Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Autopsy of Love: A Story

Love is an illusion. ‘May be’. Love is the most beautiful feeling ever experienced by humans. ‘May be’. Love is an over-rated emotion. ‘May be’. Love has the power to destroy not only one’s life but the whole world around you. ‘Well…May be'.
I never disagree with any definition for love. People have their own theories and versions for love. Even I have my own. One could prophesize any philosophy about love but if one-sided love prolonged for many years, you can relate to every known definition of ‘love’. My love story was not a very different one.
We were friends when we were kids. In adolescence, I developed some ‘special’ emotions in the friendship. I didn’t figure out it was love until my friends convinced me that it was love. Moreover, there were stuff like cinema, novels etc. that compel you to believe in the thing called ‘Love’. And from here I started my version of love.
Story becomes more clichéd as it progressed. She never had this notion of ‘love’ for a friend like me. With time, I tried everything to express my love. My innumerable banal poetries, songs had proved that I was a matter of fun in the school. We were no longer friends now. And one day, I came to know that she had an affair with our captain of basket ball team. I felt heart-broken but blissfully, when you were teen, there are other distractions than love in life, called ‘Studies’.
So, I studied hard and thought may be, I could marry her if I become a rich man. But, then in my final years, I heard that she was getting married. I gave my final shot and called her that if she could accept my love and reject the other marriage proposal for her. She told me, it was a love marriage.
“Ouch…!!”
“What are you thinking??Why are you worried now??….we had accepted your decision of marriage.”
My mother just broke my thought process, the thoughts of my immortal love story and dragged me to the present.
“Mummy, I am not worried. Just give me a moment of silence.”
So, I believe, we were at ‘Ouch..!!’. With it there was one more emotion ‘Enough of this propaganda of love, now I refuse to exist as a loser in real life.’ I had gone for further studies. I had no news about her. Then I met Trisha. She was a nice and intelligent girl. We enjoyed each other’s company. I started believing in mature love stories, a love where you could analyze the pro and cons of everything. A love whether you could envision the point ‘and they lived happily ever after’ based on your logic and statistics.
So, we fall in love. Her parents had no objection from marriage. Now, I went home to cajole my parents to the idea of ‘Trisha’ as their daughter in law. I could see the future in front of my eyes. Then one day, I went to my friend’s wedding and I met ‘Deepika’, yes…that’s her name, my first love. Believe me!..She was not my ‘only’ love…. she was my ‘first’ love.’ I kept saying this to myself.
After twenty-two years of my acquaintance, eighteen years of friendship, fourteen years of one sided love and six years as strangers, we met again. She was wearing white sari. She was more beautiful than I had ever imagined her in my dreams. I could still feel her eyes were searching for me. Now I kept on repeating ‘She was now a married woman’. But I couldn’t control my heart beats.
“Hi”
“Hi…. long time…, I can’t believe that we are meeting again.” I still had to control my eagerness to talk to her.
“Yeh…after really long time.” She sighed. “So, you went for post graduate studies.”
“Yes…my studies were over three year back. Now, I had been working. How have you been?”
“Great!! I had been working with ‘Airtel’ for past two years. Its nice to meet you, old pal. Do you remember we always used to have a blast when we were kids?”
..
“I remember everything. We were the best friends until I acted stupidly. You know in teen-age..it happens.”
“I don’t think it was stupid. It was just how you felt at that point. OK!..Forget about it..So any plans for marriage or are you a married man??”
“Partially true, I came home to tell my parents about ‘Trisha’. She was my fellow mate in the college. We share an amazing chemistry. And then we realized that we both loved each other. Now soon we will be getting married. What about you? How has been your married life? Any kids?”
“Actually, marrying ‘Ronit’ was not a good decision. We were not meant for each other. Within a year, we got divorced. There were very difficult days that followed. You know when ‘Love-marriage’ fails in India especially in a small town like ours, its really tough to fight with the image of a convict who got the punishment of what he or she deserves according to the society. But now everything is fine. I am enjoying my job and independent life.”
She was busy in meeting other people. My mind was blank for a while but suddenly thousands of emotions splurged into my mind. First, Happy - She finally got divorced. Yippee!! Sad- She was sad and lonely. Devil- You finally got your chance. She was single, and you are a successful bachelor. Angel- What about Trisha? She has been waiting for you.

As they say, Love was illusion, power, stupidity or anything one could ever imagine. It could be both selfish as well as selfless. I could not resist myself with the forces that attracted me towards 'Deepika' to surrender myself. And I could only feel sorry for ‘Trisha’. I could live ‘happily ever after with Trisha’ but I don’t want that ‘happy’ life.
I went to Deepika, “Deepika!...I had to say something to you…it’s important. I can do anything for you but please for once….”
Deepika interrupted, “Can I ask you for a favor as a friend? I would appreciate if we remain friends. All my life, I went for the things that I want and never cared for others. And still, my beliefs are not changed. I am fighting with the world for an independent and respectful life. Now I want to be a good daughter, good employee, good friend and a good person. Please don’t take my dignity by asking to follow my heart. I believe, I answered for your every unasked question.”
And she was gone.
My mother and I arrived at ‘Trisha’s home’ to talk about our marriage: Our love marriage. I was still debating with myself on definition for love.

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