“Okay...no problems...and when will we talk?”
“Naturally, when love will finish its talk…! And who knows, there may not be then any need of we talking.”
He understood well there was no scope for words. He resigned to her desires. The darkness that she had opted had a light leading them to a definite end. He could see the end but was not sure of the journey ahead after they both reached there. He had realized that there was a clear gender divide on approaching things. Intimate and meaningful communication would give him a definite high. He would go an extra mile in reaching out solutions. He would discuss issues, analyze all possible aspects and lay out the reason and logic for to be or not to be questions. His satisfaction doubled at the sense of success of a communication enterprise even when it did not yield desired results. For her, immaculate sense of well-being was the only worthy enterprise and an explicit overdose of intimacy was the best prescription. Men would be at their best when faced with a challenge and women would be when love and intimacy abound. It is truly tragic that men’s enterprises would often lead to situations which would destruct the sense of well-being of their women.
He for sure did not want to disturb her intimacy quotient but he had his doubts. His woman was perfect for this stage of their intimacy but he was always very unsure whether she would understand that everything in this world changes as part of a certain evolution mechanism. She would be required to evolve herself, her love and her sense of intimacy as they would grow together in time and space. He wanted a talk. He wished to acquaint her with the challenges that he could see ahead in their relationship. He never was really prepared to lose even a tiny bit of the fragrance and sweetness of their relationship even ten twenty years down the line. He had seen most of the couples just dragging their relationship. Most stuck to it as parting ways was inconvenient proposition. He would admit he was scared. He felt a happy and meaningful relationship; especially husband-wife was a huge enterprise. Nothing in it should be taken for granted. It needed immense and daily physical as well as mental investment, very cautious emotional nurturing and great intuition to keep the relationship fresh and tender.
Man and woman together can create a universe of joys. He had little doubt that the two were designed and had evolved in such a way that together, the complementary energies of man and woman had all that was required to be in infinite state of ecstasy. When the energies of intimacy and love would either lose their purity or would fizzle out, matter would start filling up the empty spaces between man and woman. The pelf, the position the pronouncements of material well-being are all just the subterfuge of intimacy. In his journalistic career, he had closely witnessed the lives of big and mighty of the society. A journalist often has information and knowledge which are not printable but they give him a deep insight into the minds of people high and low. Mighty and iconic politicians, corporate colossus, spiritual gurus, media barons, film stars ruling million hearts...he had seen them all from close quarters. He firmly believed; all enterprises of men in their purest form were exercises towards attaining intimacies. It is a great humor of life that men actually believe that more they attain material accomplishments of life; better eligible they are for larger intimacies. It is enormous tragedy that men waste the best of their abilities and creativity in amassing material success to buy intimacies; which essentially comes naturally and free of material cost. And, if endowments of intimacies come at a cost, they are not true ones; unfit for an enterprise worth a salt.
Yes...many successful men would boast of savoring the taste of selective and delectable recipes of beautiful intimacies. Being in media, he would be bored by the favorite time pass of his colleagues discussing with lots of masala the intimate lives and antics of politicians, bureaucrats and even their own bosses. He remained least interested as this he considered as nothing compared to the harems of the mighty of the past and even present. The harems are actually living proof of one of the greatest travesties of men’s world. The mighty man picked up horses from far off places; of great breeds and pedigrees. His royal stable symbolized his power but the horses actually fought magnificent battles and many died while saving lives of their masters. They also raised large harems and exceptionally beautiful women from all over the places would be forcibly housed in them. They also symbolized the power of the king but unlike horses, the women in the harems did not perform the roles they were naturally endowed with. The kings would posses and relish the volume and mass of intimacy but not the energy and fragrance of intimacy. The mighty consumed excess of the body of intimacy but not a bit of its soul. And that’s why; he was never satisfied with the size of his harem. He would add more women and lose more pride. The men would go to lots of women to find something that a woman is enough to give but would never get that one woman. The harem is the mortuary of intimacies but the mighty would not admit it. He knew it quite well that most men have the ultimate dream to be like a king and possess such a harem. The common man keeps his harem in his heart; the successful and mighty get the chance to descend it from their hearts to their chosen bed. Only a few mighty men fail the chance.
He remained on the bed and his mind was racing up with thoughts. He understood it well that he was not in tandem with the beauty of the time in present but was messed up with a time that was yet to come. He even tried to stop being apprehensive and drift along the present which was so blissful but his mind would not partner with him. But he did not know; he was making a cardinal mistake. He was seeing reality from his own viewpoint and taking that of her as granted. She had equal stakes in his reality and what she had in her mind, what she had kept in abeyance to shock him, he could not even have an inkling of. She was in the kitchen readying dinner before she said ‘love would start speaking’. He waited on the bed. Time waited too; so did his destiny.
All beautiful and important attainments of life happen in a semi-conscious state of mind. The mind cannot recall them in vivid details. There would be just a ghost feeling...one would remember he or she was there when that happened to him or her but what exactly happened, the mind does not register it. The ultimate in love and intimacy happens in semi-conscious state of mind. God happens in semi-conscious state. Life happens and death happens in the same state of mind. Bodies are needed for the initiation but the attainment comes with bodies becoming redundant. Hands are needed for prayers to start but when godliness happens, prayer withers away. Bodies set up sex but orgasm ensures; the mass of flesh melts into energy.
He tried in vain to relive the moments that he had with her an hour back but all he could recollect was a feeling that he was there. He still lived the profoundness of the bliss of togetherness but could not recall in vivid details what had happened. She had fixed the dinner and gone to the bathroom; that he had seen. She had called him from there wanting some help. The door of bathroom was ajar but still he had asked her if he could come in. She had asked him in. The light was not on but it was not completely dark. Some feeble radiance from outside light made him see things. She was sitting beneath the shower, on the floor. After few seconds, when his eyes got adjusted to the dim light, he could see more than the outlines of her body. He could see clearly…. he shedding lots of the weight of unnecessary carriages of his personality; his male ego, his self doubts...and his natural awkwardness with his own body. He could see entirely new dimensions….
He had realized quite early in his life that the one single fact of life which presents itself to all humans as greatest enemy and which every human has to befriend is not greed, not ego, not pride but fear. He had read the religious scriptures and had realized that all rational men and men of genius sought only one thing from God. They called the almighty – bhav bhay niwarak – solution provider to the fears of the world and prayed him to make humans understand fear and make fear his best friend. He accepted this as a certain sign of inferior intelligence of men as compared to the women. Females never seek fearlessness from God. They have the superior intelligence to understand the simple fact that God is all powerful and when something is sought from a powerful person, one should seek not the negation of something but the affirmation. That’s why; females seek love from God – His love and love for all in this universe. The women have the innate acumen to realize that when love prevails, fear loses its existence. Women always seek root goodness whereas men would look for the fruits of goodness. That’s why most men end up having a barren tree of life.
…a woman’s beingness is bhav bhay niwarak… truly, God’s stamp on earth.
He remembered, once, when he was only a twelve-year old, he had fallen from a tree and despite his best efforts could not breathe. He had seen his mother rushing towards him from a distance but he had virtually accepted that before she would come, he would die of breathlessness. His limbs had already got numbed and he could not even let out a cry. His mother had hugged him tight to her bosoms and though he still could not breathe, he had lost his fatal fear. He remembered till date (and smiled now for his foolishness), how he was at peace being in his mother’s lap and had prominently felt an icy sense of contentment that when he would die, his soul would enter the soul of his mother as she had her heart kissing his heart. As his sense of shock and fear had got dissipated, his breath had been restored. Even today, his fatal fears had only one solution; not God but his mother’s bosoms which had clinched his first fear when he had come out of the secure walls of her womb.
…. A woman’s beingness is man’s ultimate prayers come true….
The tiny vapors of shower had been reaching his face. He had stood in a stupor; quietly experiencing his inside feelings. As a director of a movie makes all the right moves to ensure that all the scenes shot of a particular script in hand descends down on the celluloid in a way he or she had visualized them in his or her mind; she called him to make movements and he, as a dedicated actor, who has full confidence in his director, performed the scenes as per her command. She had asked him to pull off his clothes and come in. She made him sit close to her under the shower, their faces facing each other. She insisted he kept looking at her face and her eyes. Instinctively, he had lowered his eyes. His intimacies with her had been with touches...his eyes would automatically close when she would get bodily intimate with her. What eyes see, mind registers and responds best but differently. Visual intimacies are excruciating...difficult to receive. You touch a fire and its heat makes your mind respond instantly. And, when you see a fire burning, the myriad colors that it exudes make mind respond differently. Mind warns to withdraw but simultaneously wishes to keep looking at it. You love watching it…and strangely, even desire to capture it in your fists... the golden hue, the red core, the bluish outlines, the grayish smoke head...each triggers off different feelings in the heart.
Visual intimacies are agonizing like a fire...he withdrew first. She upped his face with her soft palm. She whispered on his lips to see her well...understand her through his eyes…explore her with the help of his eyes...she kissed his eyes and asked him, “… let your eyes see me in fullness, nakedness and completeness...it is important...you must do it… let me be very sure that you do it... I want to ensure that even if I do not know myself well, you must...you know what is best for me; you should also know me better than me...” .
The art is in symmetry and it is awesomely beautiful. Never in his life had he seen the form, the symmetry, the chiseled undulations, the righteousness and the profundity of an art. All of a sudden, he felt an agonizing sense of guilt. He felt dwarfed by the magnanimity of the perfection of the art. ‘How can men be so blind...’, he said to himself. ‘How can they be so brute...how can a man muster up the courage to defile the art...how dare they...oh my God!’ He felt ashamed; feeling guilty that he unfortunately was a part of the discreditable legacy of the male world... he wanted to move out. But he did not write the script. The director knew what was best and what was next.... She had closed the shower and handed him the soap. He could see; she had closed her eyes. This gave him the courage….
The music had begun...the ultimate melody had started filling up the universe...each element, every bit of body and soul had started absorbing the composition. The cells had passed on the message to the tissues and the dance had started to happen...! The notes were struck perfect...both the bodies had started humming sounds originating from the bellybottom...the resonance of the molten lava that jostles to burst out of the surface of earth from beneath the bellybottom of the earth...the naad swar (primeval sound) of creation...the whining of God’s avowal of shrishti (creation)...the bodies melt, existentialism liquefies; the expression takes the form of dance...the form of godliness...a definite invitation for the universe to bow in total deference to the energy of creation...silence..silence...!
The music had filled up all spaces...a rarity. He understood; music is everywhere in the universe but it was very rare for humans to find it in their lives. A very rare discipline of harmony and surrender of senses is required for the realization of ultimate music of life. He had heard it from someone. Once there was a world renowned singer who was considered the ultimate master of music. When he was dying, a disciple sat at his feet and asked, ‘master...you know music better than anyone living or dead in this universe. Please tell us what the greatest music is’. The master closed his eyes and said, ‘I did not know it for long but now, when I am dying, I can say with conviction that greatest music on earth is compassion in the heart’. He understood; he felt compassion...he lived the music...he rendered the composition of compassion...! He understood; music needed great discipline...the discipline of saat sur (seven notes) ...the regulations of taal (beats) ...the obligations of laykaari (melody) ... then only came the accomplishments of a musician to qualify for his own musical adaaygi (rendition). And that is not the desired end of music. A great musician needs thousands of hours of riyaaz (practice) to reach a stage in music which the connoisseurs say, ‘Aaj ustaad ne kah di hai (the maestro has said it)…’ The first four stages are learning the language and being proficient in it but expression of poetry comes rarely. Poetry comes with compassion. Music scales greatness...godliness with compassion. A compassionate heart is music’s true source... the God’s abode...
The music had replenished the space with compassion... it was made possible. The stage was ideal. Love and intimacy, the supremacy and all pervasiveness of it, sets it on. The absoluteness of intimacy initiates the poetry and the heart is soaked up with compassion…. He had felt his guilt washed away...passion had bowed out the moment compassion ascended the throne.
The transformation had begun...! When rains wash the face of earth, each and every speck of it looks new and different....her eyes looked so large and heavy; he had seen them before. The long and black curls of her looked longer as his hands reached their ends...her limbs, her back, the neck...the soft shoulders...the verve below...the ascent and descent of seven steps of heaven...oh! …every touch made him realize he was discovering a completely new she.
A déjà vu...certainly...most certainly...she was not what he had known for over a year but the new ‘she’, was very much what he had known for ages...what? Something so vivid, so ostensible but still so elusive... so intangible...! His realism had got metamorphosed. He did not stop...the journey must not stop before it reaches destination and then, the realization dawns upon that it was not what had initiated and energized the journey.
And finally...he touched the woman...moments of beinglessness…a sharp shrill down his spine...and he attained it...he dropped the soap...curled up, crying, closing all his senses... he crept into her lap...slowly but surely pushing himself to her womb...she wept too...curled her up and shoved him firmly to accommodate him, imbibe him in her fullness. The compassion took both of them in its refuge...compassion made her the womb...the highest repository of human compassion. And, compassion melted his gender...made him a fetal reality...! Coiled up in her womb, he understood the déjà vu...he attained it...the infinity... he realized the unknowable...
She remained motionless in his arms. Both of them had forgotten dinner; opting for the comfort of the bed, resting as just-born enjoined twins. Nothingness is the recipe of intimacy...even redundant is unnecessary...! Time however cannot be wished away. It was 2 am when she checked the watch. He too moved as she slipped out of his embrace. She went to the kitchen to make some tea and he opened the windows to allow the fresh breeze in. He took out the bed sheet, clothes were such a burden… wrapped the sheet around him and moved to the living room. She brought one large cup of tea. He took her inside the bed sheet as both sat on the couch. They sipped tea together.
Rise up before the Sun does and see the magic, the old prudence has it. He was used to the timing. He would not return home until the printing machine ran the first copy of the late city edition at 3.30 am. For her however, this was a new experience. She felt a strange rejuvenation. This was the right time to direct the climax that she had in her mind. How unaware he was...
“Say something...”, she whispered in his ears.
“What...”, he asked softly.
“You had said you wanted to talk...something important!”
“Yeah...I did. But now I am not sure what I wanted was necessary...even right.”
“You are always right. I cannot see you go wrong...I don’t want to. And, I think I know what you wanted to say. That’s why I say you were right.”
He looked in her eyes; her determined self was clearly visible. He kissed them.
“My princess, you do not know us men. We breathe the legacy of corruption of intellect...we are the directionless and destructive energy of the universe. We men are born in contradiction and die in confusion.”
“My man is not part of the legacy”, she said promptly, rubbing her lips to his and grabbing him in her arms. “My man understands contradictions and that’s why he is above everything...he is not the man the way it is... he is my God; gender-neutral and formless like him.”
He could not say a word. He appreciated the word gender-neutrality. He had often realized that he lost his man-identities when in total intimacy with her and even did not register her as a woman. The formlessness anyway was his favorite existential positioning. But this was not easy.
“You scare me”, he whispered to her. “You put me on such pedestals I can never justify. I am already so nervous...I never think I am good enough to deserve you.”
“You say that and I may say the vice versa. The reality is; we do not have to be in deserving business. We do not even have to be in the confusion of mutual expectations. We are two lives and we have to ensure that together we create such a positive environment which develops and perfects conclusive complementarities between us. Of course; I am a woman and you are my man. But when I and you will it to be us, we will need to rise above socially prevalent standards of gender-role exclusivity.”
Since evening she had been a revelation. He had never expected her to say what she had said. He realized she had more to say. He understood; the first ray of Sun would bring in a new world where some of his questions would lose relevance and rest would get answered for good. He put in his left hand fingers into her curls and very tenderly rubbed her back with his right arm fingers. She rested her head on his chest.
“Say it please...don’t stop”, he said and kissed her forehead. “This day is so unblemished, so full of divinity’s exquisiteness, so very enlightening...I am very sure each of the words you speak will add a meaning to our lives.”
“Hold me tight so that I have the confidence and conviction to speak to my God.”
“You are a woman, you need no help, and your womb holds the truth of the universe...your God is born out of your womb.”
The Sun is not the first to rise up. Before it wakes up, the breeze gets up and heralds the morning. The pre-dawn breeze wakes up the trees, the birds and those humans who understand life. The nature wakes up before the Sun does and nature stirs the potential from slumber. The potential hits the morning alarm bell for all those humans who understand purity and purpose of life. As she readied to say what she had planned to say, the pre-dawn breeze started to blow. The nature and all its elemental energies sat around her to listen. The light of the day awaited her...
“I have understood what you have been trying to make me realize”, she said in low whispering voice but he was all ears. “I did not tell you but I’ve been thinking over it. I am so happy, so proud of you...I feel so blessed; I feel no need of prayers and I call you my God not out of the intensity of my love for you. I understand I have to be in your light to become a perfect person and that is what God is – the highest benchmark of human perfection. I know, you too would wish to say the same about me. And God you are for me because you want me to be perfect not for yourself but for my own joys and satisfaction in life. I am so proud to have you; I am even scared at times.”
“But, I am a human, probably better positioned to qualify as your man than God.”
“That’s where my problems also start. I am a woman. We are into a man-woman relationship. If I can understand what it is to be a woman, I also do appreciate what it is to be a man. You look at life in terms of purpose, higher attainments, issues and agendas. I am a woman. And I think I understand what is being a woman. You have also helped me immensely in understanding what elemental womanhood is and I call you my God because it is the woman in you that made me learn what I was missing as a woman. You made me a perfect woman and I am so happy and proud that I have attained what I was born for. But you are a man. You define perfection from benchmarks which you see not as man or woman but human; a goodness common for all. Here you think I need to do more and add in my personality. You think it will make me happier and enhance my contentment; not as a woman but as a human.”
“...it seemed to me that life’s goodness and purpose was gender-neutral. Woman or man is a non-issue. Both are humans and equally entitled to attain the goodness of life. But that was yesterday. Today I feel unsure. I can say what I said probably needs scrutiny. This evening has probably changed something in me. I am even not sure which way I should say I am a man. I am probably more woman today. You have sort of absorbed me fully. If I am a man right now then probably like a baby boy; unaware of my gender.”
“You know, I am never good with words. You too know it well that my expression is poor. But I have been wanting to tell you that I have been thinking over this conflict of sorts between us...forgive my ignorance for not choosing the right word to express myself. I have spent many sleepless nights over it. I assessed what and why you wanted me to see things in life and groom myself for that ends. For many days I felt confused and even in some sort of conflict with your ideas. I think I am either a big fool or too innocently simple but I could only come to the conclusion that we basically want to reach the same destination in our relationship but our roads to approach it looks separate. I am not sure how to put it but I hope you get me right. I think there are two broad issues with us. First, we are into a man-woman relationship...I am a woman and you are a man; there cannot be a denial to body segregation. Second; we are into love and supreme intimacy. The fact looks like; the gender agendas are different and love’s requirement is different. Gender seeks role segregation and love seeks unification. Is that what we wanted to talk about?”
He nodded in affirmation and kept quite. He did not want to obstruct her flow of thoughts by making certain refinements in her observations.
“What I have come to the conclusion is; and again I say, I am probably too foolish or too simple to form such an opinion; there is actually no confusion, no conflict. When you live true to your gender identity as man, you also want me to refine my woman-specific gender role and rise up to accept roles that are human; not man not woman. That basically means that life’s attainment requires us to dissolve our gender-identities. And, when you are in complete intimacy with me, you yourself said you stop being a man and become more of a woman. I too lose my identity as woman. Absolute love dissolves gender-identities. So, you see; when you think as a man, you wish to attain something which ultimately reaches the same stage where you reach when you think as a woman and peak in love and intimacy – the genderlessness…”
He had no words. He could not feel the need to be a speaker today; he just wished to be a listener. He waited for her to continue but she did not say anything. He intuitively felt there was something more that she has to say.
“So, what you think is the one out of the two roads we should together tread to reach our common destination?”
“Here I am not confused and I really think I am wise enough to say it.”
“What...?”
“You are my God. I am happy and satisfied that we will anyway reach together to the destination which is our common end. I will tread the path with you and will never question why you chose either of the two. I am a woman; my happiness is in your happiness. Choose the path which you think is ideal. I am a woman; my rationality and my irrationality is love and absolute intimacy. I am a woman; my path and destination is love and intimacy. But, whichever road I tread, you are with me so love is with me all the time. I am a woman in love and that makes me happy in doing whatever my love asks me to do.”
“And what happens to man rationalities if I also become one with woman love?”
“You decide what you think is best, I will become that.”
“What if you were me?”
“Should I say something; the way out; but, it will sound stupid!”
“Give this precious thing to me...”
“Yesterday, I was talking to God, not you, the other God, in my dreams. I asked him what I should do? I told him that there looked some conflict of sorts between you and me. I asked him was I being too foolish? You know what he said?”
“What...?”
“He said..., I think he was in a hurry, may be a bit annoyed too. He sort of chided me. He said, “Did I create you, the man and woman to compete with each other? What I had ordered to my chief engineer and chief architect was a complementary model of two humans with separate identifications but complementing identities. How come such lot of conflict is prevailing on earth? Oh…! I will have to call a high-level meeting to reassess the design. He then disappeared.”
He could not resist a smile. He always believed she was innocence personified and intrinsically simple-hearted girl but he had never understood that basic intellectualism is in innocence and not in complicated idealisms.
“So, the God’s prescription is…”, he asked her, hinting her to complete the sentence.
“It looks like God said us to understand very clearly that man and woman have been made to complement each other perfectly. A woman is a woman and she has her gift of nature. Man is man and