I, Me, Myself

By AMITABH SHANKAR

Great people are born ahead of their time, I was born when my time was past.
I was modelled to live in older times, when the ethics were different and virtues were appreciated. When being gentle was not considered a vice. But it was not to be. I, therefore, consider myself older than I am, and it reflects even in my looks.
The consequence is that my dearest one calls me too sentimental, clingy and what not. She called me even mentally sick and went on to say that I don't love myself. "I don't love myself" - Can there be a bigger slur?
A man not capable of loving hismself cannot love anybody else, it is a statement of fact. The person who said this is one with whom I have passed the most beautiful moments of my life, whom I have loved more than my life. For I believe not in the eternity of life but in the eternity of moment. One moment lived well is worth more than 100 years of life just lived.
Whenever she was in trouble, she found me waiting. Even then she knew that I was not there for her but was there because I couldn't help myself being there. I was helpless when it came to her.
I wanted to be with her, in her company, making things easier for her all the time. Above all, I wanted her to be mine, I don't know what she thought but I had never made any bones about my intentions. One may say that my love was selfish, it wasn't true love but then my love was self-love. I needed her because I loved her. And then she said I didn't love myself.
Not that I want the old world order to return, so that I become younger. I just want to grow up. Shed the middle-class family values which taught me to consider people as emotional beings. They are not, not at least in the capital.