Love Exploits - I

AMITABH SHANKAR


Read the other day: To love someone is madness, to be loved by someone is a gift, to love someone who loves you is your duty and to be loved by the person you love is life.
Well, I have been thinking over the meaning and importance of love in life since my adolescence. As an adolescent I used to think love is the essence of life. Love makes the world go round and I had it for a brief period then which came to an end unceremoniously after her father was transferred. Though we were in contact for some years on phone and through letters, she was married off at a time when I was not standing on my feet, I was still an unemployed man and her parents were in a hurry to marry her. The frailties of middle-class prevailed over me and I didn't have the courage to ask her to wait for some more time. This left me with a sense of guilt inside me and it deepened when some years after her marriage she called me and told me that though she couldn't have me in her life, she still loved me.
It took me about 10 years to get over my first attachment with a girl. Then entered the second girl. She is beautiful, intelligent and matured. Lives life on her own terms. Too independent and very practical.
The moment I saw her I knew, I loved her. This is the kind of girl I would like to live the rest of my life with.
After some initial turbulences, she came close to me. We became friends and on the first given opportunity, I told her my feelings about her. She didn't accept my proposal but we shared beautiful moments together, afterwards. We went on long journey inside ourselves together, sitting at secluded places in Delhi where the love birds perch. Tried to know each other and also learnt a lot about ourselves from each other.
The more I knew her, the more I was attracted towards her. The more I was attracted towards her, the more I loved her. Her strength of character and firmness of determination left me spellbound.
But the impact of our proximity had opposite impact on her. The more she knew me, the more she found me unattractive and lesser she loved me. She found me weak, too sentimental, clingy, possessive, even mentally sick and inhuman. Finally, she shunned me.
I am once again footloose. She has got a better companion. I still long for her. She repents for having been with me. I cherish the beautiful moments we shared together, she hates them. But can she wipe them out of her mind? Can she wish them away?
Anyway, this cannot be the end of my love story. The world is small and the roads are well known. I do believe that we will cross each other once again in the journey called life. Right now, I am wondering how will the story unfold then...