sybil.j.h
The first time I saw him was when I walked into my class eight years back and plonked myself into an empty chair. He was sitting on the chair in front of me, with his back to me. Slight stubble, dark skin, short hair, blue shirt, reading the standard pink financial newspaper that everyone in MBA class is supposed to read. I looked at him for a few seconds, while he continued reading oblivious to me and to everything around him. And then I casually leaned over and said hi. He turned back, flashed that warm smile of his and said something I don’t remember. And then in the following months he went on to become the one man I will always love in a very very pure sort of a way, because nothing or no-one can be what he was. My Always love, (AL), if I can call it that.
From the first second, there was this tinge of love, this hue of smoke between us. Meeting AL was the most natural thing that could have happened to my life, like it was pre-ordained, like a prophecy. It was only a matter of time before it came true, and it did on an August afternoon in 2002. AL and I became part of the same friends circle and what followed was a dream. Laughing together every afternoon, eating sandwiches from the noisy canteen on the ground floor, drinking sour orange juice from the stall outside the railway station, eating god-awesome biryani from the irani restaurant near college, the daily forty minute train commute from college to home, the evenings on the promenade by the sea, a stone’s throw away from college, freshers parties, farewell nights, alumni dinners, placement troubles, college committees, photocopies of notes, ice cream flavours, cheating in exams, studying together for exams, debating about careers, me laughing at his choice of specialisation and he at mine, him running around one afternoon to deposit my CV for a position I dint even care to apply for, arguing about movies, tickets, drinking 3 glasses of cold apple juice everyday, poking fun at other people, the mouldy college library lessons slowly and steadily merged into one endless and beautiful two years with AL and the others. I remember him holding my hand shyly at a beach holiday I took with a lot of people and quietly so through the darkness, so that no one else would know.
Three years after that, I kissed him for the first time in the backseat of a taxi. Not exactly the most perfect location or time for a first kiss, but the memory of that kiss is burnt into my skin with the taste of the Christmas cake he bought for me from home that evening. A kiss that lasted for 45 minutes, ran through a blur of a peak hour traffic in the most crowded and traffic crazy city of the world and past a million posh hotels and slums, people and vehicles, traffic lights and trains, suburbs and churches, shops and schools. The whole world we had, was packed in that one kiss, in that one second of 45 minutes. And to date, that kiss remains on my lips, a sweet memory of a love we have, but can never share.
A few days back, he was visiting this country with his wife. I met them for lunch and we went out shopping for gifts they needed to carry back. And I watched him and his wife for the longest time. When they were shopping, when they were arguing, when they were picking up their bags. My mind could be playing games, or I could only be seeing the obvious. But the listlessness of his feet was so different from the indulgent softness I have seen in the hundreds of coffee evenings we have been on, it scared me to see him suffering like this. Having been made to marry to a girl who was his caste and his language and all that, just so that his family could be all proud of it, he never objected. Yet in that hug that he gave me at the hotel entrance to say bye, he said a lot.
We din’t have much time to hug each other bye, considering we were at the entrance of a hotel and the taxi was waiting and it lasted for all of two seconds. But in those two seconds, there was something about the way he held me, something pleading, something warm, something which said he dint want to let go, something that asked me to not let go, something that said we need to save us, that I am unable to get out of my head. Only, there is not much either of us can do now.
Eight years is a long time to love someone. But I guess just not as long as knowing that you can never stop loving them.
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Here’s one for you, from Adele.
Horny Bitch. Sweetly in Love. Attention Seeker. Quiet Listener. Best Friend. Untrustworthy Woman. Honest Coworker. Ambitious Workaholic. Lazy Lounger. Floating Hippie. Virgin Mary. Soul Sister. Depressed Liar. Egomaniacal Winner. Steady Girlfriend. Dreamy Lover. Convenient Rationalizer. Hyperactive Energyball. Snooty Insomniac. Kind Idiot. Me in All. All in Me. 