Ode to missed opportunity or why it could-not-have-been (after all)

I have a fascination for good coffee

But I try not to make it too often

With coffee I associate conversation

And your company

(tea does not have to suffer such associations)

Sometimes when the coffee is particularly good

I dreamily remember what could-have-been

Times that could-have-been spent together,

Conversations that could-have-been had

(It never happened though,

we were never good friends.

But I could never forget

that which could-have-been)

We could-have-had long conversations

over restless starry nights

We could-have-had long make out sessions

over quiet lazy afternoons

(We would most certainly have led a most decadent life.)

As I sip my lonely coffee

This dim October afternoon

And the building opposite reflects tobacco light

Into my room

You return to your house,

resounding with the laughter of children

and without a doubt I know why…

(apologies for bad poetry :D)

spirituality and me

I’m not spiritual, though I can perhaps say that I am drawn to spirituality in my own strange way.

When I went for Vipassana for the first time, I remember being very excited to hear Goenkaji’s evening sermons. I would bungle through the day, barely able to do as he asked, unable to ‘experience’ for myself. And I would wait eagerly for the evenings, for the explanations that I knew were coming, that made so much sense to my rational mind.

Supriti had called when I was at the shivir. (My phone should not have been on, but the Reliance one was, for it was doubling up as an alarm clock. No one really called me at that number anymore, so I figured I wasn’t breaking any rules by having it on me. But Supriti called, and though I didn’t take her call, I messaged back, and broke a rule as a result.) Anyhow I called back on the 10^th day to explain my absence, and I remember telling her how overwhelming the experience had been. So much of what Goenkaji said was validation for views already held, if only intuitively. He gave words and made concepts out of half formed thoughts and beliefs that had been guiding life so far. And provided so much more new material to think about. It was wonderful!

I never really practised meditation however. Much as I have loved the two Vipassana shivirs that I attended, and I can safely say I gained much from them, it never really became a mainstay in my life. It’s not like I don’t see what it can do for me, it’s just that I lack the discipline, I suppose.

I don’t confuse religion with spirituality, and yet firmly believe that every religion must have once had a spiritual aspect, which has gotten distorted along the way. At any rate, it has been a long held wish to study different religious texts, at least those of Hinduism, Islam and Christianity to begin with, the idea being to go beyond the stories and understand the underlying concepts.

Along the way, I have visited different places of worship, and observed people’s customs, but more importantly their mannerisms and their ‘vibes’. And come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter which faith or philosophy they follow, truth and integrity is personal.

But that’s not what I had started to say… what I had really meant to say is that along the way I have visited very many places of worship/ meditation, to feel the vibes of the place for myself. From Buddhist temples and monastries in Ladakh, Sikkim, Bhutan and Japan, to Hindu temples in Puri, Calcutta and down South (and so many others all over the country!), to Jain temples in Khajuraho and Palitana, to the Bahai temple in New Delhi, to Igatpuri and the Global pagoda in Mumbai, to the Mother’s shrine in Pondicherry and dome in Auroville, to the synagogue in Jew town in Fort Kochi… and many more that I may not now remember. Could I include here the temple in Koovagam that eunuchs go to for their ceremonial marriage every year, or the temple complex so popular among the transsexual Jogappas of Karnataka?

What I have been most drawn to is silence and peace and love and compassion, wherever I have found it. Sometimes I have found it in places yes, but those places have very often not been places of ‘worship’. And sometimes I have found it in people. And those people have very often not been people of faith/ religion.

Am I stating the obvious?

Here I am reminded of Tagore. While attending rehearsals and discussions around Tagore’s writings (for Manav’s latest play- more on that in another post) I often came across these words: death, infinity, truth, beauty. My first reaction to ‘truth and beauty’ was to scoff at it. Especially since so much of what he wrote was addressed to a woman, undoubtedly a ‘beautiful’ woman- an idea that didn’t appeal to me. Not being beautiful myself, finding so much emphasis on beauty seemed highly unfair to me. This however was a very narrow view of beauty.

As I thought more about it, and tried to look for ‘truth and beauty’ around me, I realised it was everywhere, in everyone. It existed in moments. There are moments of truth and beauty, and they are often moments of absolute honesty, (and perhaps vulnerability…?)and they are everywhere… only the very evolved probably manage to have more in their lives than the rest of us who must experience them in their fleetingness.

Death. I lived in denial for a long time, arguing that Tagore did not experience ‘more than his share’. He lived at a time when families were large, and mortality was high. Everyone would have experienced death from an early age, it was Tagore’s response to it that made him what he was. While this is true theoretically, that still doesn’t take away from the depth of his feeling and the angst that he must have felt, which led to a most remarkable relationship with death, that would last a lifetime.

As I acknowledged my dishonesty in not giving the man his due, I realised something else. All my so-called spirituality, all my search, is eventually directed towards one thing: to make my peace with this thing called Death. All the strength that I attempt to build up in myself, is in preparation for that moment that I know is inevitable- when my parents will no longer be with me. That moment which I dread to even think about, which seems so impossible and so cruel, and yet will one day be real. That moment beyond which life will never be the same again, that moment when I will lose my anchor and my support.

The thought of that moment engulfs me in loneliness, how will I ever face it in reality?

The thought of that one moment brings in sharp relief the ordinariness and fakeness of my everyday life. And of the many frivolous emotions I waste precious time on everyday: guilt, envy, worthlessness, desire, anger…

This then- this love, and attachment to my parents, as mortal as mortal can be- this is my Achilles’ heel. Losing them would be the moment of my undoing. The moment which is unimaginable, beyond which is nothingness, a void, a black hole...

खिसियाहट

आज अपने आप से कुछ खिसियाई सी हूँ।

कल सईद साहब से मुलाक़ात हुई, अरसे बाद। बहुत सी इधर उधर की बातें भी हुईं। उन्हें बीच बीच में अचानक मेरे किसी batchmate का नाम याद आता तो वे उसके बारे में पूछ लेते- क्यों वो क्या कर रहा है आजकल। इसी तरह उन्होंने जब ऐसे ही एक के बारे में पूछा तो मैंने उन्हें बता दिया जितना मुझे पता था, जो वैसे भी ज़्यादा नहीं था। वो और राघव एक ही समय पर एक ही निर्माता के साथ काम कर रहे थे जो दोनों की फ़िल्में बनाने वाला था। क्या हुआ पता नहीं, पर राघव की फ़िल्म बन गई और उसकी न बन पाई। लगा था ये बात सुनके कि फ़िल्म बनने के इतने निकट होते हुए भी न बन पाई, कुछ अफ़सोस करेंगे पर वो तो राघव का नाम सुनते ही जैसे भूल ही गए कि हम किस बारे में बात कर रहे थे। उनके चेहरे पर मुस्कराहट छा गई, और वे राघव के बारे में मुझसे पूछने लगे। वो कैसा है, क्या कर रहा है आजकल। इसके साथ साथ वो उसके बारे में भी कुछ कुछ कहते रहे। राघव वही ना जो बहुत laid back था। मैंने मुस्कुराते हुए हाँ में सर हिल दिया। What a wonderful open expansive soul he is, I love people like that कहते हुए सईद साहब ने हवा में हाथ उठा दिए मानो शब्द कम पड़ रहें हों।

यह बात सुनके बहुत दिनों बाद I remembered a feeling that I hadn't visited in a long, long time, or maybe the feeling hadn't visited me... a deep sense of loss. यह क्षण किन्तु क्षण भर का ही था, क्षण भर में लुप्त हो गया। कहीं से नहीं आया था और कहीं नहीं में ही गायब हो गया। कोई अचरज की बात नहीं। राघव और मैं बहुत पहले अलग हो गए थे, और अब तो वह नाममात्र को भी जीवन में नहीं है। प्यार भी बहुत पहले जाता रहा। अचरज की बात ये थी कि ऐसी फीलिंग आई भी, almost like a long lost muscle memory- involuntary and lifeless. बेवश और निर्जीव।

बहरहाल मुझे ये बात बहुत अनूठी लगी, मन किया किसी को बताने का। सोचा अनुषा को फ़ोन करूं पर नहीं किया। अगले दिन जब अरिंदम से फ़ोन पर बात हो रही थी तो सोचा उसे बताऊँ। पर फ़िल्म की और एडिट की बातों के बीच ये बात रह गई। या फिर मैंने छोड़ दी, जबकि उसे ये ज़रूर बताया की सईद साहब से मिल कर आई थी। परम का मेसेज आया कि वो खाने के बाद चाय पीने आएगा, तो सोचा उसे बताऊंगी। पर क्या वाकई बताऊंगी, इसकी सम्भावना कुछ कम ही थी, यह भी मैं जानती थी।

दोपहर को मानव घर आया था। बहुत इधर उधर की बातें हुई। वह अपनी एक फिल्म को लेके बहुत excited है, जिसमें वो एक्टिंग कर रहा है। पता नहीं इस उत्साह की वजह से ऐसा है, या फिर मानव ही ऐसा है, पर उससे बात करते वक़्त ऐसा लग रहा था जैसे अपने आप से बात कर रही हूँ। जैसे मेरे शब्द उस तक पहुँचने से पहले ही फिसल जा रहें हैं। या फिर शब्द तो पहुँच रहें हैं- आखिर वो मेरी बातों का जवाब दे रहा था- मगर उनका अर्थ नहीं समझ रहा था, या समझना नहीं चाहता था, या समझने में असमर्थ था। ये बात मैंने उससे भी कही। उसने कुछ जवाब भी दिया था जो अब मुझे याद नहीं। खैर उसको तो बताना ही था मुलाक़ात के बारे में, वो भी मिला था सईद साहब से दो दिन पहले, और उसकी उसी फ़िल्म के बारे में उनसे चर्चा भी हुई थी। बात करते करते पता नहीं मुझे क्या सूझी, मैंने राघव वाली बात उस को बता दी। बात शुरू करते ही मैं पछताई। ऐसा लगा जैसे एक कोमल सी चीज़ जिसे मैंने इतना संभाल के रखा था, कैसे कठोर के हाथ दे दी। पूरी भी न बता सकी, बीच में ही रुक गई। पता नहीं उसे समझ में आया की नहीं कि बात अधूरी छूट गई है… कुछ राघव के और कुछ उसकी फ़िल्म के बारे में बात करते हुए हम आगे बढ गए।

एक अनुभव जो व्यक्तिगत था, एक क्षण जो महत्त्वपूर्ण था, विशेष था, अब न रहा।

मैंने अपने आप को थोड़ा कोसा, और फ़िर ये पोस्ट लिखने बैठ गई।

Food. For thought? No, just food!

Isn’t it nice when a belief you intuitively hold, sometimes not even aware that you hold it, for it’s a hazy unformed thought at the back of your mind, the need for having articulated it never having arisen earlier, turns out to be one that others hold as well? There is a feeling of acknowledgement and validation, not that it is needed, but which is nice to have anyway. That is one of the most distinct memories of my first Vipassana shivir.
My favourite part of the day in the shivir used to be the discourse in the evening. (And it took only a couple of days, and listening to the discourse one day in English and one day in Hindi, to realise that he was much better and at his humorous best in Hindi.) It was a pleasure to hear that discourse, to hear him explain in simple language using everyday examples, such concepts as love and compassion towards every one and tolerance towards other religions. I often found myself nodding in agreement, and a sense of excitement rose up in me as I realized that what I was listening to were concepts that I had intuitively believed, but had never strung together in words. It’s a wonderful feeling. It gave me goose pimples sometimes, at other times it made me teary eyed, and filled me with gratitude for everything in my life, all the joy and pain, all the people I loved and who loved me, and all the people who didn’t, and everything else that had come together over the years, towards this moment in time, which was as beautiful as it could be.
Does that sound tacky? Maybe it does, but that is how it was.

And it happened again recently, as I chatted with Neel, a dear friend from college days. Neel and Supriti are two beautiful people, and fantastic designers of buildings, furniture, lamps, and almost anything else that takes their fancy, who live and practise in beautiful Pondicherry as the design ensemble, ‘Ovoid’. They are also dear friends, who I happened to have the good fortune to visit in the later half of November. In one of our innumerable conversations, Neel mentioned to me why they make it a point to cook themselves, no matter how busy they are. He said food is best, and most nutritious when it is cooked with love.
It made me smile, for I couldn’t agree more. It is perhaps this secret ingredient- love that makes a mother’s cooking special. Have you ever noticed how you can tire of the best food, from the best restaurants, or the best cooks, but you never tire of your mother’s cooking no matter how many times you have it, over however many years. Have you also noticed the pet peeve of many a young bride that no matter how hard she tries, she can never quite match up to the standard of her mother-in-law’s cooking? :) In India of course it is taken to something of an extreme, for a mother’s love is often best expressed by food and the act of feeding. Indian families, many of them, tend to be rather undemonstrative in their show of affection, and uncommunicative too, to the extent that many topics are taboo, no matter how important they may be. But food remains the one way in which a mother continues to express her love, however old her child may grow.
But I digress, the point is: food cooked with love has a special wholesomeness, and a transfer of a kind of energy and good vibes happens, for lack of a better term, when you eat food that is cooked with love. There can be no substitute for this magic ingredient.

And it was perhaps this belief, as yet unarticulated, that made me cook all these years in Mumbai, coupled with the fact that it’s very hard to find a cook whose cooking you can endure for any length of time!And so it was also that I was thrilled when my maid walked in today with a dabba full of yummy veggies, sent over by someone who I once worked with as part of a film crew, but who I otherwise barely know. And it made me smile to read these words, as I providentially enough, stumbled upon this blog. 

It’s a strange bird

It’s a strange bird: love.

Almost every text ever written has touched upon some aspect of it, we’ve read about it, seen films, heard songs. Even after all that we know or ought to know after all that exposure, we still falter through life making mistakes and yearning for it. Almost everyone who ever lived has struggled with love. How is it that the one thing that we should know about, is the one thing that eludes us? How is one feeling capable of so many manifestations? It is but one ras out of nine. How then does it dominate the creation of all kinds of art?

Speaking from personal experience, I can say that I have known several times, several kinds. I have always been grateful for it, even if I sometimes faltered in my expression. Sometimes it has sneaked up on me when I least expected it, or from quarters that I least expected from, sometimes it slipped away from where I desperately wanted it to stay. Sometimes it’s stayed well beyond I had imagined or anticipated. And sometimes it has come back like a boomerang, long after I thought it had died a natural death. Sometimes it has changed shape, devoid of a reason to stay as it originally was, or to wither away. Sometimes it evaporated altogether, without a trace, leaving only a doubt and wonderment about the reason for its existence in the first place. I refer here mostly to romantic love of course, though I, like each one of us, has known very many different kinds. And yes, it varied wildly in intensity, much of it was unrequited and hence untested, but that isn’t really the point.

I continue to be enamoured by it.

Not so much by its presence or absence in my life but by the elusive idea that it is. An idea that captivates all yet remains just out of reach of many, or with the very real possibility of slipping away anytime, for others.

It’s hard to articulate, but I feel a sense of mystery and wonderment and yet a submission, for there’s no other way really to respond- like you would while contemplating say the universe. Can we really contemplate the universe- its origins, its size. It’s always been there, and it’s always amazed man by its mysteries and continues to. So I feel has been the case with this one emotion that can fill us with joy and wring at our hearts with a brutal, physical pain. In another manifestation it’s the one emotion that can cause wars and inspire peace, in equal measure.

From where I am currently, I feel a strange detachment with life and with the world. It’s like floating over yourself, and seeing things for what they really are, stripped of the trappings of attachments that tend to skew our perspective. From here nothing is indispensable and everything is precious. Love is beautiful as it should be, but it isn’t selfish or compartmentalised. It is ever expanding, and it makes you see people that you never thought you could like, with compassion. From where I am, love comes easy. I see beautiful pictures and I love the photographer, I read a beautiful piece of writing and I love the writer. I see a good film and I love the filmmaker, I see a good design and I love the designer. I may not have met them, but I feel a love anyway.

But I digress.

Even with regard to romantic love, there has been so much learning. Couples that I absolutely adored, broke up. Couples that I thought were doomed, survived. People married for reasons inexplicable to me, and they are happy. I have friends who found love early and have spent over a decade together. I have friends who struggled, unable to work out even long standing relationships, then marrying in a jiffy. And I know several people including myself, who have in their past, that one relationship that has become the defining one of their lives. Which is not to say that they continue to pine after what could have been, or draw comparisons or parallels, just that they are shaped more by that one experience than any others.

For me personally, getting over and ahead of that one was a liberating experience. Having touched the heights of happiness and the depths of sorrow with it, everything else since has been easy. I wonder, in fact I worry sometimes if this detachment is really a maturity aided by the new perspective accorded by Vipassana (which has had a small but significant role in my life) or if I have built an impregnable wall around me to shield myself from further hurt. It’s schizophrenic almost, to oscillate between those two states- of supreme peace and self-assuredness and of a deep, unforgiving confusion.

I’m not sure any of this makes any sense. This was an idea forming in my head for much of yesterday, and even as I sat down to write I realized it had already slipped away. All it left behind were these scattered thoughts.

I met a Good Boy! Part 2

(Continuing from previous post...)

This is scary at several levels, and I am wondering where to begin.
I happened to mention this to a friend and she squarely blamed his Southern roots. While I’m not sure I agree with her, it gives me a starting point. Of course this is a cultural thing- it is, I suppose a very (South? No, I think) Indian phenomenon that the woman you date and the woman you marry are different. I’m not a man and women don’t seem to follow such rules, not at least the ones I know, so I can only wonder at the reasons for this unique trait, so bear with me while I wonder aloud in an attempt to understand. Though I do wish to limit the scope considerably, primarily because the part that interests me the most in this situation is the guy in question or what I have understood of him. Which also happens to be the most surprising part. You see there’s a certain kind of behaviour one comes to expect from a certain kind of people. It’s not right of course to judge people by pre-conceived notions, and yet we do it all the time. So it is that we would be surprised for instance, if an old dhoti clad man in a village suddenly broke into say, Spanish. Ok that’s a bit extreme, but you get the drift...
So as I mentioned earlier, he isn’t from some small town where people, especially men, can still be expected to be regressive in their attitude towards women. He’s from Mumbai, the cosmopolitan city where arguably India’s most progressive men reside. He’s not from an underprivileged economic background or lacking in education. He holds a Master’s degree. He’s not from an underprivileged social background i.e. he’s not from some backward caste; this clarification is for those of you who may still believe that that plays a role. He is in fact from a snobbish upper caste. He’s not from the North, for those of you who think this is a peculiar trait of the brash Delhi/ Punjabi lads. He is a good South Indian boy, and those according to my friend are prone to toeing the line and marrying within the community, a trend that is in any case more prevalent and rigid in the South. It’s not like his childhood or adolescence was deprived of female company i.e. he wasn’t sent to some Boys only boarding school. He’s grown up and studied in Mumbai. He’s not geeky, and shy or incapable of a good conversation like some of those engineer types can be. In fact there’s enough on his blog to suggest female company, love, lovemaking, longing, heartbreak, loneliness; basically the works. He’s not even Mama’s boy, he actually lives by himself though his family is in the same city, and shuttles between the two houses. And while he doesn’t cook, he does do the cleaning himself. So within an urban scenario, have I taken care of most of the stereotypes then? And established conclusively that he cannot be slotted in any of them?
Further, here is a man who gives up a lucrative corporate job to follow his love of writing and films. Here is a man who, as I have mentioned before, dares to write not just of his dreams and aspirations, but also insecurities, not just his achievements but also his failures. He speaks of having lost in love, and of extreme loneliness. He speaks of being lost in general and the struggle to gain composure. He writes film reviews that I identify with. And he writes lovely accounts of mundane everyday things like meetings, which were infinitely exciting for him, for he was on a new unknown path. Of course one could argue that some of that stuff is the writer in him, but even so, it has to be coming from somewhere! I always like to point out about my camerawork, or anyone else’s for that matter- that one frame is not one moment of brilliance, it is the result, or an amalgamation if you please, of many years of a life lived- in happiness, in grief, in regret, in failure, in love, in tears, in beauty, in pain… its many experiences, and the marks they leave on us, and the attitudes with which we go forth after. The same I suppose, would be true of writing.
Which part of him then, is not utterly likeable? Not for regular folks maybe, I understand. I mean if you were a father looking for a match for his daughter, you would make sure he was the last guy on earth she met. But for someone like me… why, here was someone who I could totally relate with. But that isn’t the point I was trying to make. The point is- here is somebody who is clearly a black sheep, as many admittedly, in the film industry are.
And the point is there is nothing stereotypical about the guy.
Except perhaps the dream of making films, which is a dream common to many in this city.

So how does a guy like that come to believe that the only way he was going to get married was if his mother found someone? Is that some kind of submission or delusion, I don’t know.

I feel the need to clarify here that I have absolutely nothing against matrimonial sites or arranged marriages. I don’t believe that there is a gospel truth to anything, including love and marriage. Whatever works for you! However, I do imagine that it would work better for a certain kind of people, with a certain kind of attitude. And as a corollary, it would not work particularly well for a certain kind of people, which is what is relevant in this case. But here is someone, smart and experienced, who is convinced that its not just possible, it is the only way! It makes me wonder if he is losing the plot somewhere, or I am.

But that is only a part of the problem, if I may be allowed to call this a problem. The other part of course, is the one in which the Good but lonely Boy decides he wants company. And sets out to look for it. Please note that he is convinced that he cannot find a bride to marry, but is hopeful nevertheless of finding a companion for all those long, lonely evenings. Clearly there must be something fundamentally different about the two. I am not even going to attempt this one. Apart from the fact that it is beyond my comprehension, it is downright hypocritical. It may be unfair and harsh to make a sweeping statement like that about someone who may well be in that situation for a wide variety of reasons, however I’d be hard pressed to find one in which I would find such an attitude justifiable… Understandable maybe, justifiable unlikely.
I recall he mentioned once in a similar context that he felt he was born in the wrong country. I’m not sure women in any part of the world would be happy with this. Hell, no one should be happy with a stopgap arrangement kind of love. And no, this isn’t remotely about feminism. It doesn’t matter if the positions were reversed. If a woman were doing this- looking for a male companion to fill in a gap, I would find it equally reprehensible.

But what I found even more intriguing was the thought that if he believed it was somehow possible, that there must be willing women as well?
So what does that mean? That there are all these lonely souls out there, looking, craving even, for some kind of temporary comfort? A no questions asked, no strings attached kind of closeness that seems possible only with a stranger or another of their own kind? Is this some kind of desperate attempt to clutch at romance as it should be, natural and spontaneous as opposed to pre ordained, which is how love in their marriages is destined to be (and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.) Is this an attempt at creating a memory to cherish and to live by? Or is it just the thrill of tasting fruit that will soon be forbidden?
Maybe a little of some or all of the above?

The redeeming factor in the case in question was the honesty. There was no attempt to mislead; there was in fact candour in admitting to his helplessness, which I have to say was almost endearing. It wasn’t even helplessness really, just a detached kind of submission. It made me realise that at least he had the kind of attitude that would be invaluable for the route ahead. Or perhaps that’s putting the cart before the horse. Perhaps the attitude stems from the submission to the situation. In any case, while the chances of this guy or his mother finding a companion of the kind he desires from a matrimonial site are questionable, that he will be able to align himself to whoever she picks for him is less so.

I met a Good Boy! Part 1

At the screening of ‘I Am’, I had a somewhat unusual guest.
This guy had contacted me through a travel website, in an attempt at ‘networking’. A travel website is not the best place to network, I remember mentioning to him; that there are social networking sites such as facebook or professional ones such as Linkedin for that, and his response that he is on neither, kind of won him some brownie points at the outset. (I later learnt that he had written to some 30 odd people and I was the only one who responded. Well, what can I say, I’m nice. And that’s certainly not saying very much about the others in this industry, whatever reports to the contrary you may hear.) So I replied, and agreed to meet him, for whatever it may be worth. With a warning that I wasn’t going to be very useful to him from a networking point of view, since I pretty much sucked at it myself. In the meanwhile I read up his profile, found much that resonated with me and figured that anyone who wrote like that couldn’t be some random guy. Or maybe it happened in the reverse order. I read his profile and decided it was okay to meet this guy. Whatever.
And then I got busy doing random shit, and forgot all about him. That’s not like me, mind you. I usually keep my word. So one day many weeks later, when I got another request from the same site, I suddenly remembered him. Wrote again and apologised. I could sense the pleasant surprise in his tone (At the apology? At the fact that I remembered?) when he wrote back to say, ‘No problem. Let’s meet now.’
What followed was two months of correspondence over mail and chat and lots of exchanges of interesting music, links to articles and blogs, about films, life, poetry. Along the way I discovered his blog, about 4 years old. It had ‘various pieces of expression, in varied forms whether it be poetry, life notes, or thoughts on films / books / music or anything else that inspires...’ His writing was honest and heartfelt, and really good in parts. I think what I liked best was the ability to share his fears and struggles, in I suppose, what he referred to as ‘life notes’. It’s a lovely quality, I think- to be able to bare yourself like that and to allow people a peek into your world, even when you’re writing from the very depths of your own personal abyss. There were very distinct phases that one could make out, of personal and professional lows, although the tone in general seemed to have been low for a long, long time. Now that made me think. Or rather it made me rethink my decision to meet him. It also made me realize something about my friends and in turn about myself- that I liked to surround myself with happy, cheerful people. No seriously, its not like my friends don’t have problems, or personal and professional highs and lows. But they all, invariably, have a sense of humour. They smile a lot, laugh a lot, crack jokes and are generally merry, even if that is sometimes aided by alcohol and certain banned substances. And I have friends from all kinds of backgrounds. Architects struggling with clients, writers and directors with great scripts no one’s willing to make into films, NGO workers struggling for space and funds, journalists and documentary filmmakers who see a side of India that would make anyone sob… But even when the going is tough, they manage to smile through it. Or is it? Is it that I am too detached? There for them only in happy times, not so much in the difficult ones. Does no one ever think of calling me when they are sad, or in trouble? Am I only a friend in good times? A troubling thought, that. Many of my friends are incredibly strong people though, I should note at this point. When I think of them, and the images run through my head, I feel blessed that I know so many good, talented, loving, compassionate, creative, beautiful people. It’s a humbling feeling.
But I digress.
So. This guy was anything but cheerful. Nevertheless, I had given my word. So after an exchange of particularly long mails, necessitated by an out of station shoot, in which several threads of conversation had to be abandoned for a more suitable, face to face interaction at a later date, we were finally in the same city and free i.e. ready to meet. This long exchange coupled with the blog writings made me feel like I knew this guy really well already. Now all that was left was to put a face to the name. (That’s not entirely true, for the travel site did have a few pictures, but still.)
So we met. And we did a walk and talk. I wasn’t perfectly at ease, but it was ok. A couple of days after that, he came to see ‘I Am’. And that’s when I realized that it is a bit weird when you think you know somebody really well, but his existence has only ever been limited to a name on Google Chat. So you may be perfectly comfortable with the presence online, having long chats, interspersed with long silences, making you feel as if you’ve almost spent the day with the person (and I mentioned this to him when it happened) but there’s an awkwardness still when you meet in the physical realm. That face, that voice, that body I was not used to, and something seemed utterly unreal. But that mind I was oh-so-familiar with. I mention this in so much detail because I find it very interesting. It’s probably not the first time that I met someone in reality after I met him online. But it definitely was the first instance of having a long online correspondence, over the course of which I came to realize how much not just his thoughts and ideas, but also his fears and insecurities resonated with mine. I had grown fond of the online avatar, the one that I was familiar and comfortable with, and felt I understood well. To meet then almost meant shattering that myth, for I felt it would never be the same again. I think I might even have delayed the meeting a little for this reason! That is exactly what happened too, and it did take at least a couple of more meetings to become as comfortable with the person as I was with the name and the brain that ticked behind it.
It may be clear by now that this was no longer a ‘networking’ meeting. At some point in all those interactions, I had realised that this attempt was part of a lonely guy’s search for companionship. It wasn’t apparently the first time that he had sought company through posts on websites, but its not difficult to guess where the others would have led him, if they led anywhere at all. And he was surprisingly open about talking about these attempts and their apparent failures (assuming that he did indeed speak of all of them.) At any rate, loneliness formed part of our common ground.
Time for another digression. Loneliness is something I am familiar with. You see, I’m not a happy person when I am single- I like to have someone to come back to, to share my day’s stories with, to share the excitement of discovering a fantastic new play or film together, or a shoulder to cry on when things aren’t going so well, to travel with whether it is to town for a screening or backpacking across some obscure country, and of course to occasionally have bitter fights with (anyone who knows me even vaguely knows that that’s part of the package.) Of course all this has mainly been in theory in my head, since I have unfortunately been single for a long, long time now, and family, friends and housemate have had to make up for it. Its not like I haven’t dated, though that too was sometime back. And the guy was absolutely fantastic. Trouble is, we couldn’t be more different. Quite the odd couple we were, more friends than lovers. And so we knew it could never work, and at some point we decided to part. We remain great friends still. I turn to him for every little and big thing, to him and to other friends. But the longing for a companion, someone closer than a dear friend, stays.
So then coming back, loneliness and longing for companionship was then the common ground over which we met, a dangerous ground to meet on, if you ask me. And I was quite aware of that, and had used it as a shield for a while, even in our online conversations, maintaining a safe distance and occasionally frustrating the hell out of the guy, I suspect. It didn’t help though that he was actively on the lookout for a date, and not willing to give up. And it helped even less that he is much younger. So cut to the chase, and we met a couple of times more, and some more walking and riding around aimlessly, and random conversations followed. You might wonder what I was doing meeting someone like that. To tell you the truth, I too thought that he might be a bit of a freak ☺ But then there was something very disarming about his honesty, and besides, his writings seemed to suggest a rather sensitive, passionate person.
And the person I met did seem true to his writings. Pleasant, easygoing, talkative, humorous, well mannered; he was all of that. Yes, I did say humorous- if he was indeed in as much of a low phase as his writing seemed to suggest, then it certainly did not show in his behaviour. Hanging out with him was easy. After the initial hiccup of the first couple of meetings, it all seemed very comfortable, taking me quite by surprise. But of course this was no casual meeting, he was categorical about his intention to date. I was toying with the idea, even though he was quite the kid. And I realise that that doesn’t necessarily have to do so much with age, as with levels of maturity and attitude towards life. But in any case, the age difference did trouble me. Also, questions such as ‘are you a ‘here and now’ kind of person or ‘where is this going’ kind of person’ had set alarm bells ringing.
Soon enough, inevitably, The Conversation happened. Quite short it was too. Here’s how it went. I had mentioned questions swimming in my head. He wanted to know what they were. So I clarified that while I was quite the here and now kind of person, and understood the importance of living in the moment, and spending time together and figuring out how one feels, I was at the same time, not flippant. I don’t get into things unless I mean to take them seriously. This led to a short discussion on the meaning of ‘seriously’. If seriously meant, he said, that it might eventually lead to say, marriage or spending our lives together, then that is something that’s not in his control. That key has been handed over to his Mom. Yes, you read that right. That is exactly what he said. No kidding! And to be fair to the man, I did know this. A simple google search, which I had had the wisdom to do, and later brought up in our conversations online, had revealed a profile on bharatmatrimony.com. He had taken pains then, to explain that there was nothing at all wrong with that route, that he had reconciled to it as the only way he was going to get married, and having done that, had found it easy to write up his own profile, a much more honest account than what he felt his doting mother had written.
So there it is then. I knew of course that such men exist, these good boys who will date and mate to kill time while their good mothers find appropriate brides for them. I just never imagined that one of them would find his way in my life. I think I’m still blinking my eyes in disbelief. It would have been easier if the guy was from some small town, or belonged to a different class or wasn’t as well mannered and well behaved as this guy is. This guy is one of us.
And that is a scary thought.