12
THE ANGEL I LOVED
We were at the nearby shopping mall. I was beside her, longing to hold her hands. Wanting to sneak out and steal some kisses, hold her, and never let go. But most of all, I desired her attention, for her to look at me, talk to me, hold my hands and look into my eyes and see and know how I felt about her. But she was arrested by something else, someone else. Her eyes were twinkling as if they were hypnotizing me and they were focusing at something, someone only I couldn’t fathom what or who.
She was beautiful beyond description. She had the looks of a wise angel. I believed she had a perfect heart in a healthy body. A woman who had a soul that was searching and peaceful. She was almost the goddess of beauty and perfection.
I couldn’t take my eyes off of her and she couldn’t meet my eyes. I acted like a stupid obsessive boy friend and maybe I was and she remained an aloof stranger hypnotized by something else. This was very disappointing for a lover boy like me but I could not accept any defeat as yet.
We were walking together and she had her head tilted towards the glossy, glassy shops of this modern shopping mall. Her face had the expression of being in a scene in the ghazal concert of Pankaj Udhas. As if she was in tune with the greatest tabla and the sweet sounding sitar I had ever heard! I wish it were me, I wish it were the sight of me that gave her that satisfaction, that look in her eye. I would do everything possible in the game of romance to be the reason behind that nirvana state of her!
I was still figuring out what was giving her that satisfaction, that Buddha state of ultimate peace. What or who was it?
I looked closely as to what she was looking at. We sat down at the old café called Surahi. Her eyes were still meditating at something, her posture mindful and her expression ecstatic. What exactly was she looking at? What was giving her the infinite gratification? It wasn’t me and that hurt me tremendously.
I looked at her and then at the thing she was looking at. At last I found what she was looking at. At first I couldn’t believe. I looked again. Was she really looking at those mannequins? Those plastic or ceramic bodies with no life, no age, no gender and apparently no movement but artificially created lump of statues. Was that the thing gratifying her? Was that the thing arresting her from giving me even the minuscule attention that I craved and deserved?
I felt that she craved for a body that was perfect and will retain its perfect shape for all its life. She longed for the body that was radiating and had no hairs or the scales my body had. What was so appealing about a body that had no history? What was attractive about a body, whose biography will have blank pages? I wondered and I wanted to know.
Was it agelessness that attracted her? Was its fragility and vulnerability? Was it its dependency on someone else totally that made her crave for that? I wondered and again I wanted to know more.
Devastated I looked on. I felt my soul exiting me. I felt my heartbeats stopping. Why wasn’t I the focus of her concentration? I thought I was handsome, well built and healthy young gentleman but for her I was just another customer of the café.
I saw my face brooding, my body still, but I kept concentrating on her. As she looked at the stall of mannequins I began to assess my credentials for a romantic adventure with her. Why had I fallen for her, I questioned.
My soul left me and wandered around. Now I could see and think but couldn’t walk, couldn’t move my eyes, my hands, my legs. I couldn’t smell the coffee in front of me. I couldn’t do anything but dream. I just couldn’t do anything!
All I wanted was to dance with her or have a passionate Tango even in my dreams but what I got instead was a sentence of captivity for life. This was heartbreaking indeed and made me imagine my love with this angel. I was highly underrated in the realm of romance.
It’s tough to look at someone you are willing to do anything for, even if it costs your life. How could I feel nothing, nothing at all about me? If Newton had ever loved he wouldn’t be able to give the law, ‘every action has equal and opposite reaction.’
In this kind of one-sided love and in pseudo relationships all laws and reasons fail. I won’t be able to tell at when and how and why I fell in love with her or that why I still love her even when it means hurting me infinitely just to get her attention. I don’t know what, when and how it all went wrong between us or if it ever was right!
There are infinite permutation and combination of things that can go wrong in a relationship of two people and just one or at the most two combinations to get it right. I failed at getting the right combination.
Did I really love her or just craved her attention, I thought. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be, but maybe, just maybe, it was and this was the way to be! I had begun to question why this happening was dished out to me. Why was I leaving my body- the one I was born with, the one that had been through all ups and downs of my life? Was it because the girl I loved rejected me for it or because I had grown tired of me? None of the above because I still want her to look at me with some compassion and understanding.
In this battle of romance my soul has left my body and if this has happened will I ever be able to go back to my body, I feared. Was I really that desperate to be with her? Shall I wait for her to meet me as my soul mate in heaven?
With those entire questions, internal chaos, I became numb. For the longest period of time I saw my life pass me by. I watched my life as if I was at some festival or watching a movie. The only difference was that I wanted to be part of the mannequin parade that she was admiring. In those precious moments I wanted her to touch, hold and take that statue with her that was going to capture my soul. Even in those moments all I wanted was for her to look at me lovingly.
Adamantly, my soul wandered and was now entering one of those glossy, glassy shops. My consciousness was now with my soul. I entered into the shop. I moved into one of those plastic dolls. Now I was a mannequin. I had a perfect body. I was ageless. Wear and tear proof unless someone manually decided to destroy me. I felt happy and then I felt trapped.
I was trapped inside of a body that’s not free to do anything. The body that couldn’t put its nose in a book, drink coffee, fall in love, drive and can’t even move on its own. It seemed it was trapped in something that was soulless but had a soul. What was I thinking? Why did I do this to myself? Why did I become what I never wanted to become just to please a girl who doesn’t even look at me?
As I began cursing me, I thought at least now she will look at me with admiration. At least I would have that love that I was searching and craving about. But my curiosity soon turned into despair.
I looked at the girl I loved, her phone rang with the ringtone Ghungharoo Toot Gaye, the song of Pankaj Udhas that I was addicted to for days and there she was sitting with some other mannequin. She switched off her phone, looked at herself in the mirror with admiration. Gazed at her and had the Buddha state of ultimate happiness. She took the other mannequin and walked away from the shop.
I let my soul move out of my mannequin and get into my body. My romantic imagination was gone and I wanted to laugh at my foolishness and stupidity. I couldn’t even do that. Not anymore when I had no one there to admire me anymore. The show stops when there is no audience.
So many questions in our life are answered with ridicule and many of my valid questions about my love have no answers for me. When will I be able to find another soul mate to register my love for her I do not know? What I do know is that everything is possible in love and war.
Nowadays I sit in my study and create more such stories and in constant battle with self, many of my screams are trapped in my stare that is still searching for my true love.
So many boys like me fail their test of romance. I mean one sided romance but as Lyricist Majrooh Sultanpuri said in his lyrics:
‘Tu hai harzaai to apna bhi yahi taur sahi
Tu nahi aur sahi aur nahi aur sahi.’
‘If you are a heart breaker then this be our
way,
If not you, then another, if not another, then
someone else.’
But I am also convinced that one sided love is not the end of our passionate feeling for anyone. It is just the beginning of a different kind of love which other lyricists like Galib have defined a lot more adequately.
Ab kuchh is tarah maine apne jindagi ko
aasaan kar liya
Apne mehbooba se maafi maang li aur unko
maaf kar diya
Apne dil ki aawaz ko sunte hain aur unke
aankhon se dekhte hain
Sirf paane ka naam pyaar nahi khone ko bhi
ham isq kahte hain.
@
I have somehow made my life a lot happier
I have asked for forgiveness from my lover
I have forgiven her to make her life easier
Now I keep listening to the call of my heart
Now I am able to see the world with her eyes
Only to win the battle of romance is not love
Rejection, denial and loss are also called love.
