A Happy Man

A happy man is hard to find. Specially to my eyes, that I constantly squeeze out only the morose. But this one, is a happy man. He oozes with calm and content. It's almost like a spectacle. Like a natural wonder, to me. A man, so in his skin. I wish he could scatter the dust of his joy on the jinxed like us.

It comes with a lot of seasoning, this happiness.He wasn't born with this. Nobody is. He must have consciously, laboriously developed into his present person. He wears it like his attire, the Ganesa like laughter, the suitable little paunch, his gestures, everything about him is so slow and beautiful. I wonder what thoughtcrime have I ever committed to feel the way I do. Forever trapped in my imagined list of things to do, I am so restless. Whereas, the happy man's eyes are like a calm ocean. Glistening and deep. Like he's trying to tell me, life is not about today or tomorrow. It's going to stretch decades and I could be myself. That this day to day struggle is going to kill me and that I shouldn't. Allow it to do so. That in the really long run, tiny compromises are the harbinger of so much joy.

Happy man, relishes his lunch of four side dishes. He takes two full helpings of the rice that his wife cooks and packs. His daughter's name is stickered onto the rear windshield of his car. He doesn't care about the font, it's his daughter's name. He talks good of his wife and how she chops up the vegetables the night before and keeps them in the fridge. About how she takes care of the tiniest of things, to make him happy. He talks good of even his house maid. He talks good of everyone. But that doesn't mean he doesn't have an opinion, he does. Just that he does not make a business out of being an asshole.

Some people when they exhibit their happiness, they helplessly make it appear so fake. And I have an allergy for such people. But not this man. His happiness, is probably infectious. Need I say more.  

Unlike

Due to the certain degree of harmless guilt associated with narcissism and for the fear of dying alone with black cats on an arm chair, I couldn't restrain my affections for the one who was me. But he was too much me, staring at him felt like looking into the mirror. And anyway, nobody likes the mirror for long. Does she.

Nothing, absolutely nothing else makes two people more alike than sharing the same insecurities. That makes those two one from within. When the deep set fears seem to freeze, there are a dozen common fatalities to blame. The chemistry must have begun right there.

In retrospect, it occurs to me that the thing that scared me the most about him was that he knew me. That he knew exactly what I was so wary of. My well kept secrets were out there, right in front of his eyes. It ceased to matter that I too knew his secrets. Which, then of course, became our secrets. That should be kept from every third person. Just in between the two of us. But the burden of those secrets shrank my shoulders.

Sometimes loving him felt like narcissism. Sometimes, it felt beneath me. Like a last resort. Must have been the most carnal need to look for a dissimilar set of qualities in a mate, because our minds like to diversify. Stretch beyond who we have been. I left him. 

Just Friends -2

Just Friends-1

We lived in our exquisite world, scarce of outsiders.Like we had been caged between parentheses. Him and I. He was my last refuge from love. No, I didn't love him. He was the man I ended up with, after hope left me, love failed me. Almost two years of time, felt like a lost layer of life, in afterthought. When he was with me, I engaged untiringly in the process of convincing myself that, it was not him, it was not anyone. After he made a quiet unexpected exit, without an explanation, I was shocked. During our last days I was coaxing myself to believe in the possibility of a life sans him. Later, I gave up. I missed him. Though he left, he probably never did. He became this vague outline of his previous person, my friend, and constantly loitered around my conscious.

We never believed in gifts though, me being the girl, sometimes he pitied my faint craving to be gifted something, anything. Once on the walk back to the hostel, he had plucked out a few wild lilies, tied them with my hair band, put in a few leaves and handed it over to me and started laughing like  he would collapse any moment. It was my birthday, nineteenth. I smiled too. But to make things even, I bought him an ash tray with skeletons and skulls on it, just to remind him that every time he smoked, he was indeed moving closer to becoming one of those skulls. I don't know if he uses it still. Or may be his girlfriend made him quit. I don't know. Has he moved on? I apparently have, now that I'm married.

We didn't call each other except for a first few times. I used to ask him about his art, the reason why he quit college, or so he told me, I never believed him though. I had always loved to watch him paint, how the random colors on his canvas took shapes, and how he never even distantly considered my suggestions for his work. And to avenge that, I never let him read my poems. He mustn't have had the slightest idea what I wrote about. Sometimes, many times, I wrote about him. Things might have been different, had he known. Or, I don't know.

Just Friends

Platonic is too idealistic a word, she said. No relationship can be entirely platonic. At some point of time every woman keeps the guy she's with in that special place in her heart, tries to figure out if he fits. If he doesn't, best thing ever. If he does, things get screwed. But probably, I never made it to that place in her heart, the tipping point. I must have stopped an inch behind it. And even if I did reach it, I must've been a bad fit, and she wouldn't tell me how badly I had failed. To add to my string of failures, another. She knew, I could never fit, I wasn't made to fit. She respected that, silently. I understood her, was vocal about it a lot.

Unable to contain my frustrations anymore, I quit college the year before I would've graduated. She got that degree, got married. I dropped-out to pursue art. Never married, not yet. We lost touch.

But all her man-woman theories took us, her and I, as an out-lier, an exception. She classified the men in her life into two water-tight chambers, the ones she was friends with, the rest she could ever be romantically inclined to. The former category was obviously for the ones like me, who failed the test or the ones who could never sit for it. We got to see her worst, see her for real. The ones she was romantically inclined to, the ones who always only saw her suave, coy, never stayed beyond a time. Even then, there wasn't any porosity allowed between the two chambers. She got scared if a friend flirted, and that scared me hell-lot. Not that I was possessive of her, or afraid that we would lose each other, but just that she had become a habit, a part of my day. And with the oscillations my psyche was victim to, it felt comforting to have one companion that would stay.

I never exactly got to figure out her perception of me though. I never asked, our conversations, strangely never took us on those lanes. Provided the stretch of time, it now appears impossible, but happen it did.

The day, I was leaving, she helped me pack. She had two more terms of college, all to herself. I wondered if all that was between us, could ever happen again, to either of us, separately in life. She looked me in the eye and said, It hurts to say that no man will know me the way you do. I stayed shut.

But yeah, it hurts. Still does

love-forsaken!

what are we doing?

we are sitting on a bench, by the side of a lake, rubbing our feet on the grass, on the other side of
midnight, getting drenched in the first rain

Is this what we always wanted?

May be not. We wanted other things.

What other things?

Other things like love, may be. Yeah, love. The most beautiful thing in the world.

So why are we here?

Because love didn't happen.

The reason?

Noreason. The moment we to try to figure out the reason, we can't stop cursing ourselves. So we just sit quietly, trying to hold our cold shivers inside, looking at the lights from the highway reflect on the black peaceful water of the lake.

But what next?

We will walk back, like fallen soldiers, tearing the stillness of the dead night, back into our rooms. Lie down on our beds and hold our breath and close our eyes, and see a face inside our minds and remember..things that could have been. And finally hopefully at a certain point of time, may be, the ache in our hearts will be subdued by our need for a refuge in sleep. And then, may be we would dream, may be we would not..

Can two wounded hearts, heal each other?

Sitting on a bench, by the side of a lake, rubbing their feet on the grass, on the other side of midnight, getting drenched in the first rain, may be they can. Or may be they would never.

And I hope they never..