After a tiring day …(x2)

While on the subject of Helen Exley giftbooks, here are lines from another one of her books. This one’s about love, for those who like fairytales! Er, forgot the name of the book though….saved these lines on my fone! :)

Read on folks:

1. My husband is humble… and when he says, “Why do you love me? I am so ordinary,” it hurts, because I can never find the words to tell him he is my whole world.

2. When you are away too long, I put on your ancient gardening jacket and sit wrapped round in you. (Pam Brown)

3. One of the oldest human needs is having someone wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night.

4. A husband is a man who when someone tells him he is hen-pecked, answers, yes, but I am pecked by a good hen. (Heheh….)

5. The story of a love is not important. What is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.

Careless Whispers (A story me wrote!)

 I’d always wondered what it would be like. Whether it would happen at all.  What would I say…do…

Would I simply break down? Be the picture of confidence? Get fidgety? Or muster up the courage and hold myself together, while I secretly broke apart inside? Would I run into him in a train? In a coffee shop? A night club (he always did love those, didn’t he)? A movie hall?

But no amount of ‘what ifs’ could’ve prepared me for the final showdown. It happened very casually. Just crept up on me when I least expected it. One minute I’m loading my shopping bags into my car, irritated with the dry heat, and the next minute I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around…and a sharp intake of breath follows. Ohmygod. It’s him. After five years. In the flesh. The face I knew (or thought I knew) so well. In a nanosecond, I take it all in: the same deep set eyes, the long lashes, the jaw I used to love running my finger over, the laugh lines that a joke from me would accentuate, the smooth, black hair, the faint stubble…yep, it was all there.

“Well…hi,” he managed. Although he’d caught me by surprise (which gave him, I guess, an advantage over me to compose himself), he still looked twitchy as hell. This was awkward. For both of us. We were standing less than a feet apart now. After years of standing on our own in two separate worlds.

This meeting is what it had come down to.

He was saying something; his lips were forming words…I think he was asking me how I’ve been, but my mind was aeons away. I could see flashes of him and me together…hugging, laughing, walking endlessly on silly paths, whispering, making fools of ourselves in public, lying together on the rocks near the seaside, feeding each other in a restaurant…his eyes only for me….blindly in love.

It was quite a rude shock for me as I stood on that pavement, looking at him again, to realise that what mattered to me more than the world five years ago, had changed so much. His words used to make my heart skip a beat. Now I simply wanted to pull away. Get it over with. Time had taught me a grave lesson.

I made the shortest short talk, summing up my life in ten words, and a short smile later, shoved  myself into my car. I think I mumbled that I’m running late. Just then, I saw a glimpse of a woman sauntering towards him from behind. His wife. I recognised her from the photographs. The one he had cheated on me with.

And that gave me the strength to realise the reason behind the change. Why the laughter I had shared with him was just a memory. I paused, calm as hell. Took a deep breath. Looked him in the eye. Even managed a smile. “Good luck to you,” I said, my hands firmly on my keys, about to fire up the ignition. 

“You’ve changed,” he blurted, perhaps annoyed with himself for being less composed than I. He always did like to win.

“Oh, that’s because you weren’t around to witness it,” I shrugged. That was that. I sped away. I didn’t care what he was thinking. His reaction just didn’t matter anymore. The man who had once been the centre of my world. Amazing isn’t it, how time heals?

As I smiled at myself in the rearview mirror, my foot pushing the accelerator, I knew with a certainty that I wasn’t just driving away from the shopping complex.

With my fingers tapping the steering wheel softly, I hummed an old song.

Oh Romeo, Romeo, wherefore is the Pulao…

Why are the world’s greatest love stories, TRAGEDIES?????

Romeo & Juliet, Heer Ranjha, Soni-Mahiwal, Laila-Majnu (kuch regular naam nahi ho sakte thhey? Rohit Natasha types??), Devdas-Paro, QSQT, Titanic…time to panic.

I know I know, everyone carries an explanation for that queasy question in their pockets, the commonest being that we’re suckers for sob stories, the lure of the unobtainable, blah blah….and I agree with most of them.

I wonder if Romeo would have loved Juliet just as much if their families weren’t at loggerheads, and everything was hunky dory. Or if Devdas would pine for Spar-row had she turned out to be a serial killer three years later. Or if Rose Dewitt Bukater would have been hungry for Jack Dawson when he didn’t bring food onto the table, had he lived.

Is love enough? Does it really conquer all?

Why do most love stories end with the ladka ladki falling in love? Why does no one give a damn what happens later? Why is ‘LATER’ so boring?

Is unfinished love (dunno what finished love is, then) the only type that has a person hooked till the very end?

Why do you still remember your ex? Was it really thaaaat wonderful, or you simply miss it, analyse and reanalyse it, because it didn’t quite have ‘happily ever after’ written all over it???

What keeps a relationship going after 20, 30 years? I look at my parents and see the way they lock horns over small things…almost a state of being used to each other….often left with no choice but to be used to each other. But in a quiet moment, I see them share that quick hug (Quick! Ere anyone notices!) and I wonder what keeps them going.It ain’t even the lure of the unobtainable here. Uh-huh.

Dunno the answers…m lookin, m loo0ookin….

Oh shit….

Let’s face it. Everyone on this planet has been through shit. Broken hearts, an encounter with death, losing loved ones, frustration, betrayal, bias, prejudices….words from someone close hitting u lyk whiplashes…yeah, we’ve had our share. Shit happens. So why is it that someone’s ‘shit’ makes a difference to u while others’ simply…..doesn’t?

Think about it. It’s a brand new day, and you start it off the same way. You meet workmates/friends/acquaintences….and deep down, all of us are just begging to be heard. Your best pal calls u up and cribs about her day. you throw in a sympathetic word or two (or better, quip about it), and hang up.Your own boss calls u & turns the faucet on about ur work, his seniors, competition etc…(sometimes, they don’t need a reason) & u grit ur teeth and listen. In the evening, you catch up with a very close friend, who tells you about her rocky love life and how her bf has no time for her. If nothing else, you’re mildly interested because of the entertainment value….you even give your own two cents worth of advice now and then….it’s involving, but not THAT way.

& then, THAT person calls. Talks of his day. Talks of how horrid his boss is. How much work he has to do. How his love interest is behaving strangely of late. & suddenly, the same problems (uttered from a different mouth) become so darn important.u listen, feeling every word….u then understand the difference between sympathy and empathy.

Welcome…. to the strange world of love. Phase 1.

Mush

There’s something about the song ‘Hello’ by Lionel Richie. Turns me to complete mush, especially if I listen to it all alone at midnight or something (which is when even the most inane romantic songs make sense, btw). No, this isn’t a song I grew up listening to. In fact, I got introduced to it by a chat friend as late as in the year 2000 (it was a 1984 track). We were jst playin the ‘favourite favourite’ game (you tell me your fav movie/song/actor/hobby etc, and I’ll tell you mine. You shd try it; it’s so darn silly but fun). & anyway, it was his fav song. I had never heard of it, so I keyed in a nonchalant “okay” in the chat window, while secretly opening another browser to download it.

Heard it once & ws hooked onto it. Reminds me of extinct things that few think about, and even fewer admit to thinking of, like moonlight shining on the sea, or sinking under warm covers or something.

You know, the lyrics (http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/lionel_richie/hello.html) could be rather misleading…like a stalker’s thoughts before he makes an appearance….who cares? Logic be damned (yeah, sometimes you gotta wrap logic in a box with really tight tape on it and throw it outta the window as far as you can aim…sky’s the limit).

I love the song (if you didn’t get that already)….the piano, the saxophone, the richness of the fellow’s voice ….the loneliness, the pang….

…makes me wanna sway to it everytime I hear it. Unless I’m in the middle of a presentation that is. Or in a second class compartment in a local train during peak hours …yeah, I’m cool with wearin my heart on my sleeve & all, but there, someone’ll just step on it while I’m in the middle of a sashay.

Oops, is that logic I smell???
Where’s that damn box when I need it???