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| It was She Part-4 |
| Wednesday, July 30, 2008 |
The letter
Raj felt the same old pristine heaviness settling into him. The breeze was getting milder but the chill, stronger. He found himself roof fence to rest on, and continued the reminiscence.
He had stopped following his routine of following her shadows. It had been a month now. His studies had suffered and he wanted to get over it.
He could sense there was nothing in it. It would give him more pain. He did love the pain, it was different, never-before, ubiquitous but it had hope. There was none now.
Raj moved to Delhi after his 12th. He thought that would resurrect his academics and help him get over her.
A year passed. And just like that, he kept himself moving with time. He didn’t get through any decent colleges.
It never occurred to him that it’s something to be bothered.
He couldn’t forget her. "That" bothered him.
He had ruined his dreams of getting into the Air force. He could never be a fighter pilot ever in the life.
Funnily, sometimes, he dreamt being in Uniform and appearing against her – may be that would impress her. His hopes had crashed and burnt. He decided to be back at home.
While coming back to his home, he instructed the rickshaw to follow his silky route. Nothing had changed. Cadence of the heart reflected same urgency. The air boasted her fragrance.
Premonition of her being around and appearing in front of the eyes still arrested his thoughts. The thought of infatuations were wrong.
Circumstances led him to an engineering college far south. There were lectures, seminars, labs, tests, internals, and semesters. It was good to be busy for a change. Things kept him preoccupied. He met with wonderful people, abhorrent people- a life in 4 walls, teaching him world of experience. He took time out still, though little. He wrote letters and poems for her, never meant to be sent.
Just to keep and preserve. Something to beat his fallacy and satisfy his fetish, something that made him feel good about himself. Something that no one else could feel or understand.
He called upon her house once in a blue moon. He didn’t want the flickering light to be over, just like that. He had not seen her for a couple of years now. The telephone number had changed as well.
He grew uncomfortable. The anxiety built up and then he had a shot in the dark, in his 4th semesters.
He wrote a letter which was meant to be sent. "An old outdated way but still so amorous", he thought.
He wrote:
"Dearest,
I don’t know what else I could do, I don’t know if there exists a better way of doing this and if I can do it that way.
What happened was idiotic, illogical and inexplicable, it just did. So, I am letting myself do it the same way- the idiotic and inexplicable way. Just like that.
I am Raj, It had been almost 4 years now since I first saw you. I don’t know whether it was a crush or love at the first sight. But that sight of yours never went off my mind.
You went your way, I changed my way too, but I couldn’t let you go. You have suffused in me.
I want you to know that I have fallen for you. I have never in my wildest dream thought of demanding the love back, I am probably too scared of the thought itself.
I had decided to keep this with myself. Then after all these times, I realized its not going anywhere and it needs acknowledgement.
Not only would I be unfair to the only feeling I nursed, the only relationship I created but also to you.
I don’t believe in God, destiny or the adage - "everything happens for a reason".
Neither have I looked out for reasons. It’s your prerogative to know that someone loves you from the dead core of his heart and it is meant to be only yours.
I do admit, it just doesn’t happen this way. There would be so many who might have similar feelings. It doesn’t make sense. A stranger and a strange letter! I don’t expect you to say anything positive.
Just that you know, just that it might bring you a thought of me some night when you are in your bed, just that this could make you feel important, just that this love won’t be a zombie anymore, gives me a reason to be happy.
"It" says it’s unfair that someone be damned without being tested and not been given an opportunity. With the miniscule of hope, I ask you to give this a test, a chance to convince you that nobody else could love you more than me or even the acknowledgement that you know,I could love no one else anymore.
There had been scores of letters like this with me. I have been selfish keeping them all with me. I want to show them all to you and many more things- whole life would fall short.
Dear,
This letter is not about you, I am not putting in what you had in you that made me fall for you, without knowing you. It’s about me and my confession.
I don’t see myself falling in love with anyone ever, it’s too precarious to feel again, the way I have felt for you. You have exhausted all my tenderness.
I can feel the hole in myself, it had created. It’s only your love that can fill that.
Whilst I say that I don’t expect anything, let me implore you that if you get a slightest of idea what’s in me for you or you too feel and believe in the inexplicable ways… do tell me.
My ID is there at the bottom.
Hoping for the best and preparing for the expected.
Love is a duet and I wonder If I we could ever sing it together.
Ever Yours,
Raj
The_raj.kishore @gmail.com"
He grazed the letter slowly, tore another fresh page and copied it again.
He kept the second one in his academic file beneath all the papers, held the original one and sighed to relieve his nerves.
He said to himself "This one goes to the one I love."
-DLabels: Let's Talk Love, Turn The pages |
posted by Dheeraj @ 9:06 PM   |
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| It was She Part-3 |
| Thursday, July 24, 2008 |
On the due date
Raj scrutinized the wood in his hand under the flickering light- a light just holding itself on the support of the overloaded battery.
There were no marks.
"Might have been burnt in the winter", he thought.
"Things are created and they are perished. This never even changed its form. The love had remained the same from the day I recognized its resident and still is a part of my own entity. "
Philosophy collided with the truth.
He used to wait for his father to come in the evenings. Strolling patiently on the balcony, he used to gesture him to keep the bike outside the fence.
"I would park it in the garage, Dad"
"Okay, I m keeping the helmet here, come"
"Helmet! No, bring that up. I will be just around. And no problems, I can dodge the cops anyways." Giggle.
Raj drove the bike to the "silky route"- a nickname he and Abhi had given to the street. It was a routine. He never missed a chance to try his luck out.
Even if he was asked to bring some grocery item which was no more than 50 meters- he would take that extra distance to reach her house, just in case. .
Sometimes, he took his beloved younger brother, 5, with him on bike and talked with him what he couldn’t to anyone else. His brother shouted "Silky route!!! Silky route!! Silky route!!" and pointed his fingers to her home whenever he passed the street.
The looking around went for months, 8 months. He still couldn’t find a time where he would be assured to see her. Her picture in the mind was still hazy.
He overheard his friend saying her being already engaged with someone.
He disapproved it with a silent fear but the love had started asking for acknowledgement.
That fine day, he decided to talk to her.
He rehearsed in his bathroom and in the mom’s room when she was not around. He had been taught to practice in front of drawing mirror during his school.
She would cross that turn; usually that’s where her friends bid bye. "I will follow not for too long, would seem rude and ungentlemanly. Then from two meters behind, moving two paces away from mirror, ok- from here, I would say "Hi!" with a pretentious smile , a little raise of hands.
Then, she would turn around, I will up reach upto her and say
"Hi, I am Raj.. I don’t know if you have noticed me, I have been seeing you around for sometime and wanted to say that I actually want to be friends with you."
He had zeroed in for a few key decisions earlier- "friends formula", "On-foot soldier", "green shirt & jean" "don’t give her chance to interrupt" and "mug-vomit-run".
Raj drenched his hairs with as much water as he could to keep them in place and look fresh, wore his special green shirt (worn once, dry-cleaned thrice in 16 months to save its royal status as a party dress) and the jean which actually had to be tied down from falling apart by the belt which bore a fake lacoste brand.
He reached there 30 minutes earlier than the school’s final ring.
By the due time, he realized his hairs were dry by now and every strand was trying to play diaspora, running out at different angles.
He saw brown and white uniform clad girls coming down. Krishna Niketan was manufacturing gems it seemed. He could see guys flocking together, bird-watching , running their bikes behind buses and rickshaws. He waited for "his blue diamond" to sparkle out of the unimportant crowd of gems.
His heart was sagging and was on verge of breaking down with every passing moment.
"She wouldn’t have come" he concluded, its an hour and half past the breaking time. He convinced himself to return back home.
As he turned around to head back, he felt a lump in his mouth; he could sense the hollowness under the ribs, the lifeless and voluntary trembling in his thin legs.
In a matter of couple of seconds, his ears were ready to catch fire. She was right there coming from the opposite direction hardly ten paces away.
It took an era of five-seconds to jolt himself back to sensibilities.
"Yes", revise,, "hi".. Then name, ok...
Then what…shoot…okay … sweet lord, what was that.. Ok, "I like you"… no! It was something better.. "I love you?"... Damn me!
She crossed passed him.
"Think ... Think"... or rather see her once … "man… follow!!!... "Oh my buttons"... What was that?
How could I forgot, I heard she took tuitions after classes. This was the time and this was the direction.
"Forget that, act now, Set the priority, go…….." Someone from within exhorted him.
Eventually, Raj followed her and reached his stipulated "two meters" from his love moving farther away.
With the deepest breath he ever took, as he tried to open up his throat, he felt a reverse gush of air tormenting him, a thick smoke garroting him, a nerve from his stomach pulling his throat down.
"Hi…" as feeble as a sound qualified to be called as a whisper. He wondered whether he said or just rehearsed again in mind.
Lost in his own thought, he looked up to measure the distance and if he could make it.
He saw a guy talking to her a few yards away from her house. She didn’t look anguished, neither perturbed nor disinterested.
That was enough to deflate his dented confidence. Reducing the length of his steps, heads down- he remembered his friends talking about her seeing some guy.
He turned back to head home. Walking back he constantly looked at his shoes without purpose.
At times, he could see flashes of her face in front of his eyes obstructing the view of his shoes. He kept walking – crossing the 90-fit road, what they call it. He stopped. He had reached the well.
He bowed down to peep inside to see an old timber basket floating on the water, slowly sinking down. He kept looking at it till it sank and was no longer visible.
He didn’t shout that day, just added a few drops of water to the well.
To be Contd...
By
Dheeraj
Labels: Let's Talk Love, Turn The pages |
| posted by Dheeraj @ 10:26 PM |
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| It was She, Part 2 |
| Tuesday, July 22, 2008 |
The Things As they were
Raj came out of the reverie as the fag burnt his lips.
He stood up and paced sluggishly towards the log of woods in the corner, left over by the construction, soaked and charred under the open sky.
As he picked up a particular piece of wood, he sensed a black-out. It was the old custom still strong and on, "standard 1-hour power outage" time.
How he waited for power outage then! It shielded him from his dad's admonition and provided an excuse to go to the roof.
Being on the roof, looking at the sky, watching a famous TV soap- everything gave him a special kick.
"Even she would be doing the same thing at this moment. We have something in common at least." An eternal metaphysical communion.
He was given a secluded outhouse to study. It was tough for him.
"How can I study, if no one is noticing if I am?" He admitted his own helplessness naively.
At times, conceding defeat to the echoes of his own conscience, he did manage to study, never more than 15-min stretch.
However, the story never surpassed from arranging a notebook, a thick Guide to Chemistry, a Reynolds pen, placing them adjacent on the table under the study lamp and
imprinting the "Atomic Structure" with an attractive font style and solving the same set of top 5 objective questions at the most.
He had just excised from the sports section of the newspaper supplement, a picture of a girl cheering Goran Ivanisevic.
He believed or rather forced himself to believe that she was a look-alike. It "was" and "is" mandatory to have your girl’s picture.
He had put that cutting into the new diary he got from the Dad's Insurance agent.
He flipped the pages to see and imagined the modifications that she would require to be exactly like her.
Hairs a tad blacker, face contours a little more seamless, lips a little fuller.
He closed the diary, slid under the pillow as he waited for mom's call for food. He used to go to the roof for a talk with himself just after the supper.
He unconsciously compared everything he would find beautiful, to her, trying to find an alternative to the tempting torture of seeing her in entirety.
A percentage of her beauty was attainable and gave him space to breathe otherwise she was ruthless and would just choke him every time he had a glimpse.
When he tried to sketch her picture, he always realized he could actually never see her properly. An outline of the oval shape, her hairs, dazed brown eyes, fair complexion- may be.
Nothing more than that. The second time he actually saw her, he was dumbstruck. He had not gone to play volleyball. On the pretext of seeing her sister, he walked a couple of miles towards a well in the solitary fields
He had looked into the dark water of the well and shouted twice full throttle. It was the first time he went there and did that. He never knew why.
He started to like doing this but saved the act for special moments. He was always scared of over-using anything and cherished the way they were.
"Would I make it less important, would I take the charm out, would the beauty be degraded?"
Here expressionless now, Raj moved towards the light emanating from the neighbor's room with an air of anticipation. The tube light had just switched on, powered by the battery backup.
He felt the wood in his hand and remembered a similar wood log then.
He would write her name on the paper and tear them to miniature pieces so that no two letters are in once piece. He would do random check, picking up a paper and finding the half "R" and the full "a".
He did that for some time till he found this piece of soggy wood. He took the nail and inscribed her name, and as he always did- made it illegible by writing a "S" "Q" and a cursive "D" over it
"It should be the ideal way. You stay and live in this world of mortals but only I should be able to read you, find you, see you." He prayed sullenly.
-DLabels: Let's Talk Love, Turn The pages |
| posted by Dheeraj @ 3:49 PM |
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| It was She, Part 1 |
| Monday, July 21, 2008 |
Life would never be same.
Raj was sitting on the roof-top smoking the cigarette illicitly. His head was spinning because of the unusual fast drags. He couldn't throw it until completely utilized though there was this moment of relief waiting, when cigarette would be thrown away to the neighbor's portico and he would be free from the dangling fear of getting caught.
He always got flooded when he walked on the roof.
He gazed to the east, looked up to the scintillating moon and smiled thinking of the caged frozen hare in it trying to jump out of the beautiful confinement.
A mile away, he could see her house, over the cliffs and through some tall palm trees obscuring what should have been clear and obvious.
There had been hindrances that had come up lately. Taller buildings, battered roads, growing age, passing time... passed time. The time had really passed. He could see through the thick rings of his smoke. The breeze is cool tonight, it was n't then..... 11 years back..
Raj closed the door slowly, ensuring no one knew he was in the drawing hall.
The telephone had a small lock. Dad had locked it after freaking high bills for consecutive months.
He knew how to overcome "this" obstacle. He picked up the receiver and started stroking the cradles in a rhythmic unison.
"tak-tak, tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak,tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak, tak,tak-tak-tak-tak-tak-tak, tak-tak-tak-tak-tak." He didn’t feel proud or guilty of his art of prison-break. He had to do it. He couldn’t help it. Correct number at first try. Ye it's right.
I can smell the ring of her phone, it's her place for sure.
His beats were ready to blow his ribs.
"Hello" after 11 rings..
A Deep sigh. It's not she. He was relieved for that moment and depressed the very next.
"Hello, Hello.. who is this...? Please don't call here. Don't you have to pay for your bills?"
"Technically No." he reassured himself.
No, it's not she. He knew
Raj kept the receiver back on the cradle.
"I could have actually waited for 36 more seconds. It all costs the same." he cursed himself.
"It was the same time, she picked yesterday. Where is she? This is my 15th call." Raj calculated.
After the great telephone-lock episode, he had imposed a self- restraint compromising his rights to follow his heart and showing his concern about dad's expenditures.
"The middle path, as Buddha preached. I can make 5 calls from Abhi's place and 3 from sis’, 5 from Nish's place. Of course, I can spare two coins from booth."
"But where is she? Why isn't she picking the call up anytime?
Let me check out. Shit, it's too hot and windy outside. There is no way she would be even in verandah. It never hurts to try."
Assuming, there was zero chance to hit her, he didn’t decorate his clumsy face or changed his not-so-clean shirt.
He took his bicycle in the hissing sun.
He could see someone moving in the verandah as he approached her house. Too scared to validate the image in his mind- he sped his bike running past the home with an unsuccessful obtuse-angled glance.
Raj just kept driving straight as if pushed by an invisible power as far as he could before he realized he is all sweaty, tired and dry. He stopped to gather his breath.
Turned the bicycle back and took an elliptical route back home to avoid going through the same path again. That costed him 2 more km through dusty roads.
As he reached his home and sat under the guava’s scanty shade he whispered " I am such a waste".
Suddenly, he smiled when he got up and said in a tone audible only to him "Look at me, My shirt is awful and so is my bike, Good I was not seen."
A punch in the air. "Ye, It was She!"Labels: Let's Talk Love, Turn The pages |
| posted by Dheeraj @ 8:39 PM |
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