up from the book and caught Surya staring at her. Surya was embarrassed and quickly averted his glance and became interested in the sambar-stain once again. But he could see out of the corner of his eyes that she was studying him. He would have given away his most treasured earthly possession, his motorbike, to anyone who could tell him the expression on her face at that very moment.

The canteen boy banged the coke bottle on the counter and croaked, “Ten rupees”. Surya felt his hands quiver when he took his wallet out of his pockets. Was it a result of excitement or fear, he was not certain. He paid for the coke and turned to leave. She was looking at him still.

Surya felt that he should speak. But he felt his throat dry up and he could hear his heart pound hard and if it could go any faster it would have found its way out of his rib cage.

[To be continued]

Love - Reloaded, Part 1

Is it possible to fall in love when you have once been stung and hurt once in a love gone bad?

This is a question which Surya had pondered many times over. The answer always eluded him.

It all happened when he was into the second year of his engineering education. The first year was particularly good to him. He had scored high in almost all subjects. His parents, like other Indian parents, were all for rewarding good academic performance and so at the age of 19, Surya was a proud owner of a 100cc motorbike.

Life seemed full of promise and he flitted through it like a bird in favorable wind. At times he would tarry and think about his life, but since nothing was amiss, he would dismiss such thoughts as quickly as they appeared. He did not know that all of it would change in a while.

Surya had found a true comrade, in Thushar. They were classmates and had met during the interactions of senior students with juniors. Such interactions were fondly called as Personality Development Programs (PDP). Thushar was a matter-of-fact person who answered the seniors' questions boldly and he had to face a lot of heat. Surya realized that having such a person around would help him to pass unnoticed below the radar and draw away the attention of seniors and so he be-friended Thushar.

The friendship which had its beginning under such dubious circumstances, flourished and before long, they were bosom friends.

It was into this perfect little world of Surya, that she unknowingly stumbled in.

He met her on a wet and chilly morning of August. Surya enjoyed riding his bike when it drizzled. He felt the small droplets of rain, falling from the sky with wanton freedom, finally settling on him, caressing and comforting him and as always it made him think of God. Even though he was brought up in a very conservative family, his thoughts about God and his spiritual inclination were very liberal. He refused to indulge in the idea of a God who punishes people who do not worship him and showers blessings on those who praise Him. Whenever his parents tried to make him pray by threatening him about the wrath of God, he pictured his high school headmaster stooping down with a cane in his hand. But, invariably whenever it rained, Surya felt an overwhelming sensation of loneliness. In those hours of solitude, he felt an inexplicable presence which made him happy and sad, all at once.

Surya parked his bike and entered the academic block of his college. Students and teachers were walking in from all directions. She walked past him and she was dripping wet after running in the rain without an umbrella. She brushed her wet hair from her face and Surya was rooted to the ground. She looked around with a troubled expression on her face probably because her clothes were dripping water all over the floor and her books, which she hugged close to her body as if to protect them from some unspeakable evil, were also soggy from the rain. But Surya did not notice any of this. He was looking at her eyes. Here was an object upon which he could write poems upon poems and still not do justice to its beauty. Her hazel-brown eyes sparkled with a spirit that refused to be dampened even by the rain that had soaked her to her very skin. When her eyes met his, he felt that his soul had left him to embark upon a journey, never to return to him. It is uncertain whether she felt any such sensations because she gave him a quizzical look, as if to ask, "What are you looking at?" and hurried along to her classroom.

Surya could not move from where he was standing for a while. He was trying hard to remember those eyes and imprint them in his memory. It was more like trying to remember an elusive tune of music; the moment you feel that you have found it, it slips past and plays hide-and-seek with you. Somebody went past him and said, "Hi Surya". He came out of his reverie and realized that the vague memory of those eyes would haunt him. His life had taken a different turn at that very moment.

[To be continued]

Love

I dont know much about love. I have fallen in love. But I cannot explain the intricacies of it. If I had been a scientist, I would have attempted to explain it as the hormones trying to play havoc with lives. If I had been a self-torturing, moody, mysterious painter with artistic chagrin, I would have painted numerous paintings on the subject. Since I am neither, I attempt to give meaning to a sensation that many worthier souls than me have tried to capture, in words.

My tryst with love began when I was eight. I felt unusually attracted to a girl in my class who sat next to me in my class. She was very nice to me and she had a beautiful pink bow on her hair which made her look all the more pretty. Now I dont remember her face exactly, but I remember the happiness that I felt whenever I was with her. I can look back and say that I have had several encounters with this self same form of happiness in varying degrees of intensity, over the 17 years I have hence spent.

I have not yet attempted to define love and for good reason. It is undefinable. Whenever my math teacher explained the concept of infinity, I had my own equation to fit it. Infinity = Love. So, at a very young age itself I had realised that love can define other things but nothing can define love.

People say that it is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. I believe that it is better to have loved and lost than to have loved and won. All the love stories that we see in movies, read about in books, depict the hero and heroine fulfilling their love and living happily ever after. Is there 'happily ever after'? This brings me to my basic premise. Love is most beautiful when it is lost. We miss things the most when we can never have them. So I believe that unrequitted, unfulfilled love is the most potent form of love. Afterall, what is love, without heart-wrenching, emotional trauma?