Ten thousand texts I’ve sent, but you never reply, Or to the calls that I make when I’m drunk and I cry; Nor look up when I pretend to be just passing by. Are you so strong or is all the weakness in me?
I did not see you for a week after we broke up. It was a nightmare from which I never woke up. Here I cry rivers and only stop to sick up, And they say you’ve never even shed a tear
I sleep in my room whole day and only come out To drink myself to sleep again. While you hangout With you friends and go on with life all stout. Are you so strong or is all the weakness in me?
I send hateful messages so you will get angry And talk to me, ‘cause even for your abuse I’m hungry. I’m trying to date even though it feels like adultery, Because in some girls I see your hair in some your eyes
I want to get back, this time I’ll be a better person To correct my mistake, to put out my own arson. But you said you don’t and let things even worsen How are you so strong and why is all the weakness in me?
Ten thousand times you’ve tried me, ten thousand times I turned myself to stone. But I’ll die if I think you cry let alone hear you on the phone. Can’t dare look up to you, lest you see in my eyes love still shone. Are you so strong or is all the weakness in me?
Overdosed on sleeping pills, was in hospital for week after we broke up. Nightmares are better than the life to which I woke up. If I start crying I know I will never let up, Maybe I'm too sad to cry, too tired to bring a tear in my eye.
I cannot sleep at all, not since they took away the pills Can’t even stay in the house your memories give me chills My friends are all that keeps me sane, but nothing fulfills Are you so strong or is all the weakness in me?
I see you that you hate me but I cannot say anything, because it is my fault that caused this thing. I am happy for you that you are now dating. Me, I know cannot get another you, this I always knew.
My heart sored when you asked to get back together, Then I realized you were drunk, not sure you remember whether. I will never be good enough for you, too false a hope to tether. But how are you so strong and all the weakness is in me?
P.S. - Inspired by the Joan Armatrading song of the same name
All of us as kids start out with a lot of fantasies. Some of
us want to be wizards, some of us hope to be secret princesses, some want to be
super heroes. As we grow older some geeks like me continue to believe in these
fantasies, we are sort of overgrown kids actually. We like comic books, super
hero movies, Harry Potter and other fantasy novels.
Rest of us graduate to a higher fantasy – finding the One.
The one that the universe intended them to be with, the one they will have an
earth shattering romance with, the one that will fight the entire world to be
with them, the one which when they see a millions violins will go off, daisies
will blow in the wind and time itself will skip a beat.
In my humble opinion you have equal chances of finding out
that you can fly and finding the one. The one that you always dreamt of, the
one who likes the same quaint movies that you do, the one who likes your
friends but has interesting ones of his own too, the one who is good looking
but not too much to attract unwanted attention, the one who is outgoing and
likes to do stuff but also likes to cuddle in a blanket and watch a movie on
the weekends that you don’t feel like going out. The one who swears that one
cannot start his or her day without tea if you like tea or is highly
knowledgeable about wines and single malts if you are into that kind of stuff.
The one who is career oriented and respects yours too but has interesting
hobbies and a happening life beyond work. The one who understands your passion
for dubstep and your hatred for four-on-the-floor beat or is into ghazals of
Farida Khanum If you are. The one who has sense to never wear brown shoes with
black pants but is daring enough to wear brogues and not stick to oxfords. The
one who is smooth and knows the right thing to say, the one who is never tongue
tied or looking for you to show the way but is not too bossy or a control freak
either and understands that in some things you know best. The one with whom you
will endless conversations till morning every time you talk. The one for candlelight
dinners, surprise birthday parties and romantic beach walks.
This One is a fantasy like any other, perpetrated by
romantic movies and novels, reinforced by greeting card companies and seemingly
realized by happy couple photographs on Facebook. And the biggest difference
between us geeks watching Avengers and people watching Notting Hill or DDLJ is
that we know Thor and Loki are fictional characters. The point that Anna Scott
and Raj are ones too is seemingly missed by a lot of people. Those are the ones
who put these expectations on real people. When (or if) aliens attack I will
follow emergency evacuation procedure and will try to keep my head down. Not
wait for The Avengers to rescue me. But the people searching for the one expect
their date/girl or boy friend/marriage prospect to behave exactly like Jack or
Rose from Titanic. And then they move on after calculating that he or she is
not the one.
Sometimes I feel that these people are more in love with the
idea of being in love. For them finding love is a way to make themselves
complete and fulfilled. As if finding true love will solve all their problems
and their life will be the ones worth flaunting where they can cock a snook at
everyone else who hasn’t found their the One yet. Love is a wonderful thing, it
really is, it can brighten up the dullest days, it can give you the power to
fight through the toughest odds, it really is the rabbit hole that can show
Alice or you a wonderful new place but it isn’t a Parasmani. So when you try to
find meaning in your life by searching for the one you are putting the burden
of your entire fulfillment on him or her.
Your significant other cannot take the burden of being
romantically alluring and matching your every taste and being your activity
partner and your friend and friend of your friends and being liked by your
parents and forethoughtful providers/care givers That is, to take the burden of
being the One. He or she cannot take it. No one can.
That is why you have friends. And you need to maintain those
friendships even after you find the one. That one friend who can do the Govinda
dance steps with you, that one friend who likes hiking as you do, that one
friend who also thinks that is totally ok to travel 20 kms to eat a Idli, that
one friend who can spend the entire night arguing with you if Sam and not Frodo
was the real hero of Lord of The Rings.
Friendships like any plant need to be seeded and then
maintained and this day and age it is become increasingly easy to stay in touch
and maintain your friendships. Now it is possible to talk to your friends
across continents and time zones. To drop in a line or see once in a while what
are they up to. And with the internet, online forums and special interest
Usenets can get you to talk with total strangers and cultivate friendships
across any social divide and almost across languages as well. I argue with 882
strangers whether Stannis was right to burn Shireen on Reddit and don’t really
need my One to really care that deeply about Game of Thrones. Most people
around me these days keep agreeing to posts and rants that Smarthphones and
Facebook are hampering relationships and getting people away from each other. I
beg to disagree, I would rather stare in my phone and see photos on FB and send
Whatsapp messages to people that I am actually friends with then chat idly with
people that I am stuck in train with. These things make you possible to stay in
touch with people that you liked and were friends with but are no longer
together geographically. Blaming phones for getting people away is like saying
Cars are actually hampering transportation because sometimes they run over
pedestrians.
And with the aid of these friendships you can really search
for the qualities in your significant other that are the most important for
you. I would not try to be an expert on love and make a declaration on what
these qualities should be, to each one their own. But as an observant introvert
I would say this, that everyone has their own problems and solutions, emotional
baggage and wisdom, shortfalls and qualities. To accept one without the other
is like expecting to be a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist like
Ironman and also have time to work those 6 pack abs.
The movie Queen and this ad reminds me a
lot of 2000 and Kota. And let’s face it Queen is no Sholay but an IMDB rating
of 9 is due to us finding her character very endearing because we all identify with
her. All this might seems laughable or cringe worthy now but back then it was
the life. Going out with friends meant eating Kachori in one of the famous shops, everybody had a teri wali, which meant one girl who we
have never spoken to once in a life but we could recite her phone number, house
number, Scooty number and tuition timings; Hero Puch was a good way of
travelling but the real cool guys had a Hero Honda Splendor; everybody wanted
to have a Sachin Stance or Glenn McGrath’s run up and action but all this had
to stop before dad got back home; Letters to Penthouse was a Bible; and finally
though everybody said they wanted to get into IIT / AIMS but we all secretly
hoped that our college had girls in skirts dancing in the basketball court.
EAT
Every town has a ‘best’ shop for
everything. You want to eat Samosa? the best ‘Samosa’ is made by Ratlam Sweet
Shop. Kulfi? The best Kulfi is of Shrinath, or the push cart which used to come
in front of your house ringing a bell selling Matka Kulfi. Kabab?Ahmed has the best kakori kabab. We did not
have restaurants specializing in any cuisine; most restaurants sold Masala
Dosa, Chowmein and Dal Makhani, they were only differentiated with what they
had the best of. Ambience be damned. I don’t think any of us knew what it meant
back then back there, only whether it was a ‘Family Restaurant’ or not. Having
a bar in a restaurant was unimaginable and people who had booze outside were
either denied entry or given the stink-eye by every table in the restaurant,
though most alcohol aficionados either went to a ‘Pack and carry’ place and had
their food in the car or went to some dhaba outside of town. And having
knowledge of what is best where is today’s equivalent of having a mobile phone,
dialogues like “Ye koi Malai Kofta hai? Mere saath chalo aap ko main aapko
Ambar Restaurant (pronounced as Rest o rent) ka malai kofta khilata huun” were
quite common.
But most of our life was spent on the small
road side places which specialized in small meals. Those were the pick-me-up or
‘Har choti khushi ka celebration’ places. Flunked the last test? Go dig in the
Hot Pyaaz kee kachori at Jodhpur Namkeens and the pain lessened a lot. Aced the
test? Let’s have a pineapple pastry at Bakewell. Got your pocket money? Let’s
go Shiv Bakery to have patties. Distances were less, time was ample (Sigh!)
Of course most of the real food came from
the vegetable vendor’s push cart. ‘Aaaloooooo, tamaaaatar’ cry at the top of
their voice were their CRM strategy and I actually used to wonder if they went
to some sabjiwaala school, because
the volume they maintained throughout the afternoon did not look humanly
possible and every sabjiwaala
uncannily sounded like the other. Then the ladies of the came out in the
battlefield or rather that’s what they thought it was. Every vegetable was
sniffed, scratched, analysed from every angle and sometime even cut to see if
the claim was genuine. After that was settled the second battle was started of
bargaining for the prices; there was no information asymmetry in this market,
the women knew the current prices of vegetable and fruit in every mandi in town. I tried to fake this by
asking every vegetable vendor “Bhaiya ye kaise diya” whether he said 8 or 18
made actually no difference to me I will buy whatever was asked by Mom at
whatever price he or she was selling it. And the final battle was the Nimbu Mirchi battle, nobody bought Nimbu
or Mirchi or Dhaniya it just came complimentary with the other vegetables you
had bought.
PRAY
I don’t think we were more religious than
sixteen year olds anywhere is the world are but we did pray very had sometimes :–
Before an exam – Well we were students,
exams and results mattered. And of course the bigger reason was in the exam
time going to the temple was the only outing allowed on those days, so went to
the temple to pray. There was one near my house which most of us preferred,
because it was near my house, and we could play cricket in my driveway, also
that temple had a pond where we could play skipping stones or temples also
offered, how do I put it …. Let’s just say other kind of darshan as well.
Smoking a cigarette in a back alley – That
was our rebellion. Our badge that we are not a kid anymore. The access card to
the bad boys association. And the test every Childe had to give, it went like
this – The big boy moved the cigarette to you, filter first and said “Piyega kya?” you could chicken out here
and say “main cigarette nahi peeta” and
get the disapproving ‘this guy is a still child’ look or you could take the
cigarette upping you ante; but to cash in your chips you had to inhale the
smoke and puff it out without coughing; if you could do that then that was your
knighthood, otherwise what you got was a resounding laugh from everybody and
the dialogue “Ye baccho kee cheez nahi
hai bacche“ and the tag of ‘wanna-be’ for your whole life. But these tough
guys were scared shitless when their neighbour uncle’s scooter passed through
this alley and they prayed on to every god there is that either the uncle
didn’t see them or won’t report it to their parents. What they did not know
that their mothers already knew they smoked; not in spite of the supari and mint they chewed but because
of it.
Porn – I remember one teacher telling me
that in her hostel they had hollowed out a wall in the common toilet to serve
as a library, that is where they stored their Mills & Boons. Being an
all-girls college in the middle of nowhere (Laxmangarh) this is what they
sustained themselves on. And the book store which used to import the Mills
& Boons was near a temple, the risky task of smuggling the book was left to
the final year students and all the girls took the book first, then prayed in
the temple for not getting caught and then went to the hostel. I found this
whole action plan very familiar, we also did pray very hard whenever we were
smuggling Mastram in the school or
the ever popular worth-shedding-blood-over ‘Letters to Penthouse’ and dreamed
of going to America where everybody’s wife was blond, 34D and a stunner; and
whenever your car had a puncture in the middle of nowhere she was more
interested in having a tumble (thrice) in the empty cabin nearby (which always
used to be there) rather than nagging you to death that she had reminded of
getting the spare tyre repaired two weeks before.
But these were the pursuits of lesser men,
the Big Kahunas dealt in motion pictures. And the highly revered guys were who
knew a guy, who knew a guy who could get the real hardcore stuff. In which ‘upar ka aur neeche ka dono dikhaate hai’
they were the small town equivalent of drug dealers. And the boys understood
more about the universe in those one and a half hours what Copernicus and Hubble
did in their entire lives.
TB6 deserves a special mention here. It was
Russian channel which suddenly was started being broadcasted here in India and
used to telecast Adult movies late in the night. It was inspiration to a
million teenage to ‘Study’ till late night in the TV room.
Cricket – Enough said. Back then Sachin was
in process of attaining the status of God,Azharuddin was un-tainted, the sight of Kambli in tears was fresh in in
our memory and everyone prayed extra hard for us to win the Super Six against
match against Pakistan in 1999 world cup, the cup be damned, that was our World
Cup !
LOVE
Now you gotta get the scene first. The
place is a middle sized town, the time is Circa 2000, the rich boys wear Reebok
instead of Action, Maruti 800 is still an aspirational thing and parents have
this habit of making you call every girl more than your age as Didi or making them call you Bhaiya if they are even one year
younger. Co-ed are the exception rather
than the rule. Teens Today is the progressive magazine where girls complain
that their 21 year old boyfriend after 6 years of relationship now wants to get
physical. Nobody has Swag. And carnal knowledge is equivalent of Sainthood,
nobody except the most blessed get it. Get it?
But of course there was no lack of trying
from our side. And all techniques (also known as seetbaaji back in those days) came down to these –
Stare a lot – This was the most basic of
all and practiced by everyone, you just sit behind her in class and keep
gawking at her, you can even touch her hair if you were close enoughbut the real jackpot was when you could find
one day that one of her bra strap was showing, that would make your day and
become the topic of conversation all evening.
Follow Home – This one required a
mechanized mode of transportation and thus excluded the base of pyramid who had
cycles. At the end of school there was a mad rush and throttles were sent to
their maximum at the war cry of “Bhaai
teri waali abhi nikli hai . Chal !” Thus you followed your waali back to her home, honked a lot,
and overtook her once or twice just for fun. One anecdote here is worth
mentioning (without going into names of course), our pack mate once wanted to
go beyond the follow home routine and overtook the girl and braked right in
front of her to make her stop, she did stop but not in the way our guy hoped,
she panicked, braked too hard, skidded and fell down, what happened after that
is not worth telling the tale of, but you should understand even this routine
wasn’t without this risk. Another side of this routine was the stake out, this
is when you spot the two wheeler of someone’s waali either parked or in motion and dashed out to his house to
inform him that “teriwaali wahan hai,
jaldi chal !”
Make crank calls –
This routine required more patience and hard work than the last one, you had to
first find out the address of the house and then scan the whole directory by
her surname until you zero in on the combination to find the phone number. This
is when you started making the crank calls. Some people even tried to talk when
the girl picked up but I don’t know anyone who got a decent reply from the
other end. And since we are on this topic this killer line by our Dinh (read
the dark tower novels to figure out what it means) is worth mentioning
Dinh: Priya ko bula do
Priya’s dad: Aap kaun bol rahe ho
Dinh: Main Raj
Priya’s Dad: Kaun Raj?
Dinh: Yahi to raj kee baat hai
*total silence for a minute and then we
burst out laughing
Ask for notes – This one was certainly not
for the faint of heart as this required having an actual conversation with the
girl like a human being! Which very few of us could pull off.No doubt the girls saw through this but I do
know a few people who actually did get notes upon asking for it, and thus the
staring of the whole class. And the people who were too far to understand what
went down got the smile from the protagonist which Muhammad Ali gave the media
when he won the gold medal and got back to USA.
Bash up the other lover – This technique
was used frequently by people who had muscle power behind them. This is
something what Komatsu had in mind when they had their motto as Maru-C, son instead
of directly attacking the target you encircled them by knocking other pieces
off the board. Conversations often went like this –
Guy1: Saale Priya ke ghar ke bahut chakkar laga raha hai
Guy2: Tereko kya?
Guy1: Mere mohalle kee ladki ko mat ched
Guy2: Kyun teri behan lagti hai wo?
This is when the fight started. The girl in
most cases had no idea all this was happening because they did not know these
two guys existed
Chat on Yahoo messenger – Finally, this is
what the smooth operators did. The Johnny Depps of our times. They had already
broken the ice and the girl had reciprocated, so now they sat in dingy Cyber
cafes, logged onto their HandsomeGuy_84 IDs and chatted the hours away. And the
final climax of this was when they sat in the same cyber café in the same cabin
and … Let’s just say- did not chat
There was also this intermediate categories
who had girls (or Aunties) in Philippines or USA and had their private show
whenever they were online. I know one guy who even nearly 3000 dollars wired to
his account by an Aunty from US.
Are you one who has
loved
With the passion of a burning fire
Or are you the one who said ‘I love you too’
And in same breath called yourself a liar
But I will stop the watch
And inanely compose such a rhyme
Knowing no one will answer, I‘d ask,
Whom do you wanna be this time?
Whom would you marry? It’s an honest question. Probably some
romantic idealists would say neither, but in a world of 6 Billion people what
is the probability that the person you love also found you and only you to love?
Or the other way around? Very bleak I would say. And if you are saying that you
don’t know the whole world then you are just compromising with the people who
you know; while your soulmate (if such a thing exists) might be some other
country, speaking some other language and probably 20 year older than you.
That leaves me with this question and this very real
scenario. Even in the most perfect couples there is always some power
imbalance, somebody who first initiated the dialogue or dropped hints at the
start of the relationships; somebody who mostly makes up first after a fight;
somebody who is a little insecure; somebody who got told he or she is lucky to
have found the other person.
So whom do you wanna be the lover or the loved? The person
who took pity on the other person because he or she has been there even after
rebuttals, insults and being used & discarded. Or the other person who
thinks that the other is the one who he or she was destined to be with and can’t
be without? Who always wanted to take care of her and is now able to, who
always wanted to be the center of his attention and cause of his smile and now
finally is.
“Through the storm, we
reach the shore
You gave it all but I want more” –
U2
I think it is better to marry the girl who loves you. It
makes better sense logically. You can count on her loyalty. She will always go
the extra mile to please you, she will watch the movies you want, eat food you
like and have sex when you feel like. She will say sorry first when you fight,
go away when you are angry and come back when you need support. It is her
problem to make you like her and not the other way around; she will make you
look good in front of her friends, throw surprise parties on your birthday and
just smile when you forget hers. And if not anything else, it is huge ego boost
to have someone doting on you so much.
Maybe you will someday fall in love with her, or at least
you can tell yourself that. Ayn Rand had said that you need reasons to love someone.
And whole hearted and blind love is a good reason as any. Any which ways you will
get fond of her or at least dependent on her after you continue long enough.
Hell you even start liking your dog that has been with you for 3 months, she is
after all a human being. Least you can do is give her attention and an occasional
act of kindness. Many people don’t even get that, and for most that is enough
from the people they love. It will keep them satiated. One sided lovers have
second -hand lives. They derive theirs from their lover; their happiness, their
self-worth, their sense of purpose and their gratification. It is not a bad
life if you ask me, for them I mean. They get happiness out of it and some
distortion of a companionship. It is more than what half of the world is living
with. And it certainly beats the bitterness, sarcasm and brewing but implicit hostility
that is between many couples who never had or don’t have any love for each
other anymore. But most of all you are not giving her the pain and heartbreak
that someone gets when the love of their life leaves them. Many can’t get over
it their entire lives and a few end it. It is the biggest favor anyone can do
anyone if you ask me.
“Sleight of hand and
twist of fate
On a bed of nails she makes me wait
And I wait without you” –
U2
Marry the girl you love and you will be playing catch-up
your whole life, it is like the deer who runs for a pool of water in the desert
and the farther he runs, further the pool of water of gets away from him.
Sooner or later the deer dies of the thirst and exhaustion he accumulated
running for that pool of water. The pool of water is a mirage, an illusion, something
that is there somewhere but you will never find it, and that search will kill
you in the end. The deer would have been better off if he had never started
running for that water in the first place. Likewise is the love you would never
get. It is a tough life, because no matter how much would you do for her, it
would never be enough, the constant nagging that if I would have done that or
done that better, she would love me back will kill you sooner or later. And if
that doesn’t, the insecurity will; every late night, every afternoon lunch
without you, anytime when her whereabouts are not known, every time she run
towards the phone when it rings, every time she smiles at some stranger will
drive a million daggers through your heart. Gregory David Roberts had once
written – “Some loves are like that. Your heart starts to feel like an
over-crowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your
self-respect and your independence. After a while you start throwing people out
- your friends, everyone you used to know.
And it’s still not enough The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know
it’s going to take you down with it.” Whom do you wanna be when then boat goes
down? Rose or Jack? Trust me there is nothing sadder than one half of a great
love that will never be.
I am a Nihilist, ontologically. I don’t think life has a higher purpose. After
we are gone there is nothing, we are ashes or dust. There is no greatness in
self-sacrifice, morality, doing good for others, life is as Friedrich Nietzsche
said “Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is
worthless.” But before that I am a
hedonist, I believe that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. In very simple
terms, a man is only goal is to strive to maximize net pleasure (pleasure minus
pain). So what do you think will bring you the maximum pleasure? Of course
marrying the girl who loves you.
And finally. Why do I ask this question? I don’t know. It is
a good question to be asked. And I like Yossarian am a ‘collector of good
questions’. For the most part I think it is habit of abyss gazing, and to quote
Nietzsche again “And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
into you.” Of these two girls, I have none. And I had both. And what would I
do? I would marry the girl I love. But then … I’m an emotional fool.
“There is always some madness in love. But there is also
always some reason in madness” –
Friedrich Nietzsche
P.S. - If you bothered to read through 1275 words and 1300 whites spaces please do bother to leave a comment, I want to know what people feel about this whole affair.
I wish I there was this one grand love in everybody's life and everyone ended with their one, their soulmate, but alas it doesn't happen.
Love's labour been lost many a time. I left some, some left me, some didn't know I loved them, some never told me they did.
I almost wish it made me a stoic, astute, non believer but unfortunately i'm still a romantic a heart. And I can only wish for them that wherever they are, whether they will ever read this, whether they still like me or despise me they find love. The kind that lasts.
I have got nothing better to do than stay up and think about this. And act upon my Momentary lapse of reason. But I hope you are sleeping well my loves.
Tender is the night and fleetingly soothing is your strain, But fly away o nightingale for this moon deserves your flame. Heavy would be my heart and damp my eye for away you I send, But for my soul I wish it saw one love reach its end.
