LOVE AGAIN & AGAIN…

Love happened again. I had never thought it would. There were bigger plans this time, more material in nature I’d say. Building careers, buying a house, a car, making a life together was in the list. Hardly was there any sign of gigantic promises and bloated ideals. This felt more real even with the paradox of an absent fantasy world. Everything had changed with time. Life had made me what was considered “practical”. Presentations and other team building exercises now kept me busy instead of the extended discussions about my favorite literary characters.

In the midst of strategic marketing and capital budgeting my love life was flourishing on the utilitarian grounds. Cynical one may call me, but unfortunately I was even losing out on the great talent of being fantastically pessimistic and contemptuous. I don’t know if I was kinder or more charitable now but certainly I was less fervent. Whether love had made me more generous is a question I still dwell upon but it certainly had made me more accepting.

S0, speaking of love, I had never felt so contented in a very long time. It was almost unsettling. My inner self was urging for restlessness.

And it came….

Things took a change for the worse all of a sudden, just like that. Like there are natural disasters, there are disasters in a relationship as well and they come unannounced. I did not know I was capable of feeling so much pain. I was always the ‘practical’ one. However, sometimes even the ‘practical’ ones get broken down unless their hearts are made of steel of course. In my case it was just a regular heart!

Recovery was to be the next step. I tried immersing myself in Shantaram, Philip Kotler, corporate blogs and a plethora of movies but it just didn’t seem to work. I feel one of the worst things that can happen to you is when the thought of loving itself starts seeming scary. Once in my graduation, a professor famously said, while teaching Petrachan poetry “what kind of love is it that makes you unhappy?” Me and Farrago had laughed and pondered over at it many a times but suddenly today, the statement started making a lot of sense.

I started wondering that we are always looking for second chances in life; are we ready to give love a second chance? Sure love was a painful enterprise but it brought along the goodies too. Is it bravery, forgiveness, understanding or cowardice that makes us take the decision? These, and a lot more questions troubled me. They still do because I haven’t found the answers yet…

The “Graduate”

18^th March 2010. Today, I became a ‘Graduate, officially that is. The convocation ceremony was supposed to make me feel proud about myself, as I was made to believe. The robes, the hats, the works you know…Guess I was watching too many soaps or movies that I actually thought we might have a “hat’s off” ritual!

Nothing like that happened though. After a few speeches by some renowned (though mundane) personalities in Jesus and Mary’s splendid auditorium we were supposed to collect our degrees from the counter made for each department. As usual me and my friends were late and had to undergo the harassment from the infamously impolite staff at the JMC general office. But I was touched to see a silver lining in the dark cloud of loutishness always present in the general office. A staff, ( I am too frivolous to recall his name) said that “ You guys should have come to collect your degrees in the morning. We had made so much arrangements for you. We had tea and we had samosas. You should have come then”

It strangely pleased me. Somehow it was a nice feeling to be chided because somebody was concerned about me and not because I was lousy or incompetent of something. And this was coming from a JMC staff!!! I don’t know why but from among all the events of the day, I am definitely going to remember this one.

So anyways, I finally got my degree. It did feel good holding it but not as good as I had fancied. There was a sense of deeply rooted nostalgia associated with holding that splendid degree. Delhi University and B.A (hons) English printed in bold letters only reminded me that these two entities (or so I believed them to be) wont be a part of my life like they used to be. I had chosen to delve into the material world. Far from Frankenstein and Louisa I had made a choice to move towards things that “actually mattered”.

Perhaps I had grown up, in the conventional sense maybe. Afterall, I am now a graduate...