Raktabh Mahesh: Feb 21, 2007

PROLOGUE:
Though my gender differs, I had an idiosyncratic notion during my engineering days that female engineers must possess a halo around them. My curiosity to know more about this ‘phenomena’ made me infamous as a philanderer. Now when I have grown shy, I do not have any other way left to satisfy this curiosity of mine, which remains the same to date.
"If I keep everything bottled up, they might implode." I thought one sunny day and here is my humble endeavor to delineate them. One may ascribe it to be my egotism, but I could not resist myself in getting inside the story. It was mine and I found myself very free to use that divine freedom of expression. To some I may have dashed pell-mell in the story, but that is the way I am finding lives to be. Human lives are nothing but personal chronologies to me. That explains the diary form of the story. One may notice the gradual degeneration from gusto to pessimism in it, barring the end. It is because somewhere I could not simply content myself with a tragic ending. Fiction had to replace the autobiography at many places and the end is one such place.
Let me share an eccentricity. Being a curious student of astrology too, I got the inspiration to reach out to others in literature from my B’ day sharer William Wordsworth, whom we all know was a great romantic poet and probably the best nature poet. What he did is obviously history, and I dare not talk of history from the present level where I stand. Moreover I do not possess that kind of optimism. It may be because we defy our sun sign essence when we are unhappy.
Back to my primary objective in bringing out the story, Sukriti is always round the corner for most of us. It is not an endemic of youths alone; it may happen to any age and in any form. There must not be anything to feel shy about it. I feel like claiming ridiculously that instead of writing this story I might have been doing something else, but for my Sukriti. And it becomes debatable over the worth of sacrifice in such cases. But the rapacious society does make us feel of ourselves as convicts, or as the real time wasters of the universe. I confess that I have lost in the eyes of many and so have many others like me. I have committed a blunder but the pragmatism, which has blinded our eyes, continues pestering every single emotion of mankind. What happens in the end is not for my myopic perception to tell, but it may not be a happy ending. It will be better if my clairvoyance were damned.
When it comes to ridiculing an emotion, we are masters at it. Even I have done that deftly at times. Now when I stand the risk of being ridiculed, I will like to defend that no human being can become completely deprived of emotions. So one must check oneself thoroughly before going for slander. I can get points for that in anyone; so can anyone. It is with great courage that I am trying to present the reality, which includes certain light-hearted comments on sex. One must not resent that, as reality looks more real if faced and not resented. Obviously the market does not treat the female engineers that way alone. In those places, it is just a figment of imagination and I am ready to accept my perverted status because that appears real to me.
Despite my extroverted exterior, I am an emotionally reticent man. So it is another area which needs courage. Who knows my Sukriti may chance to read a copy? I might be exculpated for many things, especially of the crime of forgetting an eternal promise. You see it was so serious then! Under the aegis of this piece in hand, I say in the end that unfortunately eternity is a long premise, much longer than some of us anticipate it to be. This story has been narrated in a somewhat obscure way, because of my temperamental vacillation between the objective and subjective, while writing it.
But since we remain largely in our youth pretty simple and forthright in everything, especially in emotions, we tend to laugh at them, as we grow older. Perfectly normal too. But I have tried to present most of happenings with utmost seriousness and respect. Maybe most of us do not love to be that much idealistic in emotions. I for one do not appreciate much my own writings of youth. They seem to me overly unreal because imagination gets stinted with mental decrepitude. Pity the old man trying to write a love letter!
But I, an old man, did not only write love letters. I have written this whole story. Ergo, the seriousness all across the story becomes a rare comical script. Maybe that is not correct alone. I confess that I try to balance both, tragedy and humor.
The entire story is tragic and the humor is that the author is as a matter of fact a very detached sort of practical old man, trying his level best to perform the ‘act’ with unmistakable finesse.
But I, the author, am banking my hopes on the information given by one of my philosopher friends that people all over the world are divided equally between the ‘classic’ and ‘romantic’. Thus, I can zero in on an entire half of the total population. And what can be the best way to do it? Talk of the better ‘half’! That explains it.
Everything in this universe is bound to have flaws. So kindly mail your suggestions for improvement to raktabh@rediffmail.com. Thank you.
RAKTABH MAHESH

Chapter 1: The intellectual age:
3:00p.m. 11 Aug., 2000 As usual he sat on his chair going through notes of control engineering. The Master’s exam was near and he had to give an impetus to study.
"Damn these compensators and controllers. They are never useful when it comes to scoring." he rued.
There was an easy way of studying even when it became quite boring. You gawked at a book. It was as if you were mesmerized and you found yourself in the book. Rachin won in it several times. By now he believed in scientific socialism of Marx and added for himself another motivating factor- ego gratification. Having done a numerical of Laplace transform, he put the book aside and pondered over his future.
"There is a plethora of jobs," he thought, "It is unfortunate that whatever little I possess is of little use. When the lesser talented ones get elevated in front of my eyes it pains. Life seems wasteful if we are unable to attain the level we deserve."
It was a conversation he frequently had with himself at night.
But curious instincts of his dual soul had started ruminating in recent days over the teenage psychology of the girls. Fortunately or unfortunately other major troubles of the past had given way to it now. He wrote in his diary after a detailed study in mind,
"A girl in her late teens is a carload of problems. The most personal of all are of that arising due to full sexual development. Few girls must be having difficulty in attending the lectures in full concentration on several occasions. Then again is the problem of heart, although that is not very personal for some girls. Last, but not the least, is the problem of unemployed career girls. It is a rapidly changing society. I suppose many girls prefer career to marriage."
It had been a year since he graduated from Institute of Engineers College of Engineering. Institute of Engineers was not a big name in the country. To the residents of Nagpur town, in which it was situated, it was a college of international level. The Institute of Engineers graduates were treated better in the town than, say, an MIT graduate. He felt obliged to his Nagpur citizen for such irrational chauvinism but his world was not so minuscule.
When he had entered the first year of engineering life was rosy. The first year students were taught that it was high time to realize that they were different from ordinary mortals .The ragging could be trying at times, but it was enjoying on the whole. The petulance was gone and what lay ahead was an epoch of openness. The seniors were delighted in teaching the first year students all sorts of domineering ways.
"How would you react, Rachin, if your father scolds you?" asked one of the seniors during the ragging.
"I will try to make him understand my viewpoint. Sir." he replied.
"That is not the right way. You must ask him to keep his mouth shut and learn how to behave with an engineer. Aren’t we right?"
"Right, Sir?"
Such was the vivacity in those days. When ragging ended, the seniors treated first year students to the best hunting spots of the town. It was as if the guardianship was transferred to them. The slogan was "Enough of you, old Dad and Mom. We are free."
He enjoyed his heydays. It introduced him to newer vistas while occasional arrogance had made inroads in his personality. When he compared it with his current struggling status, it pained him that God had punished him for past vanity. "Let the bygones be bygones. It was a different Rachin five years back. It is a different Rachin now. That is all," he thought.
Saying this in mind, he proceeded to study and simultaneously smoked a cigarette. He was even more a chain smoker by now. Rachin had forgotten by now that he had started with 2 and increased the number to 20. There was a lot to remember in a smoke-filled room and there was an inherent heroic touch in cigarettes. Only a deadly disease could beat it. Since his friendship with cigarettes, he found a smoker very sexy; a smoking reader was a very intellectual sight to behold. In his opinion, an unemployed youth that did not smoke was actually deluding the society. Now he believed in the unemployed ideals too.
He took out his class notes and started cramming it piece-wise .The Hurrwitz determinant was always forgotten in the exams. So he took a determined step to memorize it indelibly in his mind. For this purpose, he read it aloud thrice, knowing all the time that he was going to forget it again. Institute of Engineers was in vogue in those very modern times of theirs. That pained him more as he remained unemployed due to personal problems. Rachin combined the advantages of his skills in both the software and hardware market. He found himself more adept in the hardware and his area of interest was in Microprocessors. He failed to get a job till date because of his antipathy towards professionalism in corporate world. He found the filth of lucre very abhorrent. Therefore, he had decided to prepare for administrative services and to prepare simultaneously for the Master’s exam. Still his hatred towards filth in lucre could never wipe out his belief in scientific socialism. The former was his individuality and the latter was for the welfare of society. Both had to be kept isolated from each other. In the big names of the market with which he had to be concerned with, exploitation of labor was minimal. It was rightly paid. Still it was too much to live up hobbies. He was a multifarious man; that was also a cause of poor academic record. Moreover he was not addicted to money. There was another side of the coin. These jobs were challenging and it took eons to lap up all the challenges it offered. There was an innate aristocracy in a multinational engineer and that was too glamorous to be ignored altogether. In short, it was pontifical. He considered the pros and cons and decided to shun the status of a workaholic at all cost. Preparation for an exam was an easier task and, hence, he was preparing for the Master’s exam. In recent years, Rachin could have only one intimate companion who shared his opinion regarding work. They both liked to work for change, not for the sake of duty. His dear friend’s name was Pooja; she was jobless for some common reasons. Hence, they were nice friends, although she faced a problem in resisting his sexual advances at times. She attributed it to the lack of proper interaction with members of opposite sex in the town. She tried to inculcate in herself a genuine sympathy with him. Though their branch in Institute of Engineers was different, the batch-mates teased them that their bra-inch was same. They were the thinnest of all. Their lifestyle matched with similar passions for gossiping, roaming, music, astrology and so on. Next afternoon he went to Pooja’s house.
"Rachin, few months of idleness has eaten my vivacity." said Pooja wearing an expression of indifference, which comes easily to an idle one. Her physiognomy made him believe that life was a big practical joke and there had to be a hush after the mirth was over.
"Life is not finally over. We need a work along with our preparations." he replied.
"I am thinking of joining a short term course in Java."
"Idiot. Now is not the right time for it. It should have been done in the final year of engineering."
"It is never too late. Do not worry for me. I was only thinking of it."
"I know that we only think." he replied blandly.
"Many things ought to be done in the final year which we failed to do. Does that mean an end of road?" "So you had not forgotten Java, stupid. Okay, go and do it but don’t you ever repent for a dismal performance in the Master’s exam."
"Come on, I said I was only thinking of it as we think of many things. Let us go to Marta today. We have not been there since long."
They proceeded to the Marta restaurant. Due to lack of sufficient money they both had to remain contented with a coffee frequently.
"Pooja, I feel that we were not worth even as dead souls of Gogol’s Tchitchikoff, since we are living."
"Yes, according to one of the characters of ‘Dead Souls’, what sort of men were those who were still alive? Flies and not men at all!" "Let someone come and buy our dead spirits."
"I support the conviction that it is a rule of commerce to pose yourself elegantly even if you were a pauper. That will tickle the interest of the investors. "
"Once they come to know of your penury they will kick you out of their way, like one does to a dog." "A dog one was, whether they kick or not! For few days you may be treated like lion. Probably you may not need to become a dog again."
"I do not understand it Pooja, but success begets success."
"And money attracts money."
"Hmm."
They were back to their respective homes. He had always thought of, when he returned to home, his displacement in his short life being zero though distance traversed was a large positive integer. The job givers had not given him a fair chance to give a positive displacement to his life. Although it was much to the wish of his mother, at that stage of life, it nagged his ‘technical’ conscience often. As for satisfaction, he repeated in his mind again and again, that it would never be complete.
Trying to defend his frustration and in search of a solution he was writing,
“Life must be reshaped now and then merely to suit a new fancy, or it must be given a kick-start towards a new goal. New urges, whims, fancies and so on, these were the gist of life. That was how it started at least. Sorrow, depression, tension were what we had imparted to it; we forgot that we had done injustice to an essentially noble plan of the Creator. I knew that quite well, so did others, but it was entirely human to blame Him for their troubles. He must forgive us if He is truly a God. There can never be a hell or a heaven for His children, who were very much He Himself. That is what I intend to say to God if he ever met Him. The older fancies could never be aborted completely; they were preserved to be brought back in the drama of ‘time’ in redundant spells, which were also very common. He had resigned himself to the self-made ideology that to aim at being just a human was the ultimate humility of mankind, an aim more sublime to any other ambitious one. Life was always to be around us; it was only in us to become oblivious of its existence in us. Who had betrayed whom? Let everybody think over it again.”
That night he started Communication Systems. The frequency-domain was intriguing. The time-domain method was time taking but was easier to comprehend. He managed to study for an hour after which his mind digressed at a far across melody, folklore reminding him of the sublime affection in nature that they had lost unfortunately.
"How do others manage to study for ten hours a day?" he asked himself. Probably they were possessed by the devil itself. At one stage in life we cogitate over the de facto definition of education. Rachin felt that education these days was limited to a particular stream in vogue. Rest was lackadaisical. Supposing that software was the fashion of today, in this very Aquarian Age of theirs, an astrologer was an illiterate in a figurative sense. Here he differed. Knowledge was knowledge even it was of the sidereal. He felt hurt when his knowledge on various such topics was deemed superfluous just because he was jobless. He, however, had learnt through the cunning ways of life that education was knowledge that engendered money. And how could he study lacking the essential propensity for it? It was a big challenge a student like him frequently encountered. Very few were there who enjoyed the art of studying; still there were so many students everywhere. It was an irony for him and part of it resulted in a cruelty towards the ones lacking pedantic instinct, the unfortunate scapegoats of a fashion of civilization. Number of Einstein, Poincare, Fermi, Pauling etc. was so less in comparison to that of those who actually took up science. What did the rest get? Few worthwhile grades of little practical utility! Perhaps a Wordsworth was near busying himself in boring photons (he did not intend that photons were intrinsically boring, but he was dealing with a Wordsworth!). Humans were so much conditioned in their mentality that anything not related to the stream, which had actually been forced upon them, was rendered grossly irrelevant. Despite the immense strides in the juggernaut of civilization, on which they rode, they were unable to be masters of their own professions. If civilization was for their convenience, it should not have come up with certain customs, practices, and clichés to snatch it away. In this respect, he considered Adam and Eve better. Then he realized that humans ought to be different. He had to admit that most of the things in a civilization were justified, but the loss of Adam in a male and of Eve in female was regrettable. He was not totally wrong if, occasionally, he felt bereaved at this loss as he was a human and not above the captivation of human psyche. Next day he woke up a little later, which was ‘very’ late.
"Twelve hours of sleep was awfully wasteful." he thought.
Insomnia was good for studying, although it comes at the cost of general health.
"Dorothy, my tea." he called his servant. In towns servants were cheap. Dorothy requested him to wait. His parents had adopted themselves to his erratic schedule. Tea came and he lost himself in the newspaper.
"Rachin, Good-afternoon." greeted his mother.
"If it is a sarcasm, I don't care." Mom had every reason for being sarcastic.
"Did you again sleep late last night?"
"I did not sleep at all. I started to sleep in the wee hours of the morning."
"What were you doing? Reading novels, I suppose."
It was a common accusation and he had grown used to leaving it unexplained. Earlier he used to defend Dostoyevski, Tolstoy, Dickens, Hardy, and others whom he read. He did it no longer.
"I was studying and I do not care a damn."
"Why must you care? If I insist on your studies, it is for your benefit."
Mom was becoming somber. It irritated him more.
"Do not bore me with this trite discussion. I have other things to do."
"I don't have anything more important than your proper upbringing."
"Thank you for it. Now ask Dorothy to bring something to eat."
"She is in the cleaning department. I will bring it for you."
Mom left and he felt satisfied after being smothered by ‘his’ mom. On such occasions he detested life as an engineer abroad. The glamour was outshone by the familiarity of home. Barring occasional bickering, which left him cold on terms like ‘affection’, home was a security, be it mental, emotional or financial. Still he always relished in cynical remarks outside that every relationship was dependent on money. "To keep it smooth apply the necessary lubricant of money." was his favorite precept.

Chapter 2: The onset of abstract:
He was always in fear of death as it meant an abrupt departure from life, what to say of any preparation. He always found it round the corner. Where was he wrong? It was never too early to dread it. We all see it coming to children, youths and to the oldies. It was an incontrovertible axiom and that stopped him completely. There were many other deterrents to study, which were engendered by life. So life and death stopped him completely. It was only with the thought that he will have to study till the last breath that he took up study. In the afternoon he started "Computer Networks" by Tannenbaum. The suggested bibliography was long. He took up the chapter on Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). There was a satisfaction on discovering that ATM of banks can use this ATM technology. Serendipity like this kept a student engrossed. After reading it to his satisfaction he tried to recapitulate. Even after an hour study his mind was blank.
"This way I am not going to get even 1% output." he thought in vain.
He thought of concentrating more. Meditation came in his mind but he knew that he was too restless for it and he aborted any thought of meditation. To get a better frame of mind for concentration he dashed to a movie with Pooja. The action of MI-2 kept both of them hypnotized for three hours and on returning they planned to learn Martial Arts to vent out their frustrations.
"Pooja, we can surely practice a bit of Martial Art in the morning."
"I wish to practice but sleep is still a dearer thing."
"And in these very modern times it will not be sufficient for a good living." replied Rachin.
"With the progress in civilization these things are becoming retrograde."
"It looks good only on the screen."
"We do not have a solid financial backing to dabble in such things. Will you love to fight with an empty stomach?" replied Pooja aggressively. Then she held out her hand, mutely accepting the fact that it was an over-reaction from her part.
"What force can we apply on an obstacle?" she asked pensively.
"The obstacle will destroy itself taking pity on us."
He laughed loudly to soothe the injured spirit of Pooja and she understood that there was no purport at all in his statement. She did not deem it necessary to comment on it. A minute later she looked at him cynically and said that in just a year he had lost his sense of humor.
"Maybe a CEO will fall in love with the gibberish in me and give me a good job."
"Be lost in foolish optimism. I intend to play a coquette. Let me get a chance and I will seduce a big CEO."
"How base of you! For the sake of filthy lucre you will forget chastity." he cried.
"If it is rhetoric I forgive you. Did you forget your past sexual encounters?"
He blushed and dismissed it as a bad dream, although he accepted the fact that this bad dream recurred. "Rachin, there is nothing wrong in getting what one deserves, by hook or crook."
He knew that if there were attendant disadvantages in being a female engineer there were many advantages too. If every female engineer had something of a Mata Hari in her, a majority in the Who’s Who would have been females.
“Imagine, Rachin, a male dominated society yielding to the feminine charms and the all-powerful cash in the hands of females! Yes, sexuality is a lethal weapon I realize and it is the fault of females only that it was improperly used, and was boomeranged at them.”
He thanked Pooja for these reminders as she left his home and retreated in his intellectual shell, planning to further his diary and extend the gamut to female professionals.
Such animated conversations between them were quite frequent. They left him pondering for a while even after they were over. Failure was mostly considered. He thought that failure alone cannot be the sole cause of psychological disturbances. When we think of a person grappling with the problem of joblessness a stereotyped perception of his state emerges; it is unmistakably an allusion to a shaking career. He thought of his problems and found them to be motley in genesis. Some were entirely opposed in nature. There could never be a single cause of depression. At the most he could develop a hierarchy for them. He reminisced of his first love affair when he delved in a masochistic love affair with the beautiful Sukriti. The emotional scars of his ‘only’ broken love still remained and had the capability of pestering him even in his detached present. Without the tryst with heart he could have hit the headlines of success tabloids. Since he did not get it in the first chance, he had grown unsure of himself.
He had remarked to Pooja, “Job-hunting is not easy either. The comforts of home have to be forgotten with little solace anywhere; a rat race is always going around and pity the tiring workload! Last but not the least; there is always nostalgia in roots beckoning a professional working abroad.
To which Pooja had replied, “Where is the another side of the same coin? Money, highly sophisticated work-culture, satisfaction of standing on one’s feet, nice colleagues of nearly same acumen and so on! These are the good aspects of a professional life. Lethargy gets the upper of everything in our case and we stay at home. Often the frustration of moving among ‘lesser’ mortals take us over. Apart from Rachin, Pooja and few others most of our interactions are with these ‘lesser’ mortals. That troubles me occasionally. “
She admitted that she could not get rid of this vicious conceit, thought that an elite class behooved her and she was forced to interact with the bourgeois of the town.
To Rachin there was enough sham in this section, but that bothered him less. He wrongly considered himself to be above such trite attributes, although he had been branded as a man of double standards by many. Few had the genius of rightly evaluating themselves. He was no exception to the rule.
A shopkeeper, running a nearby provision store, was now his friend. Her name was Stella and she was like any girl one hoped to encounter in social niceties. Stella was gentle, well-mannered and industrious girl in her late teens. He owed their intimacy to his frequent need for cigarettes. Stella, being dark complexioned, average in stature and of medium built, was always awestruck with her superiors. She gave him cigarettes free of cost whenever he ran short of money, which was quite frequent. In return he counseled her on big matters which could be tackled only through the weapon of knowledge. Stella held their relationship in high esteem, but she always reminded him that he was moving among ‘lesser’ mortals.
19oct, 2000
Pooja came in the afternoon with that peculiar air of a change. Her countenance was grim but her body language showed that she was eager to break some news.
"Good-morning, Rachin"
"Good-afternoon, Pooja"
"It is the same. We are not clock-watchers any more. Let others follow the rules of the clock. "
"You must have got up early. What did you do after such an early start? Study?"
"I failed to study today as I had an interview call on mail."
"I had anticipated a change. Interview did not strike him. Which one?"
"Logic Simulator."
"Congratulation! What next?"
"Preparation for the interview for a fortnight."
"What of the Master’s exam!"
"I think of leaving it. Moreover, I cannot study much now."
It was the same Pooja who was hell bent on cracking that exam. He laughed at her fickleness.
"You Aquarians are not going to stick to anything permanently."
"And it is an Aquarian Age."
He felt sad from within. Pooja was almost leaving him alone for the preparation. It was nice to hear that she got a call from Logic Simulator. He had never got a call. That saddened him! He remained jocular on the surface and went on conversing facetiously.
21oct, 2000
Pooja had left for the interview and in the evening he missed her. He mailed the completed application form for the master’s exam. He was alone and experiencing the island in society. A new revelation was made when he looked in the retrospective. He found that he had the touch of Midas in him. Anyone who had befriended him for the sake of emotional refuge in his company had a meteoric rise in the following years and he was left so much deprived of his own magic. It was sad but true. Since he was alone he decided to dabble with study. For an hour SONET, ALOHA, TDMA, FDMA etc. kept him involved partially. He was simply cramming everything, as he did not have a mind left to analyze them; it was a coercive effort mostly. Dorothy entered inside to ask Rachin for the evening tea. He consented and took a close look at her. She was young, bubbly and was wearing a loose T-shirt, which he had bought for her affectionately.
"Why did I fail to notice that she looks sad at times?" he reflected penitently.
Grief had struck and it became easier to perceive it in Dorothy and perception changed quite spontaneously without a conscious bid. He pitied the homesickness of Dorothy, if it was there in her. He thought again and concluded that some basic emotions would always be there in humans, more or less. Dorothy was not of a demonstrative nature. So he felt the urge to found it.
"Dorothy, sit and chat for a while."
"No, Master. Can’t afford to ease away time like you. Must help your mother in the kitchen."
She had deftly charged him of idleness in the veneer of duty. He did not mind it.
"Dorothy, do you have something in you like homesickness?"
"Everybody has,"sighs Dorothy.
She forgot her duty and stood, with her head down, and philosophized that it was human to adapt oneself to every circumstance. She left and Rachin shook his head for succumbing to base compassion. It was not needed in the professional arena and he resolved again to detach himself from any feeling detrimental to the moribund professionalism in him; he had to revive it. After all he had had enough of emotionality in the past three years. 24Oct, 2000
Pooja woke him up in the afternoon. Lacking words to say, as it happens immediately after one wakes up, he gawked at her. As soon as his senses returned he welcomed her.
"Hello, a pleasant surprise."
She was back quite early and he had made a mistake in calling it a pleasant surprise. She had been returned back by the interviewers. Pooja was frustratingly sober. She promptly came up with the excuse of reaching late for the interview. Her delivery was so quick that he guessed it was properly rehearsed.
"No worry. There is always a chance."
He proposed to have a cup of tea to change the morbidity surrounding Pooja. She gesticulated for cigarettes and he assured her that he had it under the shelf. They decided to smoke after having the tea. He had the cigarettes hidden below the shelf. They smoked as he delineated her position in his mind. She was truly heart-broken, which was a common reaction when one got unduly concerned over the loss of belief of others in one’s caliber. He was not that affected as Pooja’s rejection provided him with empathy. The thought that Pooja will stay with him till the Master’s exam consoled his lonely spirit. Not above the basic selfishness, it troubled him lesser as he aimed at being just a human.

Chapter 3: The emotional onslaught:
1Nov, 2000
Study had been seriously hampered the whole week. He could not become sufficiently determined for that. His past love life troubled his conscience frequently. Apart from being a student he had a heart. When he reminisced of Sukriti, once his soul mate and just a fancy now, tears flew inwardly. She was his humanity earlier and was his aestheticism now. Even after a cruel separation his heart cried for her so often; He cried with whatever sufficiency he could offer for that. He took a leap from his pedantic status to reach out to her in imagination and returned to the current struggling status in vain. How forceful this fancy was! It had been like oases in the desert of sorrow; she a mirage!
" What is she doing these days?" thought Rachin.
Someone had told him that she was probably involved with another boy. He became sad but refused to believe in a superficial analysis in a boy-girl relationship.
He thought, “Sukriti has a heart hungry of affection.”
He dismissed everything as a result of their search of emotional refuges. Of late he had inculcated in himself the broader philosophy that love has to be very liberal, or else it will exhaust the lovers. Being an emotional destitute now, he did not have any other philosophy to follow. It was a curious blend of magnanimity and helplessness that took its shape in the ecclesiastical. Rachin found his Neptune in the wrong zodiac; that made him over-emotional and worrisome.
"I will always have a worry and study will never be complete."
His friends, working abroad, were returning to Nagpur one by one. Tucky, his childhood friend, was currently working in Analog Devices. He was back and rang him at 5 p.m. to announce that (they seem to be announcing their arrivals!). He waited for him to come so that they may freak out. He called Pooja to accompany both, although Pooja did not exactly approve of Tucky’s entity. Nonetheless, he requested Pooja to come, promising her of a nice evening. Tucky arrived before time. He was broader now, thanks to the job. Unfortunately his hairline was receding gradually. Rachin wondered whether it was due to the job! He loved his hairs too much and gave a sigh at this thought.
"Why not a tonsure for you?" he asked Tucky.
"Nothing of that stupidity. I will not have a hair cut for a year instead."
He realized the need to see them as long as they could be seen in expanding corpulence.
"You are too short for long hairs."
"Does it matter much now when we were a teen no more?"
He agreed. They felt themselves on the threshold of old age. He had not told Tucky anything about the disturbance in his studies due to Sukriti. Either he had told a friend everything about both or nothing. Tucky belonged to the latter category because of his innate heartlessness in such matters. Pooja came and the trio went out anticipating a nice evening. Tucky handed a rare brand of cigarettes in the market. She bought it from Paris, especially for Pooja and him. Rachin perceived a slight change in Pooja’s attitude towards Tucky because of this gift. She was a sentimental girl and was touched easily by any gesture of sharing and caring. She never thought much about love and felt intrinsically satisfied with soft affection. Nagpur’s market was bustling as usual. The change in the fashion level was quite conspicuous to Tucky. Pooja was happy after ogling at dandies as it boosted her sinking morale. She remarked blandly that Nagpur was just right for any serious preparation. They proceeded to Marta for their culinary adventures. Tucky, far more in love with homemade dishes preferred to smoke and gossip.
7 Nov, 2000
A fine week had passed. Tucky had left. An otherwise phlegmatic one, he surprised him by advising him to take studies seriously. He reciprocated his concern with a promise for that, although he was secretly unsure of it. It was again Rachin and Pooja, just two engineers in such a populated place. He lamented at the anachronism and in fear of isolation after the Master’s exam took the book in hand again. He decided to abort his fancies of Sukriti for few days, so as to study. Of nostalgia, he did not plan anything as it was above any planning. Mother was down with viral fever that day. Therefore, he attended to her most of the times, especially in the night. Apart from affection, which demanded that mother must get well soon, there was a consolation that he had a job at home. Campaigning for the election of Mayor had reached its crescendo since a week. Candidate Mr. Palekar had called him twice to reach out to the intellectual class of the town. Mr. Palekar recognized his nexus with almost every intellectual of the town. Rachin hated politics for its inherent obsequious nature, but felt himself important in a way and decided to campaign indefatigably for Mr. Pavlov. His engineering background gave him an intellectual outlook, which was accentuated by spectacles.
"I have a job!" he thought.
Engineering had imparted him a social recognition. Even politicians treated his lobby with reverence. It soothed his moribund spirit.
9Nov, 2000
For two days he kept himself totally lost in politics. As he entered the voting room, Mr. Pavlov greeted him and got him introduced to some of the bigwigs of this field. He cast his vote in his favor and returned satisfied with his trivial role. Study recurred to him and brought along guilt-consciousness. Rachin gave a pretext for his lackadaisical ways (he was good in giving a pretext for anything!) by saying in mind that instead of fretting about social recognition, he will stop recognizing society.
30 Nov, 2000
Pooja had not come since five days and she was in town. He never called her, as her visit was regular. He thought of Pooja’s truancy and reflected that she may be avoiding him because he did not study much. It had been sufficiently clear that a scholar wishes to be in the company of a scholar only. To hide his vexation he resumed study. It was going on quite well till his father came in his room to scold him for a petty offense of keeping the room unclean. He lost his temper and heated words were exchanged. Father called him a pain in the ass and he called him a selfish man incapable of running a family. Father was an obdurate man, who seldom understands the frustrated misdemeanors of a jobless talent. Along with the inherent guilt of involving himself in a pandemonium, he blamed father for squeezing the vitality in his soul.
"If it was not for mother I would not had stayed a minute here." he shouted.
"You stay here as you were too wretched to get a stay elsewhere." pat came the reply from father. He became quiet and agreed within that destiny was bent upon inhibiting his studies. It was just that and nothing more.
1 Dec, 2000
Destiny had been kinder these two days. He did not have any polemic with anyone and had tried to avoid any provocation with solid tenacity. Sukriti was again in mind. So much had been said about first love and part of it was true in his case. A thought riled him that Sukriti was untouched by nostalgia and was going along with his studies properly. Since the inception of this thought he decided to revenge her by studying untouched by her memories. It was impossible but his effort was genuine.
7 Dec, 2000
After a long gap he had solved a numerical. He was happy that his acumen in numerical solving was back. Goodness, lack of practice had made him cower at the sight of numerical! Pooja had advised him the day before to stay at home as long as possible. She considered it better to become bored at home and eventually found adventure in books. Winter had set in and he was becoming lazier in taking shower. Looking at his untidy appearance in mirror, he gloated at his studies. Scientists were never clean after all. Same there. A student, if one was truly that, could never be too tidy. Study and cleanliness were inversely proportional to each other. He told Pooja of his latest axiomatic discovery.
"Why are you so unclean then?"
He did not take umbrage of that and remarked that he was an exception to every axiom. He had taken up the chapter of two-port networks. Due to lack of practice He had to consult book while solving a numerical. It discouraged him; he carried on nevertheless. A month was left now for the exam and he must increase his study hours.
14 Dec, 2000
A torment! He saw Sukriti on 8th, strolling in the market with a boy, with a stale familiarity writ large on the two countenances. He dared not interrupt him; she ignored him with her characteristic finesse. He returned, very upset, and wrote a short story in his diary to vent his feelings. It was an absurd creation but his situation was even more absurd.
The story: "As the winters have been to me a peep in eternity all my life, I am only 23 years old. Today I have noticed a frost in the morning and I am delighted. I have been singing in my mind since a month that if spring has come, can winter be far behind. Though no more a schoolboy, I reminisce a lot the winter parades of school. So, my love affair with winter had started when sensuousness first entered my soul. I will tell you a change in my life since past three years. Yes, like any love affair it started as an infatuation in my schooldays. Now… You see, I have matured myself and with the onset of maturity even love has brought morbidity in life. When I had entered the 20th year of his life, it was with a dreadful conviction that I will never reach 21. It seemed that death was always round the corner, ready to prey me even at the slightest accident. The month was April and the fear plagued me for another six months. Then my darling winter came. In fact it had always been my subconscious urge to personify winter, as I needed a flesh and blood proof of my love. My wish was granted and there descended from the heavens a sweet girl of 16 and I knew that it was winter itself in human form. I was enraptured at this serendipity and started teaching her science. The world in those days was gay. Death was out of mind and life kept me lost. Every good thing meets its end. So did my winter. The girl left me and vanished for the whole summer. I grew detached and forgot the winter. I have a caricature of myself, which tells me about changes in my life when I observe it closely. I saw a mark on the palms. How did the mark get there? I wondered and humbly accepted it be a change due to last winter. It will show itself next winter, I thought and patiently waited. Next winter did come and the girl resurfaced. I was again experiencing the delightful chill in the mornings. Things went on with same redundancy, but gradually I became more sensitive to frost-bites. My darling winter was giving me pains. Then I supposed that every love affair was bound to be masochistic at times. The hurt is realized as soon as initial ecstasy gets dampened. Since it was not expected at all, it became the greatest singular psychological shock I had ever felt. My darling winter had betrayed. The summer came and the girl vanished by same design of fate. I recovered but as I look on my caricature, I notice a hole in the heart. The shock was so great that even the heartless summer could not efface the memories of last winter. It is again a winter, but I know it very well that every love has so many limitations, besmirching its virtue now and then, that it is next to impossible to expect that my darling girl will come back."
15 Dec., 2000
He went to Stella’s house in the evening. In suffering he realized the need of "lesser" mortals too.
"Hello, Stella. I could not resist myself coming to you."
"It is a lucky day. You had stooped your level today."
He took a close look at her. Same eyes- deep and lost.
"You know how much I rely on you." said Stella, a second later.
"I came to know of it only a day before." Stella was lesser experienced to respond to his statement. Rachin stressed on understanding the factors, which cause one to rely heavily on others; he understood it partly due to loss of freedom of his soul, something that was too dear to him earlier. Stella offered him tea and sat silently anticipating an errand from him. It was a dog like attribute, which upset him. It was she whom he hoped would master him out of his troubles. It was not like any other day today. He broke the silence.
"Stella, why do we encumber ourselves with too much grief?"
It was a platitude. He got his comeuppance for enacting a simpleton, as even Stella did not respond to him. I thought that Stella disliked him in a tragic mold. She loved him only in his vivacity, as he had always been her psychological savior; any aberration from that role model was strongly resented by Stella.
"Little consolation here,” he thought and decided to be aloof than to be with an insensitive companion. Everybody loved his vivacity, not him. He felt trapped in his image, which had been created with an effort of years.
25 Dec., 2000
Little could have been expected from destiny. He was no longer extenuating Sukriti for the eyes could not forgive what they had seen. Whatever little he possessed to devote to his career was being debilitated in the sad tryst with heart. Time was nearing for the final battle and he was preoccupied by emotions. In the past ten days he grew a decade older. At present he was in the shadow of neurosis. Dr. Atma Ram was treating him for it. Doctor, medicines, and philosophical books were near him. Father was oblivious of his troubles and locked horns at the slightest offense. Pooja was involved completely in her studies. She had no other choice. For his sake she condescended on 20th to take him out for a change. Rachin thanked her for that much contribution in a time-starved world.
In the night he cried " Sukriti, where were you? Here lies the grief that I can no longer be the infant in belief. I cannot be that now when He had tasted us the sour grapes of youth. Youth! How promising it was in infancy! How dreary it is in the far end! The flowers start blossoming when it starts. They wither away soon, so soon that one wonders whether they blossomed at all. I retrospect and wish that I had not been infatuated with those ephemeral affairs when my heart was so much saddened on the demise of the ephemeral. Life could have been less exhilarating, but look at the abrupt end of exhilaration in the crusade for realization. Things won’t be the same even if Lord promises that. Where exactly is Lord? Sometimes I wish to put my naïve trust in Him. Sometimes I do wish to believe that more things are wrought by prayers than this world dreams of. But when I look at humans around myself and at the human in me I grow surer in conviction that He certainly doesn’t reside in the humans. Is the Lord incapable of looking deep in us? Why does he need us to pray for His help?" I do not pray and do not get what I want. I must pray and in my prayers I must eulogize the benevolent dictator. And the society? I accept it status quo. Is this meekness an aftermath of the realization that we are problem-hungry souls? In heaven we will fantasize of hell."
30 Dec., 2000
He had kept himself in solitary confinement. It was a crisis- a crisis so different from the ones he experienced earlier and the most difficult one. Never before was he so much sensitive - even to the wind that was once a trumpet of festivity. Mother was noticing his disinterest towards study. She lost her temper.
"Rachin, you do not take showers these days."
"Sorry, Mom. I will take a bath today."
"Do not become a burden on the family due to insolence."
On any other occasion he would not had taken offense of her caustic remark. On that moment of heightened sensitivity, he felt hurt and a spasm crossed his face. He was locked in that frightful room again. The loss of vitality was a grief. It was supplanted by anxiety. Melancholy would have been better. If this was maturity, he disliked it. This was what they were taught to become after a particular stage of life. The teachings of society aimed indirectly at creating morose individuals, who became neurotic later. When he became anxious of the major battles of life- career, love, marriage and so on, he kept on losing the minor battles of everyday life. Pooja advised him to become rigid or else the world would hurt him more. Rightly said. Sukriti was no longer his. When he considered a marital alliance with someone else he felt like breaking a very dear ideal. But…. Like everything life breaks itself one day. He had to resurrect it and by drowning himself in a river of sorrow he would not survive. Was not the effort to survive most essential that day? It was and he must forsake any former ideal, which could annihilate him later. So if a good girl proposed him for marriage he would give his consent. If happiness was a thing to be won, he must change himself.
He was thinking, "I will become selfish, calculating, ruthless and emotionless. Who else will care for my survival? So I propose for myself a black shade. Let the world damn itself. I will keep on amusing myself even when there is bloodshed all around. My tears have failed to change anything. Let smile conquer all tragedies."
He thought that he had discovered something after a long trauma. He had won something for a moment after losing so much. Only destroying other things made some things. That was the clue to happiness of some unfortunate hearts. They had to destroy happiness of others to get back their own. He was one such unfortunate heart. He had to break a relationship to sustain his relationship with life. Besides, they did not understand him. How could they? Behind the clout of social respectability lay selfish expectations. They would love him only as long as he kept on sacrificing himself now and then. The moment he would talk of his happiness he would be abused as egocentric; they would forget their selfish expectations, exceeding even egocentricity. Egocentricity never harmed anybody. It simply elevated one. Selfish expectation injured hearts. He thought to try to revert to his original egotistical ways as he realized it to be a shade more sublime to wretchedness. Knowledge was superior to feelings (Dostoyevsky). With this thought he would bring his happy days back. He took the book again in hand. The chapter was digital communication. Information theory was an interesting part for a dedicated Electronics engineer. They had some good jobs in this field. He solved a numerical on maximum channel capacity and retired in an hour.
1 Jan., 2001, 1: 00 a.m.
The New Year had started. He was sitting in a party arranged by Miss Hashing, his neighbor. Pooja was also along.
"Rachin, sing something for us." requested Miss Hashing.
She was a plump lady in her early thirties. He used to approach her with problems due to Sukriti two years back. So there was a reverence for her compassionate attitude in him. She was compassionate in such matters perhaps because of her celibacy. He replied that he will be singing a sad song and that will bore the partying ones. She insisted and he sang a sad song. Some boys of the party watched him with fascination as the song ended.
"Why do you prefer sad songs?" asked one.
"I sing what I get from life."
Pooja called everyone on the dance floor. The dance began and he danced with gay abandon. His was the most hilarious one, so he guessed. The exuberance was back! Or was it usual for a perpetually depressed man?
"Miss Hashing, let everyone sing turn by turn." It was Pooja forwarding a proposal. It was palpable that she was eager to flaunt her singing talent. They agreed.
A robust man cried, "I won’t. My area is sports."
Rachin learned from Pooja later that he was an army man. He was a close friend of Miss Hashing’s cousin and had come along with her. Leaving him, everyone sang, giving the best in the song. It was delightful to watch the animated expressions of the face during a song. The delight in human errors never failed to bring laughter on Rachin's face even in the severe crisis. Miss Hashing had arranged a cocktail party. Pooja knew of his propensity for extremes and cautioned him. He ignored her advice and went on drinking till he became incapable of standing. Pooja made him rest in a couch as others continued to enjoy. A light music was on. He was partly conscious. The song being played was an obscure one. He couldn’t get it fully. Probably it ran like "You hand me a goblet and I will drink in a sinuous manner."
He was imagining things now. Sukriti was handing him a goblet and he was repeating in mind the above line over and over. He gave out a sigh.
"So you have left me." Rachin said in a low voice. Pooja was near him. She had probably understood it all. Despite the tremendous effort to hide grief, liquor got him exposed. He couldn’t help himself and fell asleep after vomiting twice, the ultimate refuge to be under such circumstances. In the afternoon Rachin found himself in Pooja’s bed. Pooja was near him studying in a chair.
"Woke up?"
"Sorry, dear. How did I get here?"
"Simple. We got you loaded in car and brought you here."
They both desisted in talking about his grief. He was feeling a strong affection for Pooja. Watching her face he found that something divine had crept in her countenance. He took her leave after having a cup of tea. Back home, he thought of the night. It was a mystical experience. Sukriti was handing him a goblet and he was writhing like a snake does in front of a snake charmer! Again the erratic thoughts started.
"I must change my view about her. It has been a long time since we fell in love with each other and she freeing herself from that trap. Time must have taught her a lot as it has done to me. So the nemesis must have changed her too. I will be in love with her with the same devotion, as is the wont of lovers, especially of the males. It took so many sufferings to come to that perspective. It will be okay as long as I do not become spiteful again. Even if a dust particle of the roads, on which I have trudged so often in her love, acknowledges my love I will be happy. Oh god, I am sitting silently, but not in silence."
Somewhere he had read about a kindred character that sped across the universe of thoughts like a lawless comet. Was that a common thing to happen in love? If it was, then he could have contented himself by repeating over and over that it was just a phase and he would soon get over it. If it wasn’t then it was a cause of concern for him. Why should the Creator single him out for this particular psychological misadventure? But the chain of thoughts were unbridled as of now for him and despite his reluctance for fear of depression, he soon found his thoughts back to Sukriti again.
"O dear departed soul, why did I fail to notice your worn out countenance? Why did I keep myself depressed over his troubles and never for a moment thought of yours? I can love only the way I like but there is also inherent a guilt feeling that adjustment is a degree superior to love.
How many times I got and lost you! Your troubles…"
It was not that he was so bad not to care of them. He had been so much conditioned in mentality by his partial sadism to remain undeterred by any suffering of someone aloof to him, even if it were her. He had lost so much and got a trifle in this ‘nexus’ in the eyes of many. If you asked his opinion he would have doubted that, being still unsure of his gain in the ‘nexus’. Perhaps a saint was sleeping in him, threatening to awaken itself anytime. If there wasn’t any, he could have gone about openly declaring himself a loser. He could have gone on branding the ‘nexus’ as a destructive liaison.
There were some that were very devoted towards him, but when Rachin became despondent he had the uncanny feeling that He was alone in the universe. When we had to remain alone always (soul wise), why such pretentious of oneness? Contradictions, disparities, inconsistencies and imperfections everywhere! How do they manage to survive? Perhaps because it required so little to survive. Perhaps because survival was an elementary thing to do, just like breathing and humans were lots of stages up to enjoy that thing alone. If they could have separate lives for separate desires, they could have been less dissatisfied. Lives for career, love, family, fun and so on. No, they cannot have them. They had to live every desire in a single life.
2 Jan., 2001
The next day was the Master’s exam. He was not ill prepared for it. If it went on well, it would have been a comeback for him, just for him. Others won’t understand how an ordinary performance can be termed a superlative ‘comeback’. He understood that quite well within, as every day had been an exam past few days. Why was it so with him alone? It wasn't clear. Crises had taught him to accord a magnified perspective to the minutest of stirrings in life.
His mother came to chat in the night to discuss about the next day. She informed that father was to leave the town for a business trip and they were to accompany him to the station in the morning. Rachin assured her of his willingness and planned in mind to stay awake the whole night.
"Mom, I wish the exam to start the very next hour."
"You sound so confident in your impatience even after so little of preparation."
He ignored the sarcasm. "Mom, I feel that tomorrow I may do all or nothing and there will be no in-betweens this time."
"The range given was too large to predict anything." said mother.
"I cannot be surer."
"Anyway, sleep well. We had to accompany your father to the station in the morning."
She left and he was left alone, impatient at the slow rotation of the clock.
3 Jan., 2001
The exam was over. He had managed to do thirty percent of the total. In tough competitive exams like those, it was not bad. It could have got him a scorecard, but it was a borderline case. Mother asked him of his performance. He told her that he could manage to do only twenty percent of the total, just to play safe. She became angry. His novels were blamed for his supposed debacle. Dostoyevsky couldn’t have been more hated by anybody else. Feeling distraught Rachin rang Pooja. She promised to come in an hour. He was waiting for her and in the meantime was verifying the answers of some of the objective answers. Some of the questions, both in objective and subjective, were so difficult that he thought them to be shrewdly contrived by the paper setters to waste their time. Three answers in the objective part, which he had considered wrong, were thankfully correct. He felt elated for a moment until last year’s rejection came back in mind. Pooja came with a thorough complacent look on her face. She had performed exceedingly well. "Rachin, which one will you prefer, a movie or an evening walk in the sector Z Park?"
"I haven't done the exam that well to watch a movie."
"Park, then."
They left for it five minutes later and after reaching it sat on a corner bench surrounded by flowers that he had seen often but never queried of knowing their names. He appreciated the bounty of nature but couldn’t love it like Pooja. Around the central fountain old couples could be seen. Rachin felt their need for a peaceful place for nostalgic talks. Even at a distance from them his ears were catching their imagined conversations. The husband could be saying to the wife that the boy opposite resembled their departed son. Or the wife could be remembering of the time when she used to visit the park in adolescence. Young lovers used the park as a dating spot earlier. Administration had become very strict those years because of increasing complaints of obscenity in the park. So young lovers were no longer seen there. He had heard that they had found a new paradise for themselves. It was the circuit house in the outskirts of the town. The park was significant for him too as two years before he had hugged Sukriti here. The gardener couldn’t tolerate this sample and resorted to bad words to scold them. He also lost his temper and what followed gave him nightmares many a times in the month that followed. Wasn’t that past? He had come there with a different heart. It was in anticipation of a nice career in future and in his present he did not anticipate a nice love life ahead.
20 Jan., 2001
There was a flaw in the admission process for the Master’s degree. The scorecard was declared much later and it was required to fill the application for admission to some of the prestigious institutes quite earlier. One such institute had advertised the need for applying the same. He was not anticipating a nice scorecard but had to apply just for the heck of it. The Xerox copies of documents were also required. Rachin called mother as she kept them safer with herself.
"Mom, where are my documents?"
"They are kept in the shelf near your computer."
He looked in the shelf. There were no documents there. Then he asked mother who said that father must have kept them as he had reshuffled the shelf the previous day. Together they asked father. He straightforwardly refused any knowledge of them. Mother was panicked and started crying. She jumped to the conclusion that his career was now lost. Rachin consoled her and went back to his room, alone again.
"What am I feeling? Why am I so indifferent?"
He had started whispering to himself: "The silly papers are now lost. It is no trifle but magnanimity of fate."
If he didn’t find them he would remain deprived of a good job lifelong. No master’s degree in future! In the eyes of unbelievers he was now an uneducated man. He heard a voice in the adjacent room " Alas, we gave birth to a wretch." He heard a voice ten years ahead saying, "Look at Rachin and his job. He destroyed himself."
But he was not grieved. Why? It was an intellectual imprisonment all those years. He was free now! Rachin was writing in his diary. "Look how a day differs from the other! I am incredibly happy today. Optimism everywhere. No murky depths in soul. Oh, I must study now, but why? I feel it wasteful to study. Yes, perhaps I have won over the circumstances and robbed happiness from the heavens. Sukriti is still not mine, but I forgive her today, as I was never such a noble soul myself for remonstrance about disloyalty. I understand the presence of prejudices and their fortuitousness in occurrence. Today when I am feeling levity in heart I can claim that this is my essence and this is my capability in fighting over negativity. Whom do I need to prove? To myself, of course. Because victory has been my glory and am I not too proud to let it go unnoticed? On such moments of elation I do not hesitate to admit that my pride is restored, my dearest chum in the journey of life. What do I care about tomorrow? Today is so beautiful. I will die one day complacent that my soul did fly carelessly one day. There is an addition to my teachings of life. I used to say earlier that happiness is an emotion, the most precious one. Now I say that it is not. In fact, it is above all emotions, an intangible divine. It can be got at any cost, provided one has the guts for it- the supreme courage for the intangible divine. The flowers were always blossoming. Did you ever open your eyes to see that? Even the dead get resurrected. Did you ever open your conscience to feel that? It is all a matter of mind, desire, feelings, physical conditions, age, society, circumstances and the rest that my limited intellect doesn’t reach out to at present and above them all the Almighty. So does it matter much if we succumb to so many things that we never wanted to? Agreeably, I am a lost case for maybe everybody. Maybe not a soul sympathizes with me for the moment. But I said earlier that nothing matters as much as the peace of soul. I have not yet got it, and probably I will keep on searching for it the whole life and fail in the end like a man on the deathbed trying to give his best shot. Like me there are many other, fortunate or unfortunate souls, who are frequently confronted with the daunting question of ‘What is this?’ Somewhere I had seen someone claiming just before his last hour that on the whole he enjoyed every moment of his life, good or bad, boring or exciting, awake and sleeping both. That is it. I don’t know why I am so much fascinated with the end, but surely it consoles me to think in the end of saying in mind to my near and dear ones that it was a beautiful journey. And maybe next time I will again get near to each of them with a transformed soul. The matter of fact is that we all love our planet earth too deeply and we never wish a parting from it till eternity, however bad it may appear to us and many-a-times. Same here. Sukriti, who are you? Not much for me in a physical sense. You are a thought, an idea or a personification of all that is abstract in me. You yourself will never come to know how you taught a foolish soul all the finer nuances of life.
In about an hour the day will break. This night has been so beautiful. Hopes are high. I again revisit in mind the chilly winters I spent with Sukriti, the special moments that could have been a treasure for the lifetime, but for my masochism. There has been my funny presence for others on lot many occasions. They must be remembering that at times. That is my existence beyond myself and it gratifies me to dream of a dear one’s reminiscences. Nothingness is creeping in my soul at present, but it is not a thing to be worried of. It is an extremely peaceful thing to happen to me."
He remembered the whole hour the years before engineering he had spent along with the beautiful Sukriti.
31 March, 2001
The results were out and the borderline case indeed proved disastrous for Rachin. He could not make through the exam while Pooja got a high rank in it. He wasn’t bothered much by the result and rejoiced over Pooja’s selection. It was late but Rachin had changed for better. And Pooja, she was suddenly in the thick of the things. Her cheeks grew rosier in the coming days. One fine day she requested Rachin to tell in detail about his love affair. Rachin understood that she wanted to relax herself a bit after a strenuous year and he felt the need to tell everything about his recent past so as to make her a part of it too in future. Before starting he decided to prepare a background.
"Pooja, I am about to start. Are you ready?"
"Yes. But please do not hide anything."
"Yes. The story I am going tell will be pretty simple, something of Mills and Boon replica at places. Please don’t laugh then within. You see I was a typical young man then. Pooja, actually I had seen lots of ups and downs even before I joined engineering. After my schooling was over I had joined a convent school to teach Physics on a temporary basis… But tell me one thing how would you like it if I carry it as a third person’s narrative.”
"No problem at all."
"So here it goes…

Chapter 4: Another life in retrospect:
St. Phelomena’s convent was not a big name in the town of Thane. In its Physics department there was a teacher called Rachin Srivastava. Since it is the beginning of the short story, it is necessary to delineate him properly. Rachin was not the kind one meets often passing along the road. He was a man first, because he considered that to remain a man is the greatest challenge one faces in life. Man allows his senses to prevail over his mind and becomes a victim of frustration that he could not reach the deserving height. He never looks to the fact that he did not work hard; he looks only at his pathetic condition. Rachin was such a character. We will learn more about him as we go along with him in this story.
Wednesday was a boring day. Rachin missed his classes, down with fever. His best friend in the convent was Ritesh, who taught English there. He was a good-natured soul, inherently cheerful. Tall by average standards, possessing a nice body structure and having a tanned complexion, he was normally a remarkable sight. He and Rachin shared so much in common, including the choice of undergarment; both preferred the rectangular ones. As usual, Ritesh drooped at Rachin’s house in the evening.
"Didn’t come to the convent?"
"Feeling unwell."
"What is the problem?"
"Fever. I fear I won’t be successful in life if I attract fever with such a frequency."
"I define success by how much love one gets in life."
"Even I think so, Ritesh. Unfortunately, present civilization prefers money over love." Rachin rued.
"Let it be so, Rachin. I will not change my ways. Being a man of literature, my perception should have been different from yours. It is not that I think in a scientific manner. Dear, it is your approach that befits a man of literature more."
"Rightly said. After a stage in following a stream, one has to adapt it in life too."
Putting an end to casual discussion Ritesh informed that a girl was to take admission in the convent the next day. Her name was Sukriti. Then he took leave of the feverish Rachin, allowing him to cogitate over the news. "Isn’t my life going on at a slow pace? Why am I so indifferent to the news? I must dance that someone new (that too a girl!) has joined the convent. Anyway, Miss Sukriti I will see you soon. Let me see how you are! A stereotype! In addition, hypocrisy manifested amply by glib talking! Let me see!" talked Rachin to himself.
The night was not to be the same. He sat on the chair brooding over his life, a common pastime when age progresses onto maturity. When alone he thought of the important things in his life; things that changed the course of his life when it was all set to follow it’s predetermined path. Since long, he was finding a lull in life. "Am I carrying life? It is not merely an exchange of breath. It ought to be more than that.” he thought. Like any other person, he loved excitement. So frequently, God was requested to send a thrilling objective in life. No doubt, Miss Sukriti’s name provided his eyes a temporary sparkle. Next morning he got up early. The first thing he did was to thank God that his dry heart was replenished and his sinking spirit was rejuvenated. When one loses all incentives to enjoy, it affects the personality as much as it affects the mentality. Ritesh, for instance, had scolded Rachin that he had taken to shabbiness and carelessness of late. He was anxious what intrigued him. One cannot understand any individualistic melancholy, unless subjected to the same one by fate. Ritesh was no exception to the rule.
He prepared for the college, having a shave after a long time. Then he chose the best trouser from the wardrobe.
Looking at himself in the mirror, his eyes gleamed with satisfaction. Miss Sukriti had indeed refurbished him. The convent was bustling as usual. He entered inside the class, expecting a new face. He did not see any, much to his chagrin. Anyhow, he started the lecture.
Five minutes later, a sweet voice rung in his ear. "Sir, please may I come in?"
There she was! Miss Sukriti!
"Sorry, Sir. I am late. It is my first day in the convent. So I had to complete some formalities in the principal’s office."
Rachin looked at her discerningly. She was a diminutive figure, slender; dark complexioned with nicely chiseled features and a beautiful face. Her lips were wonderfully good. Overall, she was a remarkable sight.
"Come in." said Rachin posing indifference.
Her gait was elegant, and her disposition was striking, complemented by her aplomb. However, she appeared ultra feminine. Rachin’s sixth sense was indicating something, which he chose to ignore. The whole day he kept himself happy. Happiness is accentuated when one expects a trifle and gets a mammoth portion of it. Rachin was smugly wishing just for a new feminine entity and was gifted by a special one. When sleep did finally come, it brought along a sweet dream, which was necessary to vent out his farcical thoughts of the day. This particular dream was not very absurd as it showed some familiar faces of the very recent past. Rachin was sitting near a window of one of the classrooms of the convent; he was looking at the playground opposite. Boys and girls were playing. The ambiance was same but watching it with human camera was an incorporeal beatitude. Among those familiar faces, was a girl smaller in age and height than Sukriti, but the rest called her Sukriti many times? Her grace and majesty matched Sukriti, though she was not Sukriti. Rachin looked at her incessantly in his dream, mesmerized by her aura. When he woke up, he felt as if he had just returned from a fairyland. The recollection made him feel the ecstasy he had forgotten since a long time. He wondered about the striking similarity of the girl of his dream with Sukriti.
"So, we feel shy in accepting our fancies totally in dreams too."
He smiled at this innocent collusion of our subconscious. The call of duty forced him to forget about the dream and he dashed to the showers. Sukriti looked merrier in the class. She was chatting sharply with John, the ‘child’ of the class. Rachin, being of jealous nature, detested the sight. A minute later he contented himself through his wisdom that John was just a child and Sukriti cannot take him seriously. He felt better and resumed the regular task. In the end, he walked away silently feigning nonchalance. At times one is forced to feel that this world is so much replete with vulgarity, deceit, sham and their sibling feelings that the better ones prefer to stay indoors. A good extrovert is compelled to become an introvert and even an evil introvert proudly poses himself as an extrovert. This Rachin complained sardonically from his own experiences. How cheerful and open he used to be earlier! Although his teenage was a troubled one he managed to let it remain forgotten in the tides of maturity. He realized that it was maturity that disallowed emotional rashes of the past to be forgotten soon, just to make life ahead a trouble free one. It inadvertently reduced it, because Rachin never believed in the number of year one lives. He believed more in the fact that actual life is only unto the stage one enjoys. Thereafter it becomes a duty, which one cannot pass off as a joke. In his early part of life, he did not know what living was (it being the best way to live!)
Sukriti was gradually letting loose her controlled behavior. Merrier in class, she became more frank and practiced flirtation over the timid and surprisingly docile boys. It upset Rachin at times but he knew that he was not expected to mind such things. Therefore, he had no choice than to practice stoicism. He never failed to cast a cursory glance on Sukriti as he entered the class. The shyness in revealing his inner turmoil could not be removed by coercion. Even while teaching, he saw that every student was given equal attention. In trying to remain equable, he became partial towards the rest as Sukriti was ignored altogether. One day after the class, she approached him with a problem. It was too much for him. After racking his brains as much as he could, it was solved much to his relief.
"Sir, Mechanics is mind-boggling."
"It only depends on the aptitude. I find Optics more abstruse."
"Sir, what do you take in your breakfast?"
It was very unscientific and a very candid thing to ask to one’s physics teacher. The questioner was Sukriti. Therefore, there was no point in scolding her.
"A toast and a cup of tea."
"Just that much!"
"Yes. It drives me on the whole first half of the convent."
"Sir, you are inflicting a torture on yourself. How do you survive like that?"
"Oh, it is enough. On the other hand it is more than enough."
"It is showing. You are so frail. You must have a heavy breakfast. Okay!"
"Okay."
He realized that though he liked conversing with her, he must not give her much liberty and that line between a teacher and a student must not be crossed. It would have been nice for two colleagues to converse like that, but not for them. Hence, he asked her to leave for other works. Sukriti left like a breeze. Back home he was a satisfied soul. One wishes for the moon and is granted the sun. The palms are not so big to hold it. You try your level best to hold it but fail to hold it. Then you start thinking that it was not yours in the very first place. With Rachin, it was not the trouble of the hour. He was holding his sun and had started thinking Sukriti to be his in the very first place. He was looking for a sweet face and was gifted a sweet conversation too. Seldom did he think of the mirage in the desert. The illusion was presenting itself like a reality; something one does not normally like to pull asunder. The beatitude kept him engrossed the whole night. The morning cuckoo ended his thoughtful night. He stepped outside the house and looked at the morning sky. The world appeared so beautiful. He started imagining the morning tea with Sukriti along. Goodness! He realized that he was in a trap. However, he did not wish to free himself of it. How blissful was it to find oneself indebted to another entity! It was quite different from being an ego-climber. Yet, there was so much to offer in that state of willingful transference of soul, however temporary it was.
"Ah! Why is illusion short-lived?" muttered Rachin to himself.
Mechanics is a difficult portion of physics. He used to be scared of it even in his college days. In the convent, the students were slightly more conscious of deriving the maximum from the teacher as the fee was higher. They tested him often through numerical problems; some of them were shrewdly contrived to embarrass him. He would ponder over a problem for few minutes and thankfully, he won over it nine of ten times. Each time a problem was solved with consummate ease, Sukriti looked admiringly. Whenever he struggled with it, she seemed to be saying in mind "My dear Sir, these are small problems of physics. What if you have to face the bigger ones of life along with me?" He was rejuvenated. Fighting again, he won over the problem without trouble. However, he owed everything to his liking and not to his acumen. Life is normally fought with audacity when enemies are real and external. In Rachin’s case, he had to fight with his farce. His liking was indeed a farce because even he felt like smiling of liking a student at times.
On Sunday morning, Sukriti showed herself in his campus. When he opened the door, he could not resist himself in giving her a very warm greeting.
"Sir, I asked your address from John."
"Come inside!"
"I thought that on a free day I must disturb you with problems of gravity."
"You haven’t disturbed me. I must be thankful to you as I would have wasted three or more precious hours in sleep."
Sukriti shook her head and said, "You must not sleep late in the morning. Enjoy the fresh air of morning."
"One must not be detached from nature."
"Right. Therefore, you will wake up early from tomorrow. Okay!"
Rachin liked her concern for him and replied in submission. It was an open demonstration of affection. For once, he could not make out whether she was in his house for the sake of gravity! She seemed to be frank enough. Then again, he chided himself not to misconstrue everything and dismissed it to be for the sake of gravity.
"Sir, I have few problems to ask."
"I will see to them. Firstly, we will have tea. I am very good at making it."
"I don’t take tea normally."
"You will have to. I insist."
She nodded in approval and he headed towards the kitchen. His heart was also in turmoil like the boiling water in the pan.
"Gravity! Always remember that."
He said it in his mind and laughed. Sipping the tea, they both started tackling the problems, which were quite easy. Rachin wondered how Sukriti failed to solve them in her first attempt.
"Sukriti, gravity is exciting." laughed Rachin again.
She reciprocated it with a smile although his purport was different.
"I fear that I may develop a penchant for tea if I come to you every Sunday for problems."
"Shrewd girl!" he smiled within.
She was ostensibly demanding an invitation every Sunday.
"Sukriti, A tea is a nice break in solitude. I will like it more along with you every Sunday."
He restrained himself in saying ‘every Sunday’, wanting to say ‘every day’.
"Sir, you must do something for your constitution. You are so frail!"
"I will try."
When Sukriti left, he thought of the morning. It was a mixed bag. It was nice that she herself chose to come closer to him; he was spared of that audacity. One thing vexed him now. Was he very frail? It is usually masculine to be brawny.
"Does Sukriti dislike skinnies?" he reflected and became sad as if he had lost her. Although lethargy was alien to his robust constitution, his physique looked repulsive; he knew that sufficiently. Next morning he gave shape to his plans for bodybuilding, as much as his frail torso could bear. Imagining himself as the hunky-dory of the convent was gratifying to his quixotic mindset.
"Goodness! It is so difficult to exercise vigorously for more than ten minutes. They must be tougher who exercise for more than an hour. I can at least fit myself in this exercise regimen in the wee hours of the morning."
Rachin loved the idea that he was working hard on something without caring a damn about anyone. He did not care about the outcome too. Exercising affects one’s psychology and makes one feel stronger, although the change is not conspicuous. To hide one’s inferiority at times, one resents and complains that criticism is the way of the world. One gets upset even at light-hearted banter of friends, relatives, siblings and so on. Everyone seems a moral fiend hell-bent on heckling. Rachin himself found it hard to withstand disparaging expletives like ‘beanpole’. On the other hand, he found his attraction for Sukriti accentuated even as his self-esteem dipped to an abysmal low. As it was to be, the strenuous workouts were stopped in a fortnight. Sukriti was getting closer to him.
Rachin had a childhood friend in the town named Roshan, who had relocated to Thane for a job in a software company. On a typical day when the convent fete was being organized, Rachin called Roshan for the sake of enjoyment. He came just in time and they both sat on the ground enjoying the winter sunshine.
"Rachin, the convent girls look sophisticated in their dresses."
"Yes, we took care in getting them designed. The gray top is due to my suggestion."
"Some of the girls are very pretty. I would have been hit by a cupid if I taught a single day here."
"I try to uphold the teacher-student relationship as far as possible.” said Rachin, although he was unsure of his own conviction now.
"That girl on the games stall, laughing with her friends, is really beautiful." Roshan had pointed towards Sukriti. As Rachin looked at her, she also looked at her coincidentally. She smiled and he requited it tentatively. Nevertheless, the crime was caught as Roshan noticed the exchange of affection.
"Hey, you are on nice terms with her! Come on; tell me her name."
"Sukriti."
"As good as her face."
Rachin felt embarrassed.
He had lately joined the unfortunate club of those romantics who blush at the slightest disclosure of their romance. It was not exactly romance from both sides. From his side, it was very nearly that. Sukriti gazed at him almost constantly, while he tried to overlook that piece of a proxy proposal. Roshan did not fail to notice that. He did not take it that seriously though because he considered Rachin insensitive towards any such possibility. When Rachin returned, he felt befuddled. He should have looked at her properly and thoroughly.
Why did he pinion himself against it? he thought. The animal in him wanted to do that. However, he had to pose himself as a civilized human, when in fact he wished to become a savage. Was it a nice thing to pose nonchalance in front of a bubbly girl?
"Just look at her, Lord. No shame in staring at me!"
He said that and laughed. Offense is forgiven in matters of affection and it was by transparent volition. Then accompanied the fear that Sukriti might not respond next time because his treatment on the matter was offhand. "What a fool I am! I should have thought of it before."
He was broken for a moment over the possibility and regained his composure as the moment passed. It was decided that next day he would approach her and convince her of his interest, in case she needed to be convinced.

Chapter 5: The tragedy in this life too:
Tragedies in love are as common as the growth in height with years for a young boy. And who knows that the ship, which has been boarded for a fine voyage, will wreck all fortunes? Rachin did not because his mind at heart failed to work in tandem. No word of caution could have discouraged him even in accepting that Sukriti was not in love with him. Although, he considered the fact that she was just a frank girl in her sixteen, it was tossed in the dustbin of mind the next moment. He was all set for the eternal voyage with Sukriti. The happy part of it had flashed itself with increased frequency every day, while the tragic part- the wreck, and was considered shortly in an impulse only.
Next morning he managed to reach the convent fifteen minutes earlier. There was not any particular reason for this undue punctuality. Probably, it was destined that way. His lecture was to start from 8 a.m., being the first of that day. He decided to head for the class and go through his lecture note, totally unaware of the shock awaiting him. As he reached the class, he heard a familiar voice. Sukriti! He stood to listen, for he could not suddenly understand why she came earlier. Then came another familiar voice. It was of Ritesh! He was shocked and stepped inside the room tentatively. The sight was too woeful for his eyes to behold.
In a flash, it appeared that Ritesh was hugging Sukriti. He could not decide how to react- to avoid the pair or to give them a nice thrashing. He did neither.
"Hello Ritesh! Hello Sukriti! I am sorry to disturb you two."
"Come on Rachin. You are my good friend. You must not think like that."
Sukriti remained quiet. She was able to guess what was going on in Rachin’s mind, much more than Ritesh. After all, reception of feelings is better in girls, and in this case, she was more involved with him too. Because he was unable to fix his eyes on her, she greeted him but he evaded her purposely. He could not become sufficiently diplomatic to handle such a crisis.
"Well, Ritesh. I must take your leave."
Rachin left the room in a state of numbness. Ritesh had probably taken his erratic departure to be due to his shyness. Any serious apprehension could not have crossed his mind.
But Rachin! He did not take his lectures, returned and took to bed to overcome the stupor created by this sudden shock. Tragedy had struck him at the time when he was least expecting it. Many thoughts were crossing his mind all the time. Sometimes he imprecated; at other time, he prayed. The morning newspaper lay at the side. News from all around failed to insinuate him for better.
"How did it happen?" he thought.
Then he decided to leave taking lectures at least for the fortnight, so that the wound is healed sufficiently.
"I will not talk to this girl anymore. I will not see her face ever. Lord, I will leave the convent!"
Sobs started and ultimately lead to hiccups. Sense of loss prevailed over toughness. Secretly he wished Sukriti to see him crying. A sad happening shattered his sweet illusions of his dreamy mind. So he knew and did not blame anyone but himself initially, because true love, even if it arises from illusion, makes one stoical enough. The telephone rang. He took the receiver in hand with shaking fingers. It was Sukriti on the other side. In an impulse he dropped the receiver and sat with a sullen face. He did so because he knew that he could not pretend that nothing had happened and he dared not get the complete truth of her. The wreck had occurred and Rachin seemed to have capsized. Anger did not last long. Still, it cost him a fortnight. When it subsided, logic and rationality replaced it. He was becoming a student of the peripatetic school of Aristotle. The abstract feeling of love soon gave way to ratiocination. Rachin was telling to himself, “I had started trudging in one direction. Merrily trudging around, my foot banged with a stone and I fell down. When I got up, I saw in the interval that elapsed between my rise and fall, world had changed. The emotional dreamer fell and what rose was a disillusioned man complaining that his innocence and sentiments had been exploited by his shrewder counterparts. His fragile self will take time to cope with such an abrupt transition. He will start smelling a rat in everything thereafter.”
Sometimes badmouthing was done to attain the vendetta verbally. Obsession had made him realize limitations.
“Who says that satisfaction is purchased?” he asked it often.
He was dissatisfied because he could not barter his sweet dreams for it. He used to think that it was foolish to think of tomorrow, when the present is so beautiful. As for past he did not think much. His present lay shattered and tomorrow was not promising. Rachin was no more his old self. He had stopped taking lectures. All he did was to lie at a place and cogitate over this and that related to them. Ritesh, being unaware of his mental state, came to inquire over his truancy. He was told that the gap was due to an urgency of meeting an Uncle Jack, whom Ritesh took to be a real character. Rachin was promptly advised to join the convent as early as possible. The days to come were not easy. One morning, Sukriti herself showed up. Rachin felt piqued at her sight, but tried to remain calm and cool.
"What has happened? Why don’t you take your lectures these days?” she asked, in a tone of concern.
"I am not feeling well these days. The fever has taken its toll on my performance. It is not that I am avoiding my lectures. I simply can’t handle the stress anymore and I am to resign from the convent very soon."said Rachin, with tears flowing inside.
"Fever won’t last long."
"Don’t ask more, Sukriti. I won’t explain more."
"Look in my eyes and say that you are feverish. I know what ails you. I am a girl and no girl can be so cruel to wreck a man like this.” said Sukriti in a touching manner.
She was looking directly in his evasive eyes. It was enough for him as he burst in tears.
"Sukriti, I have lost you." She was taken aback.
Men like Rachin crying in front of her! There never was any indication of frailty from his part. After a while she gathered her wits together.
"Sir, please don’t cry. It hurts me. I have always considered you more as my friend and less as my mentor. Believe me, it wasn’t love, which brought me near you. It was camaraderie, deference, and protégé or call that anything but love. In fact, I like you as much as I like Sir Ritesh."
He felt that probably he was mistaken in supposing an affair between the two, as he had not seen anything very serious.
"You say you like me. But I love you."
Ultimately it was said. Sukriti stood still while Rachin continued.
"Tell me, Sukriti. Why did you draw me near?"
"I did not draw you near, Sir. It is something that happens by chance and not by any design. You were never a teacher to me. A nice friend! Always. How did you misconstrue my gestures of friendship to be borne of eternal love? I still have great respect for you."
"Girls are very clever in shielding themselves from all dangers and accusations that result because of their feminine wiles. They say it was friendship they were seeking for."
The concomitant vindictiveness was revealing itself. Rachin overcame it a second later.
"Oh, Sukriti. I am vile to say such things to you. I do not exactly mean that you were at fault, or that your fault is inexorable. I do not mean any such thing. Nevertheless, let me say bad things about the feminine gender if you understand that I lie here crushed. My repressed emotions are seeking a vent. Do I not know it well enough that this malevolence is futile? However, what can I do when I have lost you?"
To this, Sukriti whispered in all her gentleness, "You have not lost me fully. You can still get me back."
Rachin became speechless. He managed to say with difficulty, "I love you, Sukriti. But I also remember an obscure story I read sometimes in my teenage."
”Do tell me."
"In an obscure lane of an obscure city, lived an obscure man named Prakash. Actually, it was destined that way. Prakash was not always like that. The legend went that his ancestors held prominent position in the palace of a Maharaja. Too much of drunken revelry and gambling by his father had caused the debacle. It is comprehensible to all and sundry that to enjoy poverty, one must be born a pauper. Therefore, Prakash found it hard to adjust with the trials and tribulations of it. His early days of richness had exposed him to panache. Good education, sword fighting and acumen in Vedic Mathematics were byproducts of that opulence. Moreover, like his counterparts he had a delicious romance with a moon maiden in his flourishing youth. Ah, youth, it was so nice! The moon maiden, he and their love, what else did he wish for? Nature used to smile at their rendezvous. The sun, moon, stars and generally the whole cosmos were different then. It was one such morning. Prakash was sitting with her in a garden.
The maiden asked, "Prakash, why do you love me?"
"Why do you ask me that? It will be better to ask why the flower is redolent."
"Then tell me which among the flowers do you like the most?"
"Why do you ask that? It will be better to ask why the gardener likes the flower."
"Prakash, will the garden remain green forever?"
"At least till the gardener is alive."
The moon maiden became satisfied and showered love upon Prakash. And he started believing that love is bliss. One night when he ruminated over life, the image of calm Buddha came in his mind. The calm and meditating Buddha! Why didn’t he think of the great man earlier? He thought and thought and could not help thinking. Then there came a call from the moon maiden. She was calling him to love her as usual. For once, he did not feel anything for her. It stressed him to think of the impassivity he was subjected to for that moment. Anyhow, he tried to pose himself as the amorous lover for a while, but the effort soon gave way to his melancholy.
He asked the moon maiden, "Do you ever pause to think why Gautam discarded his princely robes and became the enlightened one?"
"I never think of anything else than your love?"
"But dear, there is so much suffering all around. How can any soul with a heart go on loving when they remain around?"
"They will always be around. So does that mean that one must never love? In fact, love, even for a moment, takes everyone away from sufferings."
"But I am not satisfied. Why has God chosen such a world for us?"
"Forget it. Hold me in your arms. I want you."
He did it obsequiously. But when he returned back to himself all alone, a monologue followed.
"Prakash," he was asking himself, "don’t you feel that the world needs you more than the maiden. Isn’t humanity a degree superior to love for a maiden?"
It was a difficult question to answer on that particular moment of reflection. Somehow he managed to sleep and the next day his philosophy troubled him less and gradually he forgot them. But his latter troubles with psyche had left in him a virus of desertion that became a host to many other mental diseases. Prakash became lesser exciting for the moon maiden and she started avoiding him more and more. To make the matters worse, circumstances altered and all the riches were gone. It was a new life, a life one normally doesn’t wish for amidst luxury. And Prakash was no longer a sybarite. Education was stopped. So was sword fighting, as swords were expensive. The newly introduced commoners around rendered the mathematical skills grossly superfluous. Unfortunately, his common sense compelled him to forsake the moon maiden. The tedium attacked for some time and Prakash devised a way to remove it. He joined the services of a library and gradually developed a liking for reading. Literature was now his forte. The tragic novels were his favorites, as life was akin in spirit. It was a quagmire and he became mired in the writing field. Ultimately, he got his own novel published that dealt with a broken heart. No doubt, love is sweet even after its death. The memories of the ‘deceased’ beloved was his inspiration. (Vicissitude killed her!) The effort paid dividend and his work soon joined the catalogue of the library. It sold itself in multiplying proportions, and Prakash became rich again. ]
One fine night, his ‘deceased’ beloved came in dream.
She asked, "Do you still remember me?"
Prakash replied, "Vicissitude killed you. Now it has killed me. Therefore, I don’t remember you anymore."
Rachin’s eyes were fixed on her.
"But I am not Prakash. I suppose I will keep on remembering you lifelong and unconditionally "
Her eyes were fixed on him too and she smiled pleasantly, bidding good-bye finally.
What a relief it was! It seemed to him that he could still dream of his lost illusions coming alive. Sukriti brought him back to life and in her own ways mellowed the aggressiveness of his injured heart. Lovers are naïve, he thought. They are bruised up easily and can be won over with slightest affectation of concern. In the night, he did not sleep. In one of his thoughts, Sukriti was thanked with all his heart for entering in his life. The sweet conversations were again ringing the atmosphere. When the thought of feminine wiles entered his head, he shrugged off. "Sukriti cannot play with me. She is not that stuff.” was his conviction the whole night.
He listened to a soft romantic song. Listening to it, he was sent flying to a fairyland of Princess Sukriti. Clouds shrouded the sky and sunshine was playing hide and seek. He and Sukriti were looking in each other’s eyes, motionless. Surprisingly, there was not more in his dreamy world, it encompassed barely two souls. Rachin and Sukriti were not born and could not die in their world. It seemed that they had tasted the elixir of youth. The clouds were destined to shroud until eternity. The clock did not move in the pleasant stagnancy.
He cried, "O dear dream! How much unfulfilled aspirations do you bear!"
Manik Mulla of ‘Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda’ came in his mind and he thanked with all his heart that at least somebody respected dreams in the whole world.
It is impossible to save one’s identity ego and wishes from being trampled under myriad of mortals in the real world. There was no such problem in dreams. Moreover, love! Suddenly, like the universe, it presented itself like infinity. He saw it in the heart of mother, crying for her sick baby, in the heart of father, who sobs over his child’s dead body, in the social worker working indefatigably for the upliftment of humanity. He saw love here and there or anywhere. Indeed, to define it was like making a plunge in the depths of universe. Rachin found himself confined to a microcosm of the universe, when he tried to define love himself. It could be likened to divinity

Chapter 6: The miraculous but temporary levity:
The days to come turned out to be his dream days though. They were numbered though. He resumed taking classes. Sadly, his course was almost over and only few lecture classes remained to be taken. Surprisingly his relationship with Sukriti had become formal. His approach was more restrained and he never uttered a word about his broken heart. After the lecture was over, he would smile at Sukriti in a sober way. She approached him after the class one day.
"Sir, please pray for me."
"Pray for what!” asked Rachin.
"Pray that I may be able to take a tough decision in my life."
He smiled at her with serenity.
"Your decision will be mine. I have loved you I will keep on praying for your happiness."
"Thank you. You are too good."
"Yes, I am and since I am a good man, I must not disturb your peace now. Bye!"
"Just a minute. You will not come to teach us after 10th of this month. We students have arranged a farewell for you on 11th.You must come."
"I will be there definitely” said Rachin and took her leave with a happy smile imprinted on his childish face.
11th November was always to be a special date for. All the students surrounded him. Some copied his ways of teaching. Some remembered his pleasant disposition and cheerfulness in the class. Rachin remarked happily that even a thief is eulogized on his funeral. He declared that he doubted whether he was as good as his dear students considered him. Everybody laughed at his statements. Sukriti watched him dotingly as others surrounded him. The evening was enjoyable anyway. Sukriti waited for the crowd to disappear.
The moment came. He was alone with her. He smiled sadly. She came forward and took his hand in her own.
"I have taken the decision. Even I have always liked you since the day I saw you first. I cannot say when I started loving you. I love you, Rachin."
It was the zenith of happiness. Rachin had never experienced such heights of love in his life He felt as if he was fathoming the deep ocean of Sukriti’ heart. Thousands of orgasms could not have given him the ecstasy of that moment.
"Dear, I want to embrace you.” said Rachin.
He started endearing Sukriti in a state of absolute delight. His hands rested on her shoulders. Sukriti removed them and wrapped them around her bosom.
"Somewhere here lies my heart. To the world, it will always be the breasts of Sukriti. To you, it will be the place where you reside for my heart will be your home. Never leave it. You have touched my soul. What lies in the body now? It is yours as much as it is mine.” sighed Sukriti.
"Sukriti, as long as faith will exist in mankind, I will be yours. You are pious for me, like a Goddess. My Goddess! Forgive me for my trifles and I will work the whole life to remain united with my supreme faith in you. What is a man without his other half? In my case, my other half happens to be my destiny itself. She has the power to pluck my guiding stars from heaven. No, I am wrong here. She is actually my heaven. An ordinary mortal, that I am, I have to seek you the whole life. Pray for me, Sukriti that I may not be damned to a place in hell for life without you is like a hell now."
Idealism was profusely disseminating from Rachin’s tongue. She tried to balance it.
"Don’t you think that I will be happier as your wife? I do not wish to become so much divine. That role is yours."
"Perfectly so. We must depart, as I will not be able to sustain any more happiness. Let me remain an ordinary mortal. Do not give me an extraordinary share of your love. Do not overflow my ocean of love. Dear, I must leave now. Allow me if you understand how precious this moment is. How much vibrant the atmosphere is at present! Let not even a cool breeze disturb it, as I will like to remember this moment just as it is now. You see, I am completely overwhelmed with love. Thank you, Sukriti. Don’t ask me to put in words for what! Good-bye."
Rachin left in a hurry, much to her surprise. The moment had finally arrived. It was a moment of eternal complacency in a way; life was well nigh over for him, because there was no desire to live.

Chapter 7: The blasé:
The battle of love had been won, so thought Rachin and he emerged victorious. He finally got what he desired until eternity. Unfortunately, eternity is a long proposition, much longer than he had anticipated it. Sukriti seemed to be always in mind. Both had left the convent. It had become a church for Rachin as all his animal instincts had become so human in it. It was the place where flower of his love had blossomed. Paradoxically by now he was a confirmed nihilist considering his intellect to be too limited to think of the abstract. Several times did he think of God and ended in a big frustration that he was so vain, incapable of seeking the unseen and learning the unknown. Hence he had stopped thinking of spirituality.
The convent was a symbol of love and there was no point in staying there, as daily chores in it would have contradicted with the convent of his dreams latterly. It was quite impractical to leave it. Emotions ruin a man’s pragmatism. Of what use are dreams when the stomach is empty? It did not dawn upon Rachin then. He contented himself by thinking of living from hand to mouth in future as long as dreams were alive as love was the food of his soul. As with every man, he had his share of imperfections. There was one egregious virtue that cynics secretly envy: he believed in Sukriti thoroughly. Not a single doubt regarding her crossed his mind. How can one love truly in doubt? This particular skill could not have come through practice; it was intrinsic in Rachin. Sukriti was an embodiment of purity for him. Her company was his best luck in life and Miss "constant" Sukriti teased him as a "variable": she was more matured and stable. Both hid from any third person the cataclysm that had developed between the two and the nature of enjoying the winter while it lasted was a great uniting factor.
But the equations were changing as the youthful days were going. The impetuous feelings were plummeting. Rachin became more vulnerable to this decline. Sukriti was still rock-solid in her decision, no matter what was her motivation.
The motivation! What was that after all?
Rachin had started questioning it now. His original psychic troubles were back. The cynicism, which true love had effaced, was back. When he started vacillating between two emotional extremes, he also started envying Sukriti for her stability. This particular envy was the first crack in the relationship! Anyway it was just a crack initially. Physical nearness accentuates love but the initial impact was too great to subside it due to any deficiency. At times there was a compelling desire to meet her. At other times he talked to her even without her, an unrealistic thing to do but one does that often in love. One starts loving the image too. In some cases the image is dearer than the actual person is. No doubt Rachin had changed. The loquacious guy was reticent now and a loner too, as he was almost always engaged in tuning himself with Sukriti’ thoughts.
The first crack is the most harmful since it is the genesis for several cracks to follow. It pained Rachin in the days to come that the moral purity with which he loved her was getting lesser. The waste of doubt was contaminating his river of love. It was inevitable fallout but it broke his heart to think of her Goddess as an ordinary mortal. Poor Sukriti! What was her fault if she wasn’t perfection itself? Nobody is. Rachin himself was too imperfect. We do not think of our imperfections. In the very first place it psyched Rachin now to think of her motive in choosing him. Everybody has some.
"So Sukriti is like the rest, or else she would have proposed to me herself."
Love had blinded his eyes, he thought and now as it was losing its magic the vision was less hazy.
Sukriti had developed a habit of ringing him daily. The day he was disturbed at similar farcical thought and the telephone rang.
"Hello, Sukriti."
He did not even care to ask who it was on the other side.
"Hi, what are you doing?"
"Why do you ring me daily? You do not need to assure yourself of my love daily." scolded Rachin.
"Sorry, will take care. Good-bye then."
Sukriti remained courteous. Having grown used to his endearments the change in his attitude hurt her. But she was not an ordinary girl. She remained calm and brave, dismissing it as one of his passing moods. Poor Rachin was himself in a muddle. He was struggling to keep the fire alive. There was almost always a volcano in his heart earlier ready to erupt any fine moment. It had become dormant. It was sad. Life without fire is a waste. The boredom before Sukriti had returned. She had come with replenished juice of life and resurrected his soulless body. Soul was now threatening to leave the body again. But Rachin loved the blissful ‘accepted-love-of-the-initial-stage’.
Someone said that "With so much violence, bitterness and anxiety all around few romantic hours bring the much-needed solace."
What did Rachin think when alone? It was neither the fight in the convent library nor the convivial excesses. It was neither the college pranks nor the evening flirtations in the market. It was almost always the loving words exchanged with Sukriti. Initially he loved like commoners and generated common emotions only, like an infant. They were growing into complexities with time. The melancholy of separation persisted despite the opposition of daily life in the infancy.
Roshan came one Sunday. Like others he too was unaware of Rachin’s latest tryst with heart. So he was the same heartless, fun-loving self-seeker. Roshan, expecting a tasty discussion on girls, remarked about a brunette whom he saw in the market the day before.
"Rachin, girls are a mystery to me, unfathomable like the depths of the ocean."
It was a trite remark and Rachin was now one stage up to enjoy it. He said a second later "Some boys too."
"In conservative societies like ours they marry for social and financial security. We marry for emotional security."
"The difference may be due to different insecurities. Girls have been cruelly deprived of social and financial security, which are our prerogatives. We have been deprived of emotions, patented by women. We seek in each other what we desire, desires that can be fulfilled only after marriage."
"Rachin, what do you suppose will the situation be like when society changes to grant equal opportunities to both sexes?"
"If this happens at all girls will have a definite edge as they will boss from behind through their tact, which is definitely more in the females of our society."
"The weaker tends to become shrewder in order to shield itself from the atrocious stronger sex."
"Roshan, I firmly believe in the notion that we are only physically stronger as after the death of spouse the female lives longer."
"It seems that you have recently experienced a stronger female. Have you got painful bumps in a romantic roller coaster ride?"
Roshan was infamous for his curiosity in learning others secrets, even if it was that Steve does not wear underwear. Rachin sensed it. Still he did not feel recalcitrant to hide anything.
"Do I sound antagonistic these days? I have grown more cynical, that is all. I am not badmouthing girls. They have some finer points as well. They score in compassion, devotion and tolerance. A man scatters and a woman absorbs. She has the infinite capacity to bear with amazing impassivity. Or else why did our Creator decide to make a woman pregnant?"
"You seem to have forgotten the apple."
"It is my Bible and do you question the original one?"
"You are not God."
"Everyone is God."
Both laughed at the seemingly absurdity they were lead to after a sober start. It happens at times that one remembers something one wanted to say some time before but did not say it. That thing is said with amazing alacrity due to the fear of forgetting it again. Rachin did the same a moment later.
"Roshan, a boy takes a pride in telling his own secrets while a girl takes a pride in telling others. A woman’s heart does conceal more secrets. Observe a romantic pair. If you possess the psychic penetration you will find that the girl is secretly troubled over her boyfriend’s habit of crying at the top of his voice that they are in love. It troubles her conscience to be stripped of her cloths of secrecy. This feeling is precious and must not be shared with everybody. Undoubtedly it is. The boy does not take care of it. He is in love. The world must know it. It makes his masculinity swell as much as it shrinks the femininity of her fairer counterpart. It is an unavoidable pitfall. Many lie ahead later."
"We fall in love because of few things which attract us and fail to see all such things that annoy us later. Call it fortune or misfortune, but it is a definite anomaly. The imperfections are forgiven. In a way our visibility is affected. The mind is unable to analyze. That way the reasoning is affected. And sadly gone with them is the ability to respond to duty. Love is beautiful, Rachin. The flip side of it is the lack of a sort of ‘versatile’ conscience. It becomes centralized too, focused on the beloved only. One forgets that one has many other roles to play in this universe. The commitment is only towards one. Rests are inadvertently ignored. I know one such case that consciously ignores them and takes a pride in that sort of behavior."
"You are more realistic than imaginative, Roshan. Parents lose their offspring, very nearly. I do not remember my parents that often now. Friendships are lost and lost is the potential to succeed. Many youths have been sacrificed and will continue to be. It is the largest epidemic and the target is youth. Ah, how early do the hairs become gray! The youthful aura is gone and the man in twenties starts behaving like a disillusioned old man."
Again the idealistic profusion from Rachin!
"You have been in love!"
"Roshan, I won’t hide it from you and I won’t consider myself smart either in telling all. Like a teenager I used to be in love with love. I used to be more obsessed with the idea of being in love than with love itself. Personally I feel that in no other stage of life one can love with more moral purity than in adolescence. It lacks both the infantile selfishness and adult caution, two things that do not constitute the essence of love. Roshan, I won’t hide things, I say that again due to agitation. It will mean a betrayal of my conscience; especially after giving an idealistic lecture over love. Since last year a sixteen-year-old has exorcised me, more due to my superstitions than due to her incantations probably. If it were possible for my soul to leave my body it would have flown to her. Once I was a psychologically frustrated soul and she had revived me. It may have been a subconscious urge to repay her that I took to love perhaps. So many things remain hidden from one’s own self and reveal themselves much later. What damned practicality this world talks about? The ABC of economics, sociology, politics and so on were not clear to a psychopath. Then she came along and made me realize how resurrection occurs. Roshan, let me remember this moment her contribution in making my life better so long and thank her too, for I fear life may renege the next moment."
Roshan remained silent more due to surprise at finding how different one can be from the exterior. In a short time he took leave.
Next day Rachin called Sukriti to the convent in the night as it is the time when nobody is around and the watchman knew him too well to question him. The flowers of their love were scattered in that place hither and thither. It was eerie in the nights. They found it hard to believe that it was the same place where life was once given a kickstart. Anyway being alone there was too much to overcome any disillusionment. They stood near the class where they got each other. Rachin brought her closer and she obliged unresistingly. Sukriti closed her eyes. He could not decide for a moment whether it was her shyness or submission. He liked both attributes in a girl and grew happier. How joyous it was for him to endear her! He did not wish a separation till eternity. Wishes are not always granted and it was an abstract one. Reality had to be different.
"Sukriti, we will separate in few minutes. What will I do in the night without you?"
"May this moment last longer. I feel so fulfilled and still hungry for more."
She stopped to look in his eyes. The thought of estrangement still remained in the background. That acted well to motivate them further towards lovemaking.
"Sir, I don’t want to leave you any longer."
"Same here. Society is cruel, Sukriti. It treats with undue skepticism even an honest relationship. There is nothing wrong in whatever we are doing. There won’t be anything wrong in whatever two lovers will do in future."
"You forget the lovers of the past."
They both smiled blandly. It was an exploration not of the continents, islands or countries but of the inner universe for the overemotional Rachin.
"My intentions are not base. Am I not the luckiest to touch the intangible? I fail to believe that I am actually holding you." Rachin said ecstatically.
"I have given you that right to do anything with my body, to any extent you may imagine. When you have touched my soul what lies in the body?"
"I will exercise that right one day." Rachin laughed and Sukriti reciprocated.
In five minutes they had to leave. In the night, he started a story by Dostoyevski. Russia was his geographically lost fatherland by now and so its literature was sacred to him. Experiences had changed his propensities for thriller stories. Now it was for the emotional ones. In this transition from teenage to adulthood his outlook had changed. Initially it was full of challenges and curiosity. Now it was full of emotions, frustrations and disillusionment. Dostoyevski superseded Hitchcock as ‘Casablanca’ superseded ‘Terminator’. That particular story in the night was about a man practically unsuccessful in life, but a big dreamer. The writer laments that beautiful dreamers perish and vulgar reality emerges triumphant. The central character was his alter ego and the plot gave the comparison an air of verisimilitude. The end was tragic as the dreamer’s love forsakes him. He was sad but prayed to God to bless her that one minute of bliss she granted to a lonely and grateful heart. The last lines were "Good Lord! A whole minute of bliss! Why, isn’t it enough, even for a lifetime?" And he cried over such a possibility. Next morning when he woke up early he sat near the window. Cold had set in and the atmosphere was frosty. There was something about the winters, which filled his heart with that peculiar nostalgia that can be preferred over all joys of life. His interactions with Sukriti were not quite extensive. However ephemeral they had been they had become the most treasured moments by now. Although Sukriti was never away from his mind, those moments recurred in unusual circumstances and on unusual moments. She used to wear a green top. Green color of similar shade reminded him of her. So were many things that reminded him of her. Beautiful memories have their own randomness in occurrences. The chilly winters provided the cozy warmth of love the year before. They continued to do more so because of the memories now . . . The physical presence of Sukriti accentuated everything. Sometimes in the dull evenings Rachin did fight a big frustration that his love for Sukriti is ebbing. It was overcome in the nights when she visited her castle of love and filled it with fragrant, joyful and hopeful dreams. Redundancy was lost in the invention of new dreams. The first crack had not widened so long.
It was also as if all his actions were in circumspection all the time. He wished to become everything that Sukriti could dream of in her lover. In his trivial ways he strove for perfection. Strangely his ideas of perfection were imperfect. Once he thought that Sukriti is an adventure-loving girl and set out for every single adventure his limited courage could allow. He started fighting on streets, committed theft like a kleptomaniac and aimlessly sauntered on the notorious bylanes of town. A false sense of abruptness had crept in his lifestyle. It mattered the most to him was that he was slowly inching towards Sukriti’s role-model of perfection.
Alas! Sukriti had wished it differently.
Then tragic end of the Dostoyevski’s dreamer’s love recurred to him. He thought of his fascination towards such stories and introspection revealed to him that he was terribly attracted to the tragedy in love. The thought of losing can be morbid for many but he found a safe haven in following a self-made philosophy that ultimately everyone has to lose. In a race in which everyone is bound to quit sooner or later he was just beforehand. It was strange that this inert philosophy kept him complacent. What a tiger he used to be earlier!
"What am I to do if I am told one day that I am not needed by her any longer? My present objective to live would be over. Even if I live thereafter it will be just because of the habit to live. O God! Spare me of that wretchedness!"
He did not like the idea of living without an overweening pride of living and life without Sukriti and her love was a humdrum existence, nothing more. A peaceful death was dearer to him than such a life. Rachin then tried to console him that to live without gusto is a challenge and he must lap this challenge too. It soothed him for a moment. Every moment had become dear to him, as the next moment was never sure to come. It brought thrill accompanied by fear and so it was many degrees less in contentment than the original, uninhibited thrill of teenage. The best way that any layman might have suggested was to make the most of whatever one has. His ‘stock’ of happiness was diminishing gradually because of his psyche, or perhaps due to any ulterior design of universe. So he was trying hard to stop this depreciation as much as he could do; to augment that was impossible. Sometimes one feels that just to sustain an empire is as difficult as building one. Now life was not the one to introduce him to newer vistas. It confined him only to the familiar ones, even if that led to tedium. In the heart of hearts he wished to become the center of universe for Sukriti. How do ordinary mortals claim of eternal love when their lives are ephemeral? Human existence is an aeon in the face of eternity. There can be one consoling thought that "Enjoy the ephemeral and that joy is eternal". Rachin advised himself to remain untroubled over the unseen.
"One must learn to appreciate that which is around us and within the range of our intellect. Let us remain absorbed in the little pleasures of life. Let the sweet conversations stimulate our body and stir our soul. They are remembered long after we are gone. Our actions, words and thoughts live after us. In that sense we are not ephemeral on the whole. It is only the flesh, a subsystem within a system."

Chapter 8: Complexities of pondering over future:
Typical to Raju of Mera Naam Joker fame, the early part of his life saw him as a showman and the world was a circus, himself being the clown. But unlike Raju now artificiality had made inroads in his personality, although the mask of clown was still on. It was this change that compelled him to call Sukriti sometimes even against his wish. On a Sunday morning he called her and she reciprocated by coming to him. Casual discussion was going on until she declared that she would remain devoted to her husband even if it weren’t Rachin. It was a candid effort, but that sort of honesty did not jell with the sensitive lover of the other half.
He tried to ask, "Why do you say so? Don’t you love me?"
He could not do that in the face of an attack of honesty. A minute later he mustered enough courage to ask, "Sukriti, will you stop loving me if married to someone else?"
"Your love will always be there. I have tried to kill it just for the fear of the above said possibility. But I have failed." Rachin stopped for a while and then asked, "If circumstances make our marriage impossible, where am I at fault? Why must I become deprived of your devotion for something that might not be under our control? We are puppets and our strings are being pulled from above. Am I responsible for it? Tell me of it, Sukriti. I wish to marry you and vice-versa. I dread some misfortune might befall and we might be separated. How will it be like to see you entering in a connubial bliss with a bloody stranger who has introduced himself forcefully few days before? You said that what lasted between us in such a short time gave you so much love your parents could not give. I am not riding the crest in supporting you for that but human love must come from the heart and there can be no collusive tricks for it. You said that I have the right to do anything with your body. Just think of that rapacious license of a stranger who plays with your body for years after marriage. How sacred was it to me! It is like watching helplessly your Goddess of Fortune being mercilessly disrobed by a miscreant in front of your eyes. Sukriti, I can bear that. Now I am being told that just because petty mortals have disrespected her chastity my Goddess won’t ever visit the holy shrine. How will her devotee explain it to her how painfully he got it erected? Sukriti, forgive me if it seems theatrical but I won’t be able to bear such retribution.”
"Fate, Sir."
"Fate. Yes, Sukriti."
Rachin sank in despair over the thought of such possibility.
“Sir, please don’t mind but sometimes I become terrified of strong adoring language you use.”
“Will take care next time Sukriti. But everybody is bent upon personifying the abstractness that surrounds our feelings and one step in that direction is to give a name to it. Marriage is a sort of personification of an abstract bond of two souls. Without entering in it, I am unable to decide its utility in augmenting love. He realized the importance of giving a name to every relationship in this ‘relationship clad’ society. Probably true love, even for a moment, is like that arrow, which pierces the ‘relationship clad’ society and makes itself invisible to it, and vice-versa. Somewhere I have read that one feels shy in accepting that life prevails over love at times. It comes up with certain insurmountable barriers that love trips and falls while it goes on undeterred. The tall promises have to be broken. When destiny can be so benevolent to let the seed of love develop, it can tyrannically uproot the whole tree of the same. One must learn to accept that sort of destined defeat gracefully.”
“You won’t change.”
When she left he said it aloud to himself "Who says love is life?"
Even while saying that he knew it to be ‘partially’ true. He had also read somewhere that nothing can be done if we make it our destiny to revolve around our beloved, like the moon does to our earth. Is it a relief that we search in this ‘huge’ feeling? Rachin said it aloud that it is a temporary relief; still it gives an outlet for our bottled up emotions. And why to disparage it as ‘temporary’? Everything is! We ourselves are. We tend to undermine our spirituality by branding such important awakenings as ‘short term forces’. We make it retrograde. There are some that refuse professionalism for something better-a choice among choices. To them life must not be foolishly aimed at gathering luxuries all around (so that they may help in carving a niche in this consumerist society). Inadvertently Rachin was doing the same. At a time when he was supposed to be building a career he bowed out. Yet he had a few regrets, even if he compared himself to others who had all the luxuries of life. Was he an escapist? He thought it to be his complacency instead. He had started reading Anna Karenina by Lev Tolstoy and found an answer in one of the characters named Levin. Like Levin he resolved to denounce his past so as to build for himself strong and independent life of solitude.
Roshan visited him again on Sunday, it being a holiday for him. For Rachin, every day was now a holiday and that took the charm away from Sunday. Together they tasted wine. That there is an ecstasy in materialism, he had felt after a long time.
"You are the same Rachin again." asked Roshan.
"I do not know whether I must be the same or not. I am simply that way today without any pre-meditation."
"It is revolt against the monopoly of vexation."
They both smoked 20 cigarettes in a single night. So many things were talked about except love.
"Rachin, what do you opine about my taste of literature?"
"Fine."
A moment later he decided to add a criticism just to pretend that his statement was due to a study and was not just for the heck of it.
"I would have loved it more if you extend your gamut of readership."
"I love detective stories. Sherlock Holmes is my ideal, not even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle!"
"So the character has superseded the creator."
"Hand me the pack."
Rachin saw it that Roshan was avoiding any abstract discussion. No doubt he had been a good listener, but it invited further maladies only. That night he wished to be just a self-seeker. Too much of emotional bombardment had brought upon that innocent apathy towards emotions themselves. Rachin handed him the pack silently just to say something later and hide that he had understood it.
"Roshan, don’t you feel that we are losing precious hours of work partying like this. This way we won’t be able to achieve much. The problem with little pleasures of life is that they can’t be enjoyed fully until one becomes something. And when one becomes something they are lost in that process of becoming."
"Work and fun have to go along together lifelong. We are not the ones to alienate them. "
It was true.
"What about work and love?" he thought.
Roshan asked him of his life of recluse those days. He told him that intimacy leads to depletion and added that it broke his heart whenever a relationship broke.
"It is a case of negative perception. If interactions cause altercations, they also cement the loving ties. Should one prefer death because life pesters with so many suffering? On a practical level a dozen of relationship can be made daily provided one has the guts for it. That will more than compensate for a broken relationship."
"On a practical level only…"
"Brave life, Rachin. The joy in winning a fight is unparalleled. An escapist is stagnant and you must not rest. You have to or rather you are bound to go on. Think of Robert Frost. He was also a man like us and he said ‘ And miles to go before I sleep.’ Just men like us, they all are. Be like them."
"Roshan, your optimism ought to be contagious. I too want to be like you. But humans differ from each other. Thomas Hardy was also a man like us and he called our earth as a blighted planet in one of his novels. Still, I thank you with all my heart for your effort to inculcate optimism in me."
When Roshan left, he thought of this transition from optimism to pessimism. If looked from a different angle, it had been a deadly fight between optimism and pessimism in the very recent past and the latter prevailed mostly. On rare occasions when the former had won, Rachin showed himself so ecstatic that Sukriti commented on it once.
"There is a child in you."
Despite her maturity, she was lesser experienced to realize of the overreaction of an adult at times. Age makes one a better student of human psychology usually. She was four and a half years younger. Rachin replied blandly that there is a child in each of us. It may have been more in him.
"You are fortunate in that case as you love kids."
"Yes, I do. My niece is just six months old. She sleeps with me only."
"Luckier than me."
For the first time he had noticed that typical blush, so much characteristic of females. She was unable to look in his eyes. Rachin begged her to look at him, but she didn’t. He felt the need to see more of that blush, which was making her inexplicably beautiful.
"You must not bother yourself with that. Even luckier is the telephone receiver which you hold tightly to your lips."
Now she could not restrain herself.
"I will move away from you if you do not stop."
She displayed a false anger. So he did not stop and stared her even more intensely. Ultimately she covered her face with her palms.
"Okay. I am not doing that anymore. Take that off."
His age had advanced him that further to understand the importance of coyness in females. How much did he detest it earlier! Back home he thought of the pair of a virgin and a child. A virgin becomes upset over excessive childishness. It requires the compassion of a mother to bear it, and a virgin has to advance herself one stage to be that. Despite petty squabbles, it is a relationship of reverence. The self-absorbed child is subconsciously reverent of her tender care, while the virgin respects its moral purity, especially in matters of sex. She loves chastity and here is someone so much conditioned in chastity by Him.
"Does she love this particular attribute of mine, as she once appreciated my strength of character?" She had indeed laughed over his shyness in kissing her and asking sorry thereafter. To exculpate himself he had given a boring lecture over platonic love. So much honest was his feeling that flesh was a sacrilege.
In the Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy, he got a poem to recite in solitude.
‘ If I forget,
The salt creek may forget the ocean;
If I forget
The heart whence flowed my heart’s bright motion,
May I sink meanlier than the worst,
Abandoned, outcast, crushed, accurst,
If I forget.
Though you forget,
No word of mine shall mar your pleasure;
Though you forget,-
You filled my barren life with treasure;
You may withdraw the gift you gave,
You still are queen, I still am slave,
Though you forget.’

Chapter 9: The intense emotions in love and despair:
Heading towards a stereotyped effeminate Keats model, he was experiencing motherhood through love. The emotions were the same- only the relationship was different. In fact Rachin never felt the necessity of giving a name to every relationship, being very primitive in that aspect. As for happiness it had not left him totally, as the worst was always ominous. In her innocuous way Sukriti had already threatened of killing his love. Now he was pondering over it and supposed that every heart has nearly the same story. Only the dialogues are different. Some of us feel, although they don’t accept it, that there is heartlessness all around and feeling of any particular kind can exist only within a single heart which is theirs. Well, life was revealing itself as a bonus feature. It was to be enjoyed in that sufficiency only. Look at the greediness of soul; it opined one day that all desires were over and hence life was well nigh over. That particular day there was so much presumption in that opinion. Contrasted with present, life was so much to follow because what was spent earlier had been heartlessly forgotten. In the present it did not manifest itself as an opinion; nothing manifested itself as an opinion now. It was so full of an anxious tedium. Rachin thought of last hour again with a newer perspective. The ideal state could have been willingful postponement of morbidity till that last hour struck. He had started respecting every moment of life just like miser respects every single unit of his currency. Ritesh used to say that one has to respect something in order to enjoy its bounty. A grotesque microscope was duly magnifying every single drop of an ocean, hitherto ignored by a normal eye. The ocean he thought was his life; the drop being his moment, the grotesque microscope his conscience and the normal eye was his mind. The fear that accompanied everything was indubitably that of plunging in an unknown.
He was losing in the market where social status makes a man winner. But what charm did the corporate world offer to him now? It suffocated him instead, especially when the grotesque microscope was at work all the time. No doubt he was now moving among lesser mortals in the eyes of others, but his definition of standard was sufficiently altered to appreciate that kind of viewpoint. He supposed an imaginary conversation with his father in the night. He was charging him of spoiling himself behind a girl. It was right; on the other hand it was ‘more’ right, being based on a superficial analysis. In the practical world which we inhabit such accusations are ‘more’ right than one that goes like ‘You silly! You are a beast not to have loved till date!’ Loving ones family is acceptable; so is the love for the deprived ones. However, when it comes to loving a girl that dread of a chaste error stops us completely even in accepting it to ourselves. Rachin wanted to cry that Sukriti was now in his family; an effort not of blood but of soul. She was also a deprived one in his eyes because either every one is deprived or no one. It all depends on the biased perception one gets accorded to. Rachin tried to change himself in the coming days to ensure his security in case everything deserted him; he had come to that stage too. He tried to reason that there must be an ecstasy in materialism. Of course, he had felt strength in times when his wallet used to be full.
A newer perspective! It is futile to decry the rat race going around because no ordinary being can escape it. Besides there ‘is’ an inherent strength in currency. No! He must earn a handsome amount for himself; idleness of purpose in the eyes of society was weighing heavily upon his conscience. "Money might bring back few original pleasures." He had matured himself for a moment, as Sukriti was not the sole pleasure left for him that moment. It was decided that most of his dreams must be brusquely executed on the scaffold of ambition. Life must be focused on a centralized aspect- essentially that of a job. Was that possible? He mocked sedatives earlier, but was badly in their need now in order to embrace his relationship with that world again. Alas! Sukriti had inadvertently injected in his soul a virus of desertion; it threatened to multiply with time.
Next morning she rang. His previous resolution was forgotten. Of course, feelings are not subservient to any calculation.
"Hi, I just pined to hear those words again."
"What kind?"
"Those three words, Sir. It is too early to forget them."
"Then listen. You will become more tired in listening to them."
"Then, continue."
He started reciting them twice, thrice and so on and she just said at the end of each "More."
Ultimately she said tractably to stop the mad man, " Stop. Same here."
Later, the whole day, the resolution of the previous night depreciated itself and what lingered was just two words through a nightingale ‘Same here.’ Even when the thought of career contravened with it, he shrugged off muttering to himself " How boring in comparison to the mellifluous nightingale!"
Life was very much life again. He listened to songs and a name ‘honey’ caught his fancy. He sang with his heart ‘Honey, Honey…’ What did he try and to fail to find in Sukriti in despondency? Honey! Honey was the embodiment of a complementary beloved. She was a fairy with all the assets of Sukriti, but with her derivatives omitted. She could not be Sukriti, but essentially arose from her existence. And he sang with all his heart ‘Honey, Honey…’ As the singing stopped Rachin concentrated on a melody coming from a faraway hill station. It was very, very far as it could be construed from the beautiful imagination.
Yes! Someone was singing there ‘Honey, Honey…’ He fancied Sukriti gripped by an obscure sensation accompanied by a spontaneous smile, which was due to a smile orchestrated by him. How often had he felt like smiling for no particular reason! Was that due to Sukriti? Who knows we do not lead such a discrete existence as we suppose?
O Sukriti! Dearest of all! Thousand of Honey’s could not have become his life, which she was, good and bad both. Thousands of melodies like ‘Honey, Honey…’ could not have equaled her soothing voice. He intended to say to himself, in case Sukriti left him, what Mr. Robert M. Pirsig without son Chris said in ‘Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance ‘ I go on living, more from the force of habit than anything else’.
And even if his love had become a figment of his huge imagination that particular day, it had imparted genuine feelings to his heart, as it filled his eyes with tears in the end. He realized that love was not tragedy alone. When the animated conversations with Sukriti recurred to him sometimes it brought spontaneous smile on his cheeks. He mimicked her and grew happy. She had the habit of saying ‘Ish’ whenever she grew shy over something. He said that aloud and laughed. The singularity in the occurrence of certain events makes them more beautiful. He hummed the song of life again!
O, what a song it was! In it lay the joy of life and love despite sufferings all around.
In his wanderings there had been a motivation. There was an impossible dream behind his life almost always. Few have the capability of understanding it. Even fewer can see it. His introspection was always there, a masochistic presence within oneself at times. In solitude the vibrant calm struck again and forced him to reach for a novel. It pushed him further in that abyss. Somewhere he had read Desdemona saying that men are not gods. Everything has the consistency of change and it goaded him to change for better; in these changes lays the essence of the ephemeral. It was good in a way that things change and nothing is permanent. Who would like to live on continuously with one order even if it is a perfect one? Some are there who fight in the streets for a trifle because of the lust for change. The ethics are sacrificed at the altar of stagnancy.
He remembered out of nowhere, Hardy’s Jude saying that he saw, as he had latterly seen with more and more frequency, the scorn of nature for man’s finer emotions.
Above the youth’s inspired and flashing eyes
I see the motley mocking fool’s-cap rise.
He liked the philosophy that to understand the dimensions of life one has to understand death. To understand death it was essential to understand ‘I’. When one enters within ‘I’ it would be found that death is an illusion. There are so many levels of life that if it disappears from on level it surfaces on the other. This philosophy attracted him because there was always hypnotism in death. Sukriti had once put it euphemistically that she would like to die in his presence. He joked then that he would compel her to die in his presence.
Next morning saw both in a restaurant. Sukriti emptied three cups of tea in five minutes along with Rachin. She had adopted herself to his vices too and it made him feel elevated.
"Are you going to be a little serious about marriage? Do you wish it to be arranged mercilessly by my parents?" Theirs was a conservative society with a custom of marriages being arranged by parents usually. It allowed them to blissfully transfer their conventions to offspring; it proved to be fortunate or unfortunate. Most of the times such marriages turned out to be fortunate because society was too cruel to allow anyone to call any marriage unfortunate. It was a taboo to eulogize love marriages on the lame pretext that they were mostly a flop. That was how Rachin felt because divorce did not mean that love had failed.
“Sukriti, it is a human propensity to fall in and out of it quickly. That was the fault of humans and not of the feeling. Moreover in many cases the couples have stayed with each other life-long just because of the shame accompanying a break-up. That love marriage reveals itself with more transparency, it must not be debased. And the foolish constraints do a lot of damage to the genuine lovers. Personally I am unsure, Sukriti, why you insist upon marriage? I suppose love can only be annihilated in marriage. You won’t like it but I feel that I sit satisfied with whatever I have got from you. I sincerely feel it greedy to ask more from the providence. The mundane chores after marriage might ruin complacency."
"Forget rhetoric you doubter disciple of Jesus! But leave the joke. Sincerely, I do not see a flaw in any ideology, but consider me. You sit satisfied with whatever you got from the providence. But I don’t find any mental shackle in asking Him for huge doses of your love, and lifelong. How can you expect our love to be weakened through this sacred ritual of marriage? Is it so weak? Look, a year has passed and we love each other even more. It won’t wonder us to find at the end of our road of life that our love never lessened; it was bound to augment and marriage will serve as a tool for it."
"Sukriti, I feel at such moments that my claim of loving you is hollow as one farcical thought that marriages are made in heaven and spoiled on earth stops me from thinking of it."
"If such has to be an inevitable end of our love after marriage, don’t you hold it more logical to get a real proof of it than to continue harboring grudge against destiny that we could not get more. Sir, I won’t have talked of logic in this case but you seem to be in need of that more than any emotional upheaval. No, I won’t like the idea of living in an illusion that heaven couldn’t have separated us. I hold it better to break asunder after marriage than to sob to our future spouses ‘ Oh, it was not you whom I wanted to marry.’ However, I still say that there is no possibility of either in our case."
"I can’t argue much. I value your happiness above all disasters to follow and above my own ideologies. If marriage is your present goal, a goal without achieving which you won’t become happy, I will marry you. But it has to be done with foreboding regarding my negative personality traits."
"You do not have any except that you are too tall."
And she laughed. Rachin did not like her casual handling of a serious matter. But he made himself happy over his happiness. Such was now his fate. He had realized though that to talk of eternal companionship was easier; to walk together on filthy roads of reality was quite difficult. One such filth of reality he could foresee with clairvoyance unnatural to his myopic perception was that of a future promiscuous adultery from any of the two. Love had kept both sexually unpolluted for a year. Future could not be predicted. He wasn’t born with that particular cynicism. Circumstances conspired in an appalling way to make him so; no retribution in such a case was possible. All that could be done was to hurl abuse at the circumstance after duly personifying it. After badmouthing it, he felt that he had grown terribly attached to it. In the heart of hearts, Rachin did not wish to change this peculiar wretchedness of his present, as the anxious tedium that he occasionally experienced in depression related to professionalism was worse. It had become dear to him; he could not wish to forsake it for any joy of life.
The Valentine’s was a day away. It was to be their first. He rang her to meet the next day in the wee hours of the morning at the convent. The students do not reach there by that time. The whole day was spent in the preparation for the day of universal declaration and acceptance (in some cases). He went to the local market of Thane, which largely consisted of primordial computer shops. Here and there few quaint terra cotta ones could be seen. In the evenings the ambiance looked professionally incipient because there was too much haggling going around in microcosmic proportion. He looked around for a nice gift. Cost was obviously immaterial. He was more interested in the relevance. Then an old woman in her fifties called out to him.
"Hello, Sir. Looking for a gift for the Valentines?"
"Yes."
Rachin felt it useless to negate that to a stranger. Moreover, she could be of some help, so he thought.
"Look at these."
She held out a number of circular beads with a hole in their center. They had inscribed on them the alphabets from A to Z. Some of the alphabets were more found. P was lesser available as in their town more had their names starting with P. He took seven of them and made them concatenated to and ultimately drawn in a loop through a copper wire. Then he proceeded to a glittering card shop to buy the card. The huge crowd, predominantly of teenagers, convinced him that St. Valentine would remain immortal. It was frenzy, more of the teens and he felt himself incongruous. But Sukriti was a teen, being only of sixteen and he thought of buying a card for her satisfaction. On returning he also bought an audiocassette of ABBA to gift it to her so that she may listen to that song which had stirred him so much. Next day he arrived on the spot before time due to his impatience. The day was so special that it had rejuvenated him.
"Many extinguished soul must be feeling suddenly enlightened like me."
He thought and shared with his heart the enlightenment of his ‘tribesmen’. It was tribal in the modern society to feel elated on such matters. To be modern one had every reason to become elated if the racecourse became benevolent, but to become happy on the Valentine’s was primitive for the majority in the town. He had put on a very good coat and the inside was equally expensive. Usually he had the habit of neglecting the inner when the coat was on. Not on this day! He felt the need to be prim consummately. The wait started and lasted for two hours. But Sukriti did not come. He rang her to be told that she was not at home and had gone for a party. "What does this mean?"
The mention of party troubled him. With whom? was the foremost question and he shuddered at the possibility of a betrayal. He returned back totally heartbroken and was alone in the room again. It was amazing to keep all the emotions bottled up and going on expecting that it would lead to an explosion one day. The blast would have had a calming effect on the terribly upset one. Even the silence around disturbed; it weighed heavily in the affairs. Something ought to have happened not that it would have served to gain the ultimate, but simply to distract because the spirit was fed up with the cumulating negative thoughts in solitude. He cried to God to liberate the fettered soul to that horizon where the heart doesn’t question the ‘inevitable’ but abides in the most humble manner, even if it is unoriginal. He recited a poem he had read sometimes in childhood:
"I want to die while you love me-
While yet you hold me fair,
While laughter lies upon my lips
And lights are in my hair,
I want to die while you love me.
Oh who would care to live?
Till love has nothing more to ask
And nothing more to give I want to die-"
It made no difference. He was bending on his knees and crying, certainly not for the pure pleasure of crying. The ego, which made his pride swell a number of times, lay shattered as he fell on the ground and cried. Did it matter to anybody? It was a singular event and did not involve anybody. There appeared to be no link anywhere. Who says that everything in this universe is connected? Tears flowed for Sukriti; it did not benefit her in any tangible way. Moreover, what did the world care of anything that has no concrete existence? If anybody cared something must have happened. There could have been a thunderbolt somewhere; there could have been a tremor in the vicinity or an avalanche in a remote hill district. Since he did not perceive any change in the universe, even a mild one, it strengthened his conviction inspired by Dosteovski that nothing mattered. The tragedy was that he also was an obvious part of this cruelty. Faith was one of the positive feelings that were assassinated the day that should have resurrected them. Rachin tried to look through the eyes of a cynic hoping against hope that the world will appear greener. Sukriti rang him in the evening to preempt herself of her absence. Her father informed her of an urgent meeting with an uncle who was to arrive without any information. She said that she had no choice but to waste her precious time tractably with that stupid uncle who knew nothing about Valentine. Rachin assured her of his happiness but secretly felt that there was something wrong in the whole explanation. The first crack had now distended itself. He sighed "Only if she were right!"
In the evening however, he checked his mail and found an E-card with the message: If you believe in me, If you can, at least, trust me, Remember one thing- I was, I am and will ALWAYS BE only YOURS.
He thanked Sukriti and forgot his suffering that very moment. The guilt of suspecting her started pestering him thereafter. He decided to ask back from the Creator all his prayers, as he had been pretentious in praying for their pristine relationship. Doubt was a sort of pathogen in their body of love. Next time when they met shortly after Valentine he had grown a bit casual. Sukriti, on the other hand, was more serious. Like Rachin, she had an element of doubt over the strength of their relationship. She herself could not come on the Valentine’s but wondered whether Rachin had really waited for her. To dispel her doubt she devised a novel way.
"Sir, who was that girl in blue jeans along with you on the Valentine’s?"
He could not grasp what she was asking and gaped at her silently.
"Tell me quickly. Someone saw you with that girl and told me."
"On the Valentine’s?"
"Yes."
He took his time and then replied confidently in negative.
"Your ‘someone’ is deluding you. I was alone the whole Valentine; I mean without any girl."
"Thank you. I was just testing you."
Rachin felt his masculinity distended because jealousy for a liaison also inflated his ego strangely. He felt in a commanding position and decided to play pranks on her.
"Sir, What about our marriage?"
He got the opportunity.
"Damn this marriage business. Why do you insist on chaining my free soul?"
It was a seemingly innocuous statement for him.
She felt hurt and said in a low voice, "Why did you say those words to me then?"
She was referring to ‘I love you’.
He knew them but feigned stupor.
"Which words?"
"Those words."
She could not utter them, feeling distraught over his shamelessness. Rachin was quick to see that he had carried his mirth too far and to atone himself he took her in his arms and assured her twice that he loved her with all his heart and marriage was to happen between them.
Back home, he turned the audiocassette on to listen to Celine Dion’s ‘My heart will go on’. Love sometimes lacks a definite tangibility; songs were a mean to achieve that. He thought of Sukriti saying, "Why did you say those words to me then?"
Her respect for ‘those words’ was palpable. How easy it is for some to murmur them in anybody’s ears without grasping the essence!
It had been a long time since he last met his parents. He had selfishly forgotten their selfless love, which arose out of real flesh and blood existence. Like many teen affairs, it was not a romantic hunger. It was too sublime. Rachin could not decide the degree of his love for Sukriti and felt it fallacious to compare it with parental one. However, he decided to go back to his parents to prove that he had not forgotten them fully. It was a heartless decision motivated by heart itself. The next day saw him in Thane- his hometown. His parents were, as per nature’s finer norms, enlightened by his coming after a long, long time. They wished him back earlier but did not communicate their desires to him so that his career must go on bettering unhindered.
Career! It was a trade-off in Rachin’s life of present, a trade-off between career and love. His parents had no inkling of it and he dared not shock them. When asked about the job in convent he replied that it was very fine and that he had to leave it so that he may prepare for the administrative services. It gladdened his father’s heart especially because he had dreamt of his son getting a selection in the administrative services. He was a man of grand ideas, especially with those related to ambition. Rachin knew that his father was one such kind who secretly appreciated ambition more to emotionality, or even ethics. Therefore, it was decided that he would start his preparation at the earliest. Father promised him to send more money to join good coaching for that end. Rachin knew what he was going to do on going back; he was going back on the lame excuse of preparation for the administrative services, so that he may get time and money both to keep on loving Sukriti. That could have been possible only near the familiar ambiance of Sukriti, and not in his hometown anymore. Therefore, he left it in few days, back to Sukriti. Sukriti! He was bound to return. Such was his fate.
Fate! Sukriti! Convent! Roshan! Thane!
These few words had literally usurped his knowledge. His life had never shrunk to such a minuscule replacement in the eyes of some. It surprised him to imagine that as what appeared a minuscule replacement to others engendered broader philosophies, because of whom he sometimes felt himself scattered, as if from nowhere, all over the inner universe.
Days rolled on and on 7th April, his birthday came. Sukriti, very particular about such dates, gave her a nice card in which she wrote "Loving wishes on your B’day.
Memories are treasure
The heart
Keeps through the years…
Love & Laughter
Warmth & fun
Time of smiles & (no) tears. "
However the past days have turned out to be…
Cherish the joys & each sweet memory…
Then look to the future & right from the start
May it bring you good things
To gladden your heart. -
Love Sukriti.
He was an Aries- a symbolic infant, if Linda Goodman was correct. He ought to have been filled with infantile selfishness. However, he was not totally self-absorbed; he was absorbed in her. He went through all the great books of astrology to get a clue to their hearts. His belief in it became firm as one day he won prized money as predicted by a famous astrologer Peter Vidal. Astrology developed a sort of fatalism on his highly superstitious soul. Linda Goodman, in her famous book ‘Love Signs’, dealing with sun sign compatibility, says that Aries-Virgo relationship is not a smooth one. The former approximates while the latter is bogged down with meticulous details. Aries is impulsive, bold, extravagant, dominating while Virgo is patient, timid, thrifty, courteous and pleasant normally. In short, he discovered both to be poles apart. Rachin became upset, as he had become a blind believer in astrology by then. Seldom did he think that had he been a typical son of Mars, that rules Aries, he would have defied that too. Moreover, had Sukriti been a typical Virgo she would have kept on worrying and worrying; she was so cheerful all the time. In addition, he had so much difficulty in proposing her. The circumstances forced him to do that or else he would have kept on loving her lifelong without giving a hint of that to her. After getting from her the approximate time of her birth in a casual discussion, he got their horoscopes built by a renowned astrologer of that area, but did not tell her for the fear of being ridiculed of impracticality. Surprisingly, five planets were in Virgo at the time of her birth and sadly, the astrologer predicted their marriage as impossible. While returning, he was talking to himself. "Fuck the stars which make our marriage impossible!" While saying that, he was even more in dread of them. "In case the affair comes on the verge of breaking, I will do my best to salvage it. Broken pieces of glasses, when joined together, do not fit a Virgo’s model of perfection, I know. Nevertheless, like other Aries males I cannot go on looking for a new Juliet, will she realize that ever? Anyhow, I will pray for the planetary transitions for my help in case such misfortune befalls." He was too naive on that score. Thankfully, this superstition soon gave way to another as he contented himself that it was too big a generalization to lump the whole population based on just twelve zodiacs.
Sukriti gave him an extract from a famous story with the title ‘LATER’.
‘How often we say to ourselves "If only I had done this… Sometimes these regrets are justified, sometimes they are not because many events take place that are beyond our control.
Its queer the things you remember. When life has crumbled suddenly, and left you standing there, alone. It’s not the big important things you remember when you come to that: not the plans of years, not the love nor the hopes you’ve worked so hard for. It’s the little things that you remember then: the little things you hadn’t noticed at the time. The way a hand touched yours, and you too busy to notice; the hopeful little inflection of a voice you didn’t really bother to listen to.’
She told him that she identified herself too much with this particular paragraph. Rachin liked her more after this declaration because he thought that he loved a girl with a tender heart. Mysticism attracted him and she loved it too.

Chapter 10: Practicality makes inroads though:
Roshan came on Sunday like before. Liquor was again tasted to forget everything completely.
"I am not satisfied with my business nowadays. I plan to venture in a new arena."
Roshan was not one given to wild ideas. He was a thoroughly practical man, so much that his practicality left Rachin feeling destroyed at times. He had to struggle a lot to cope with that sort of onslaught. To sustain his self-pride he decided to suggest something.
"What about the dotcom enterprise?"
"Our town is not that advanced for that. "
Roshan was his usual skeptical self and it left Rachin struggling even more. Still he decided to carry on.
"You have enough money to support even a wild idea of yours."
It was not really a premeditated comment. He got the required remonstrance.
"At this stage of life I can’t risk being wild."
That was aptly said by a man who was stoical in a way towards the imperfections that come our way as we progress in life.
"But you can convert it into a sensible one through your business acumen.” said Rachin complaisantly.
"I fear our town won’t be able to catch with this technology even in the next ten years. We are not so literate here."
"Look, somebody will have to come forward, either today or ten years later. Whenever a good plan is originated, it is always rendered impractical by the antagonists. The same plan, if it becomes successful, becomes an innovation for all and sundry. That thing called success, which is also relative, decides it all. Moreover, if someone had the guts to do it for New York, you can also do it for our town. Rather, you must." "Why do you forget that to be successful, the plan has to be a practical one?"
"Yes, I did not think of that."
Rachin could have defended himself, for it is quite famous that argument can never be won; in some cases one loses a friend although Roshan was too sensible to be affected much even if the argument did not proceed his way. The funny night had passed. Next day morbid thoughts of death covered his mind again. It was like an attack, as one has attacks of asthma. He thought that how blissfully we keep ourselves lost in life! It was a pleasant thing to happen to humanity; or else, life would have been death every moment. When the final call arrives, we realize that there was not sufficient time to atone.
"O God! How sinful have I been whole of my life! There is only one consolation that I have loved very deeply Your gift that must bring me somewhere closer to You. What else is there in my life to show to the angels if I am called right now? In addition, my concept of death is more brackish because of my sick mentality. I forget that if death had not been around us, most of would have been atrocious. We are humans more so because we know that we have to die one day. So, what if occasionally we become fearful of it sometimes? Overall, it is an essential thing to happen for humanity. Regarding the age of death, a writer rightly said that it is always too young to die."
Like Dickens, Rachin loved to love men and women not that some of them were clever and handsome, simply because they were men and women. He was quite complex himself to love simplicity now; it was not hated though. Indifference was the right stand. The night sky attracted him and thus he developed a liking for the sidereal too. He believed that somewhere in the stars were hidden clues to mystery of lives in general and his love in particular. Granted that he could not rhapsodically define moon, like some worshippers of this beautiful satellite of earth, he was far more in love with the complexity hidden in the night sky. Dostoyevsky came in his mind often as he said through one of his characters that the sky was starry, so clear was the sky, that, looking at it, you could not help asking yourself: how can all sorts of cross and crotchety people live beneath a sky like this? Often a star was broken in front of his eyes. Initially, he whispered ‘Sukriti’ only; it did not thrill him much. Therefore, in his recent encounters he naively asked God to fill his heart with more love for her. Each time there was a hope that this time the ‘prayer jinx’ might be broken. As for his vanity, he seemed convinced that nobody will have much faith in his feelings, intentions or capabilities. In the worst case, he feared that the world would stop having faith in his existence. Nothing could have been worse. It was decided that every proof, of any kind, must be produced to himself and only to himself. Thankfully, his self-belief was intact till date. It was a resolution and Rachin had been a bit fickle to keep a resolution for long, but could not help himself questioning the axiom to stick to a truth lifelong. Truth, he knew, was a function of time. He opined that truth is always singular. It can be but only to a hard-liner. To a liberal, and to anyone who respected individuality, it was not. There ought to have been a single religion, single saint, single epic and single literature for that. Some great works define love as truth and there have been so much definitions of love itself since time immemorial. Therefore, we are always true in one way or the other. How can one be false to all and sundry? Genocide can never be wrong if Hitler is eulogized endlessly by anti-Nazis. Match fixing can never be wrong for the bookies. Heathcliffe of ‘Wuthering Heights’ can never be a fiend if the Scorps adore him for years to come. Those ways the rights and wrongs will never be singular. Rachin thought that to nurture common ethical values, which are synonymous to truth, there must be an end to latitudinal disparities and the world will then truly become a global village. Of course, we can never put an end to individual ones and God made ones. He thought of his truths and planned a life of no regrets. What a rape is to the victim is an orgasm for the rapist. That same rapist could have been sodomised in childhood. Neither the rape nor the sodomy is justified. Still we have so many cases around. Thus, he thought that we are simply changing roles and it is a never-ending process. It is a harsh reality and it ought to be faced. Nevertheless, he could not understand the harshness meted out to someone who had not done a single wrong in life. Philosophy apart, logic apart and even the circumstances apart, he could not contend himself with the sufferings all around. Moreover, the feeling that he was probably getting oversmart in delving in such self-made inane philosophies compelled him to shrug them off to carry on mundane chores.
Another afternoon, same Roshan. They sat on the balcony smoking against the will of reason. Roshan was in dearth of good books. He planned to proceed directly to the market and buy a good novel that may last at least one night. At his speed, even ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ by Thomas Hardy was read consummately in three days only.
"Rachin, let us proceed to the market."
He was an introvert and did not ask suggestions directly. Rachin knew it that in all probability he would take the one championed by him, more so because literature was not his forte, like business and sports. An astounding athlete he could have been, but for his business background. Rachin secretly appreciated his agility because he too was somewhat like him, lean and robust.
He said, "I understand your need for a handy guide for investors to whet your business instincts per se. I will prefer ‘Das Kapital’."
"Marx! Bhokal!”
“Maybe yes. He pointed out that a good philosopher is always a bad economist. You see I must prove to the world that I am good in economics."
"Come on, it is not your cup of tea."
"Philosophy is not yours."
"I will fight it out one day."
Both laughed at the prudent use of the term ‘fight’ in that comment. In the bookshop nearby, there were paperbacks of great writers and some of them were cheap. Rachin bought for himself Marx’s "The Poverty of Philosophy" which was an answer to Mr. M. Proudhon’s "The Philosophy of Poverty". "Das Kapital", the Bible of Communism, was mostly unavailable, because theirs was a capitalist country. When he read it in the nights, he became delighted after a particular paragraph: "Finally, there came a time when everything that men had considered as inalienable became an object of exchange, of traffic and could be alienated. This is the time when the very things which till then had been communicated, but never exchanged; given but never sold; acquired but never bought- virtue, love, conviction, knowledge, conscience, etc.- when everything finally passed into commerce. It is the time of general corruption, of universal venality, or, to speak in terms of political economy, the time when everything, moral or physical, having become a marketable value, is brought to the market to be assured at its truest value."
Ergo, everything finally passed into commerce that time, according to Marx. Rachin doubted whether civilization was happier or continues to be that thereafter. He too started writing, “Everyone is not born with headstrong practicality; intellectual genius and headstrong defiance of Church like Marx. Unfortunately, we fail sometimes in emulating the greats because of the inner world, which is replete with mushiness in those times. The practicality of most of us is not sublime. In addition, even the genuine emotions are grounded on the floor by their practicalities. Instead of being medicine, we are forced to accept it as a junk food- something, which will harm us if taken in excess and regularly. Then again, there is no other way to survive. Rachin drew an analogy between the present social set-up and an institution. A Mathematics teacher regularly canes a student, who happens to be a prodigy in music. To make things worse the parents of the ward have an ambition of making the child capable of winning a medal in Math’s Olympiad and they too berate regularly. The poor child tries but fails. Ultimately he falls in a neurosis and his cognition remains stunted whole life. Moreover, we are probably deprived of a future Elton John. Practicality was Mathematics for Rachin, in which he was not even a mediocre but was forced to excel by regular caning of the society. Emotionality was music; the society was compelling him to abort it. Einstein said that our common sense is that layer of prejudices laid down in the mind prior to the age of eighteen. Thus, Rachin’ convictions would have held little common sense to others, if he revealed them ever. Moreover, he did not like the idea that like every great theory it must end as a prejudice. There was an Einstein defining common sense. There are many defining common emotions: love being the commonest. Like a fish must see God as an immortal Fish, everyone sees love in one’s own perspective. Rachin found in love an eternal yearning, which ‘must’ not be fulfilled. He also saw that when this yearning reaches its crescendo in a corporeal mindset, its yearning engenders detachment temporarily. It had happened quite often to him, whenever he used to feel a terrible longing for Sukriti in midnight, in the following thought all longings were naturally aborted. Life was evacuated for that moment until next thought filled some air in it. It was a built-in mechanism against helplessness in desires, but on such moments, only his breath reminded him that he was living. He wondered whether the enlightened ones had desires, before enlightenment, infinitely greater than of commoners. A man of ordinary flesh and blood existence will see it to be due to highest degree of betrayal by the Creator: He did not fulfill a single desire in such a case. But what have I to do with even little of enlightenment as long as Sukriti was present in his heart in the same form forever? There is no need of it nowadays.”
Sukriti had not contacted him since a week. On ringing, she said that she was down with viral fever.
"When will you become okay?" he asked.
"I am recuperating. Feeling weak still."
"Get well soon. I need you."
"Same here."
"Bye."
"Bye."
After putting down the receiver, he thought of his concern for her ill health. He was never too sympathetic towards the sick earlier. Several times his parents had taken ill and he had been so callous to practice hilarity even then. "Why this time only?" he thought of his concern. Then he reached a conclusion that the fact that he had been callous towards everyone earlier was to be lamented, but it was nice that through love for Sukriti he was learning human instincts. Moreover, he knew that basic human concerns had gestated in his heart and thus he would be more human towards all and sundry. It was a sort of sensitivity that takes us away from stolidity, but that is the price we have to pay for being a human. On bed in the nights, he thought of his mother. How fond of her he used to be! She had vanished completely from his mind since the entry of Sukriti in his life. Then the comparison of both kinds of love began, in the hope of finding an exegesis for the thought. It was indeed a motherly trait to forgive the son that forgot loving his mother. He would not have forgiven Sukriti for an analogous crime. There was something underhand in his affair.
"Why can’t it be as pristine as my mother’s love for me?"
Then mother occupied his mind and he cried over her absence in this hour of isolation. The hero in the poems of Keats was as frail as him. He too could have swooned on that moment if Sukriti scolded him on any trivial issue. In their region there was a belief that one gets hitches when somebody remembers. He was feeling them. His mother ought to be remembering him. There was a sudden levity in that thought. There was strength in faith and he felt that he was weak probably due to skepticism. Doubt becomes necessary in certain cases but to doubt all the time takes away hilarity that is quite easily bred by naiveté. That is the source of a child’s strength- innocence. Wordsworth might have intended differently in saying that child is the father of man. Rachin construed it to be due to an observation of a child’s indifference, even in severe tragedies, and the ability to revert to smiles, denied so often to man. Next morning the morning newspaper displayed a vacancy for the post of a teacher in a private institution. He became nonplused over it. To fill it or not was the foremost question now. It was a case of conflict between job satisfaction and servile insecurity. Ultimately, he decided to go for it. Man as an individual unit can be more satisfied, but for the bigger organization of the society. He started thinking "People will see many sufferings; every suffering will scream that this world is waylaid. Nothing will remove the viciousness of the underlying affairs on that moment. Love! Does it really exist? Professionalism seems lurking even in matters related to heart. Moreover, heart! Does it really matter? Here lies a heart utterly crushed by the rapacious force of capitalism. Who would care for its rescue? What is the fault anyway? Is it that love has been made the foremost objective? On the other hand, is it that practicality is missing in the whole epic of trials and tribulations? I did not lose in my eyes. In others eyes, I am a gone case now, because I am pursuing something which everyone likes to talk of, but very few inculcate it. Sukriti could have been nothing for me. But now can I face the onslaught of the world without the armor of her love?
Love, no love; job, no job. Ah, the shallowness of the system! I ought to have become philistine in order to enjoy the world in totality.”
He filled the form anyway. There was a false satisfaction of doing something. That was more important than the concern for future. Although the riches could not have reconciled him with happiness, it was necessary nevertheless. They are accumulated, by greed or by compulsion, somewhere less, somewhere more. Like a man is born and has to die, one has to earn. There can be no other way out. Sukriti rang him after a week. It was strange but he did not care of it. After all, he was guilty of the same crime. When he met her in person, he was more restrained again.
"What did you do the whole week?"
"I was preparing for the exam to follow. Not much days are left now."
Rachin did not like the answer. Here was he, making her his life. There she was, reckoning her just as an event in her life. The first crack was widening, more due to his false notions of love and also due to innate sense of expecting much from her.
"Sukriti, how do you manage to study? I can’t, as I think of you always."
He had charged her of apathy with sleight.
"I try to do that."
She was cleverer in handling inane remarks like that. Then the conversation veered towards lighter aspects of love.
"Tell me whether you have left playing cricket or not. You must try to concentrate on study more."
"I haven’t touched the bat since a week."
She made him happy through her show of concern. He felt his masculinity swelling. She was the woman, worrying over her man. After an hour, they both left for the home together in shower. When she handed him the raincoat, he refused. As a result, she too came along totally wet. Reality was obviously the enemy and refuge too. It became difficult to him to decide what he wanted exactly- to shun reality or to pursue it in earnest. The former kept him living in the typical sense of it but the latter promised stars to him. How many times had he said to himself that Sukriti was his sole objective in life! Did he really comprehend what it meant? No, it was probably said just for the heck of saying something in the moment of loving solitude. In the heart of hearts again, he knew it sufficiently that it was a phase and as long as it continued, he would not find solace anywhere else. There was no answer to the question, "When is it going to last?" However, Rachin bore a grudge against the Creator even if the affair met its demise that what is the use of life if everything in it, including itself, is shortlasting. The illusion was manifesting itself and he could not break free of it despite the consciousness of the trap. But, Sukriti, she was like a breath of fresh air in the general stinking environment all around. How much did he wish to love her till eternity! He prayed in mind ‘Blessed be the moments when I think of her and let every moment be so.’ The mass society was making him even more retrograde in approach as the relationship he was seeking was not a contractual one. It required guts to defy the established definition of that sort of relationship, and he was growing weaker and weaker to do that. Theirs was the age of depression. It was also the age of competition, tension, false aspirations and universal acrimony. Man was getting more and more civilized but had unfortunately lost the real spirit of living. And whenever he thought of the universe it always presented him with the indubitable axiom; that man knows bitterness, jealousy, competition, greed etc. are not right when in the end the dark naught awaits everybody, still nobody escapes it in life. Human existence was worthless if it carried itself on such false bases. Ruminating over and over, Rachin felt that his mind had suddenly gone blank. He was no more the original living body but a strange fearful personification of something very morbid; that was beyond his capability to explain. And satisfaction? It was to be the same ever-elusive notion of the saints. Death was an inevitable hour but did he wish for it now? No, his perpetual depressive mood had taught him that it wouldn’t come on time like anything. So finally he left it for sleep again in the silly hope that probably next morning would set everything right. In the night, just before sleep, Sukriti came as a reminder that he had forgotten something amidst the troubles of life. He shrugged off. Rachin, Sukriti, Rachin, Sukriti… It could have been as simple as that but for the complex nature of man. He tried to study the next day. Time was passing away and realization had crept in his soul that his creative days are coming to an end. After studying for an hour, he rang Sukriti, just to tell her that he too is engaged properly in studies.
"Sukriti, I have a strange notion within that study might keep us away for days to come."
"Don’t worry on that account. You are just like father; can’t remain away from me for more than a day."
Confidence becomes an anxious thing for a male when it manifests itself in the beloved in such a manner. Rachin felt shaken for a moment after the answer; then comforted himself by the thought that its good to have a confident girl as one’s beloved.
"Sukriti, are you sure of that?"
"Very sure."
Psst… His fire was suddenly watered by her answer and he could barely manage to say, "Yes dear, you are right."
Study was resumed and it was done for more than an hour this time. Just as a mentally challenged person tries to show off the courage on the surface, so did Rachin try to prove to himself that he too can study for more than an hour without thinking of her. And when the clock indicated that he had studied for an hour and five minutes he stopped. Roshan came to him an hour later. As usual he suggested a particular movie for a change.
"I have heard that it is full of college pranks."
"You still think of the college. I take it as a forgotten melody. There is always a vague feeling that I used to hum a melodious song once, but then the feeling doesn’t lead on; there is something abrupt in its seemingly gradual termination."
"It makes us even more desperate because we know what we are missing and still cannot try for that."
"It would have been better if we did not think of the loss."
Roshan was special to Rachin not just as a friend but also due to his complete devotion when it came to satisfying his expensive desires at times. The extravagant streak had left him almost but it surfaced on occasions and on such moments Roshan humbly offered his services to the man who regretted ten times after making any such demand. So, it was Roshan who bore all expenses of the entertainment. After watching the movie, they dined at an expensive restaurant and sauntered all the way to house. Rachin felt a bit light at heart during the walk and decided to play pranks.
"Roshan, you must be richer tonight."
Roshan enjoyed the sarcasm and smiled silently. A minute later he said, "Dear, I had decided to buy a trendy car tonight, but you have emptied my wallet."
"Well, I am fun and you paid the entertainment tax. Did not somebody say that laughter is a serious business?" "Rightly said. I am getting serious now."
And both parted laughingly. When alone he thought of the need of the hour for him. "Oh God," he sighed, "When will You be so benevolent to impart me a single life just full of love and nothing else? My dear Sukriti, won’t she remain fresh for me forever?"
There is normally a thin line between emotionality and practicality for the majority. That line was not that thin in his case. He thought of his existence and wished to immerse himself completely in Sukriti’ soul. A vague recollection of Sukriti’ first meeting with him crossed his mind and he said it to himself, "You know Lord, how many times I repeat the same things over and over. An ordinary man would have sent me off to another world if I called him so often. But let me go on doing that with You."
He said that and wondered whether Sukriti of present was the same. Strange as it may have seemed to any other lover, he was far more in love with Sukriti whom he hugged for the first time. He desired no life for a moment again, as what was a life worth of when that moment was not to come again. And he dreaded that he wouldn’t be able to love her anymore in the same way. Still a minute later Rachin composed himself and thought of that hour again. Since it was after a sufficiently long duration he was thinking of it, the perception was different and so was the intensity. The thought came in a flash and vanished leaving him wondering what happened to it all of a sudden. It was very much unlike the initial days of their love when any single loving thought was enough to linger for a whole afternoon. Though he has progressed himself slightly in maturity, he was getting further behind the only truth he had discovered in his short lifespan. God was cruel that way in depriving one from the only pleasure of his lifetime. What lay ahead was unsure. But what he had left behind was something that summarized his happiness till then. Happiness! Rachin had forgotten the term. Now it was the time to reckon this force as well. He felt that it was an ever-eluding notion and came only when one bothered of it the least. Next day came as a cyclone in his love life. Sukriti rang him to inform that she had got a selection in Garnacia University, the topmost University of their State and was to leave within a week. Although she promised to stay in touch, wherever she resided on earth, he felt extremely sad. The whole day he roamed like a desultory cloud in an alien sky. In the night a strange thing happened. The first crack enlarged itself irreparably. Psychic Rachin became helpless due to an attack on nerves. He started thinking over his future, especially after seeing Sukriti’ effort for the same. He felt that he was losing and losing in the whole affair. His activity was being transferred to her and he could do little now. It attacked him so violently that he decided to abort everything related to her. In the night, he packed his bag and left for Thane.
In Thane, he kept himself busy the whole week. After a week, Sukriti was no longer the same in him. He declared in his mind, "Sukriti, it frequently happens that a boy falls in love with a girl and starts proclaiming of eternal love. I did the same. It frequently happens that the infatuation weans, as it did in my case. It is such a strange drama of life. You and I performed our roles. Maybe, I was the traitor. But it is just a way of looking at things. There may be many other perspectives to the same dull ending that I chose for myself. I am not satisfied and will never be. The first crack defines everything, even if it does not lead to such an abrupt breakup. I do not have any preemption for it, just as I don’t have any for my life. Anyway, you will stay in my mind as a nice dream, a dream that entertained me for a while and I am again back to life, monotonous, vicious and tragic as it has to be."
Next day he went to a job guaranteeing call center to start a part-time job. So much was the pressure to forget Sukriti while earning for himself that the very next day he joined an obscure company as a receptionist. The first day was not an easy one. He soon befriended a girl of Sukriti’ age, frank beyond her age. On the very first day she called him a darling. When the work was finished, he stopped at a church to ponder over the day. The girl, he thought, reminded him of Sukriti. One thing troubled his heart slightly, even after he had left a relationship. Why did the girl take little time in calling him a darling, when he was so much calculated and restrained on the first day? He shrugged off, taking it be a characteristic of girls. Now the boys appeared to him stupid again, innocent playthings for the girls! The thought of leaving this job too crossed his mind but he couldn’t think further in that direction because where was he to get a complete and perfect refuge.

Chapter 11: No respite here too and he realizes too that in the beginning lies the end:
Then started another vain quest for seeking an answer to why a girl becomes brazen faced to flirt at ease with a boy when in their society it was not the custom. Was that ‘characterless-ness’? Rachin felt befuddled after a prolonged thought over it. Society driven definitions of such things was now superimposed upon his own. On a personal level, he felt himself sufficiently broadminded despite pangs of jealousy he suffered whenever a familiar girl flirted with someone else. And the negative perception of that girl as a slut ensued, but that was a brief transit. Generally, Rachin found that he supported even frank displays of sexuality, on the plank of transparency. Next day he decided to give a cold shoulder to Rollie, the new girl in his life. She foiled that game plan in her own way. This she did by wrapping her shoulders around his and saying ‘Hi, Handsome.’ Rachin found that he had forgotten his petty resentments and felt a lump in his throat, all because of Rollie’s hypnotic greeting. A vague sense of danger was accompanying the sensuality though. As was to be expected from any ‘normal’ human being, he did not miss the opportunity and reciprocated by slowly slipping his hands around her waist, thus driving the last nail in the coffin of his ex-love. The girl took little time in insinuating her desires, and there was enough transparency in her dealings thus. So, Rachin and Rollie developed a kind of air-filled romance that both expected would become evacuated soon. Whenever Rachin returned after a fun filled evening with her, he would remember of Sukriti. How easily did he forget everything and vice-versa perhaps! But during this transition life had worsened itself contrary to his expectations after aborting the past relationship. It made him wonder what he wished for. The heartache was no doubt gone, but headache followed suit. It was his age to worry about reputation, diligence, motivation, intelligence etc. and all sorts of success causing factors. One night he caught Roshan on an Internet chat.
"Hi, Roshan, its Rachin online here."
"Hi, Rachin, how r u?"
"Fine. You swine, what have u to do with chatting?"
"Get off, I m messing around with a girl."
"So u r getting a high these days."
"Capricornian reverse aging, man!"
"What of business?"
"Just like ur heart, ll never click."
"I ve found a new girl."
"Was expecting this very soon. Her name?"
"Rollie."
"Good. My name is Roshan. Do u remember?"
"u haven’t got that license to remember."
"What’s that?"
"Just shit."
"I ll not waste my net account for a shit. Bye. See u tomorrow, same time."
"Bye, u old wine in a new bottle."
"**** *"
The Internet lexicon is different as we can see. And when Rachin was offline he wondered whether the enthusiasm was back. Next day he commented to Rollie that if it was possible for him, he would have loved having sex with his male friends, but he wasn’t a homosexual. Strange as it seemed to him, males appeared more funny and enjoyable that day.
But he decided to share some pessimism with Rollie too.
“Rollie, Life is coming to a naught with greater frequency. I am ill at ease with it most of the times. What exactly was the stuff all about? Taking birth, growing up, earning money and reputation, gathering decrepitude all along and finally submitting to the grave. No, this was not the way he thought of in the beginning. It was different bec’z I didn’t think of it at all.”
"What has happened to you? Is it a psychosomatic disorder?" replied Rollie.
“Whatever it was, I don’t feel like living at all. It had been a long fight for him and I wish a rest. And more so because I am spiritually an old man by now.”
“Hi, you talk just like my ex-boyfriend. I left him because he too had changed from a happy-go-lucky one to a despondent soul like you. What sparked this transition so quickly, he didn’t know, but it was definitely a malevolent twist of fate. The perpetual state of depression he was experiencing left him battered in the end of night. He thought of consulting a psychiatrist, but the very thought of revealing it was so embarrassing that he decided to abort it. He could never open himself out to anybody, which was a problem as it wreaked more havoc on his nerves.
Somewhere he had read that the larger pattern that holds us together goes on and on, although the names keep on changing and bodies keep on changing. He felt that in this infinite cosmos of thoughts and feelings, he held his space only for love. Seemingly contented with his non-entity status as of present, he felt befuddled whether love was superior to ambition in the existing civilization. The introversion within him was suffocating him all the more, perhaps because he knew it wasn’t his essence. Where would it lead him to, he wasn’t sure, but he feared that it may bring along some sort of mental impairment too.
You see, Rachin, he had become too much stupid and a stodgy philosopher, opposite to my carefree nature. I am happy to have left him because this bloody philosophy doesn’t leave even the other half equable. I am better off without it.”
Rollie appeared repulsive and too much headstrong for his taste. He thought it safer to leave her after getting a pretty kiss on the cheek.
A man on the street was singing, and one of the lines of the song was, "The sky loves this secret… It loves the long, long sighs…" Rachin started remembering something. When he had loved Sukriti with all his heart, was the sky watching? Of course, it knows everybody’s secret and loves it too. The thought of nature smiling when the two fell in love with each other overwhelmed him. It wasn’t alone the meeting of two souls as per his changed fancy now. He thought that even the cosmos is stirred, albeit in an infinitely slighter way, but it does experience a stir! Despite him having aborted his love, the first and the only one, it was recurring to him at odd but shorter times. Poor man, he had no choice either, because in retrospect, like Rollie’s helpless ex-boyfriend’s love, it was the only thing he could find worthy of notice in his whole life.
In about a week, he shifted to a dotcom company, where he was offered the post of a content writer. Surprisingly, if his tryst with philosophy had changed anything for better, language was definitely one such thing. He had by now read the masterpieces in philosophy and novels and though he felt at loss to comprehend what he gained tangibly, one thing was amply sure to him that his command over language, which used to good earlier, was by now much better. He was offered to write the contents of a site on photography, which was to be displayed at a reputed photofair. Mr. John was his new boss, who was infamous as a perfectionist. In offices, it was bad thing to be for the employees. Rachin was nervous the first day because he knew that he had lost all touch with the real, with the existing, and now it was mandatory to interact and impart with the real world that was obviously a highly professional one. Somehow he understood the whole thing from the boss and set out for the new venture. The week to come was a tedious one and he learnt a lot on the professional front. It seemed that though the chronological age advanced itself quite a bit, the experience made him a lot more matured. The accent was changed; it was so deep and thoughtful one. Whatever little rash overtones of the past remained before the week, was surprisingly gone. Roshan noticed the change and remarked that Rachin was graying. "Roshan, I never wanted it that way. But unfortunately it has been destined so." replied Rachin.
"Did you suppose earlier that you will never become matured?"
"If it is a part of maturity, it is ok, but if something has gone wrong with the soul in me, I won’t ever forgive that."
"Why do you relish always in that sort of depressive talks?”
"I tell you that something has gone wrong within me, something that I know will happen in the end to everybody, but it has probably hit me much earlier than the rest. That is my complaint to the Creator."
"You are alluding to senile degradation."
"In a way, yes. I had always seen the eyes of an old man, but never cared to consider why they were so downcast. These days I realize that they are so lost and devoid of sheen. It is a sort of disillusionment that we all are heading towards, some gradually while some abruptly."
"You were never so much disillusioned even amidst heartbreaks a few months back."
"Surprisingly, Roshan, when I used to say then that the world is a sorry place, it wasn’t so for me in actuality. In fact, barring few depressive moments, on the whole love was like an ephemeral spring. It elevated me for a whole season. But now! I don’t have enough faith that my love will be able to reconcile me with my past."
"Perhaps there is some strength in the cliché that true love is powerful enough. Perhaps you survived the attacks then because you loved someone very truly."
"Perhaps."
"And can’t you do it again?"
"I fear not. I feel I am now properly vaccinated against it."
"Are you sure?"
"Well, not very much sure. But do tell me how come you are showing so much interest in this topic.
"You may suppose that I am toeing similar lines these days."
"How come?"
"Man, there is a girl whom I have fallen for recently. I used to listen about love at first sight, but have realized it just a week before."
"Sounds interesting. Go ahead."
"Rachin, I saw her in my neighborhood market. I asked my brother of her whereabouts and he replied that she was to ordinary a girl and that I must choose a good one."
"That must have broken your heart."
"Certainly. That is the reason of my heartache. Rachin, I know not why her face revolves around me all the time. Yesterday I was feeling slightly better, I mean off that hypnotism, but then I saw her again. And I am back to square one."
"Where is the problem there?"
"My brother’s analysis about her. He thinks her to be a mediocre girl-next-door worthy only of getting screwed once. Damn it! But would you believe that when I think of her she appears so much different from the rest and I wonder has everyone become blind? Probably the whole of the universe is not getting what I mean. It seems that the whole of the universe has turned a stranger to my feelings, convictions and intentions. Man, I feel very much alone."
Rachin did not comment upon it. He could only sympathize internally with Roshan fed up of the externalities in such cases.
Sukriti was faring well in her exams. Rachin could not guess what her state of mind was after their separation. He did not feel much need of knowing it. In fact, after a month he seemed to have nearly adjusted himself without her. That caused him conclude impulsively that love was nothing but wastage of time and money. This time he thought the conclusion would not be edited by an arm-twisting destiny. It was not to be so. Sukriti landed one day to Thane to meet Rachin. She had taken a false medical leave from her college. When Rachin saw her after a gap, he felt at loss of words. She had grown a stranger to him all of a sudden. But thankfully, it wasn’t so for Sukriti.
"So you are finally caught."
"I thought you were too busy with your studies. So I didn’t disturb you."
"So you ‘disturb’ me now. Tell me, what I am studying for? Don’t you wish to marry an educated girl?"
It was unexpected for him because it was an overly frank way to start a discussion after a gap. He reflected that perhaps Sukriti was the same. He thought that it was only he who changed, for worse. And ‘that’ was a levitating thought.
"It is not so, Sukriti. Actually I have fallen to a prolonged illness since I reached Thane."
"You couldn’t reply to my mail."
"I was so weak."
"What has happened?"
"The chronic respiratory problem that has worsened in the winter."
"Take care and do not inflict much torture upon your body. It is mine too."
The usual loving discussions again followed and Rachin nearly forgot that he had been away from her. When she returned, he was in love with her again. The days to come provided him temporary relief. The void within his heart was filled temporarily so to say.
She left however in a few days. Dostoyevsky came in his mind again after the happy phase met its end, which again was too much of a usual thing for humans to happen. He said in mind again, "Emptiness, oh nature! People are alone on this planet, which is the problem. That was what you felt once at least in your life, honorable Dostoyevsky sir. That has been my problem since long and there isn’t any way in sight to remove it."
Life could have been just a word for him which is not even that for a child. He envied the children now for keeping themselves lost in their little worlds. Did not he wish to do the same? Alas, as his horizons expanded he lost his peace of mind. And where was the horizon exactly for him? Nowhere within his mental ‘sight’. He tended to be overtaken now and then by philosophical questions regarding love, life, society etc. The desperation that he landed unto in the last forced him to think whether even the best of the philosopher did not die thinking that alas, a whole life was wasted to comprehend a silly thing. The last moment would have probably taught all; it would have been the time of the grand exit from the irritatingly dissatisfying sojourn through planet earth. Whoever said that life and planet earth is beautiful was the true inheritor of that Adam and Eve legacy and Rachin believed with whole of his hearts that there wasn’t any such case left in the world at present. And did not Adam and Eve lose their innocence quite early? They could have lived easily till eons, unchanged, unbridled and as animal as the species next to them. He knew he would be termed insane but sanity held little charm to him now because it did not answer any such questions that an insane man often asks. He thought of his nearly quarter centuries of life. One quarter just of that Vedic figure of a man’s life! And it had exhausted him fully.
Rachin wanted to weep in Sukriti’s lap, "It has been a long fight, Sukriti. I want to rest." He desperately sought rest for all the animal activities of his life had fatigued him thoroughly. The human in him wanted to come out now. The image of the sleeping Buddha came in his mind, the calm and meditating Buddha! Then the image of Sukriti overlapped with the immediately former vision. He asked sorry to Sukriti for deserting her love whenever he encountered a spiritual crisis. But things always appeared imperfect more to all and sundry. So it was with his life and love. He had internally renounced his own society by now. The cadaver of his past did not surface to others but his conscience saw it clearly. The last thread that was holding him to life was getting strained and weaker. It was to be the last thread, he thought, because there was no desire to forge a new tie with life. The living corpse, which he had become unfortunately, was a heavy thing to drag even for a second. Rachin looked around himself; the whirlpool of life was omnipresent. People around seemed so pathetic, as they appeared to be deluded by a sort of illusion of a living matrix of places, positions, feelings, desires and above them all, life. He for one found himself within the dissatisfied princely Buddha. The woeful nature of the world could not be forever lost. It recurred to him now and then. How did the saints talk of happiness? Happiness was not a perpetual affair on planet earth. Thomas Hardy appeared true to him because now he also believed that happiness was a brief transit in this general drama of pain. He was running and running, in the mental sense. And to others he was a picture of serenity and perfect calm, because of his undisturbed exterior or the façade of it.
It had been a week since Sukriti was away for her studies. Rachin tried to lose himself in studies. He was reading a news item in his balcony when the telephone rang. It was Sukriti’s call. She sounded a bit disturbed and asked why he didn’t mail a letter to her the whole week. Rachin explained to her that he was no longer checking and sending mails due to studies.
"So you can’t drop even a word to me. Everyone in this world is busy. Only I am the idle one."
"Sorry for hurting you, Sukriti, but I was not feeling well the whole week after you left."
"Do you mean it? Tell me why I feel nowadays that you are distancing yourself from me? I was never possessive earlier like you but these days I am feeling jealous of your studies too. In fact, we have changed roles these days, so to say."
"It is nothing very serious, just a temperamental deviation from emotions; I will confess that much at least."
s”That is your problem. You tend to become bored very soon and I am afraid that includes our love."
"But I return back to things."
"Let me tell you a secret. To the world I am a harmless girl and to you too. Actually these days my psyche doesn’t leave me harmless anymore. If you leave me, I am going to kill you for sure. Make no mistake, leave me and see the dire consequence."
For a moment Rachin felt a quiver in his heart. He did not say anything.
"Why are you quiet? How much I love you?"
"No. no, I am not quiet actually. I know not where my heart will take me."
"Towards me, where else?"
"Yes, yes, I hope so."
They talked of so many things and in the end as Rachin put down the receiver he felt the corner of his eyes to be wet. Oh Lord; it was a strange drama of life again for him. He wondered whether he would have forgiven Sukriti for any crime, even of murdering him. Any other moment he could not have been sure. On that particular moment, a big yes. He soon left for Sukriti to meet her personally. Sukriti took a break from her college to spend the whole day with him. They were strolling in the marketplace until a young man gave a bump to Sukriti. She was in total anger and immediately scolded the boy. Rachin tried to soothe her but in vain. A flurry of bad words followed from both sides and ultimately Rachin had to drag Sukriti away, even while asking sorry to the young man. When things cooled a bit, Sukriti asked, "Why did you ask sorry to him when he was wrong?"
"I did not want any trouble."
"So does that mean to avoid trouble you will allow anybody to rape me?"
"It was not rape."
"Something like that."
"I don’t like fighting on streets."
"You are not a man."
"Maybe yes, I have lost my masculinity. Till such time I regain it, stop loving me, Sukriti."
"Don’t say that. I love you no matter you fight for me or not. But believe me I will murder anybody who abuses you."
"Thanks for your love but don’t think like that for the sake of my love."
He thought of Sukriti’s temper the whole night. What was he, an ice-cool man to do after marriage whenever any trouble arose? If Sukriti lost her temper after marriage, which he was sure that she would do almost daily, how would he cope with the daily hammering? But did not he love her too much to bear every torture from her side? And it was he only who silently bore all the atrocities of Sukriti without a rant, inadvertent though they were from the torturer herself. Walking on the road, he overheard a conversation between two young men. It went like this. "See that girl on the telephone booth. She is ringing her boyfriend."
"I do not like to see prostitutes."
"Do you know her?"
"A guess!"
"Come on, let’s trail her."
"OK, but let her finish the conversation first."
And Rachin felt devastated for a minute. If prostitution was a bad thing and good men did not like the prostitutes, why did the two, who were obviously projecting themselves as good folks, plan to go after that girl on the telephone booth? Something in their characters demanded vindication and he knew that if asked they would say in all certainty that to trail a girl is not immoral, but to ring a boyfriend from an unknown place is certainly immoral. No doubts over that.
He was writing in his diary, "Is not the world an illusion, a Maya as many saints tell it to be? There is a big contradiction there. How can one go on living in a Maya? How can one be 'real' in an illusion? If you believe everything around to be unreal, a part of a dream of sorts, will you be able to remain an active participant in it? No, you will cease to be, and to cease to 'be' is good for the enlightened ones. For an ordinary mortal it is a painful thing to happen. It appears as if the whole Universe has become a stranger and who loves to live with a stranger? The question becomes psychiatrically dangerous again for me. For once I wish to inhabit a star, a star different from planet Earth. A star in which one doesn't search reasons to 'be', one is simply there, like it happens in childhood. In childhood, one is ignorant of one's raison'd etre and that is the best way to live. As one grows up, even a Bill Gates lands himself in desperation over the raison'd etre. By now it is clear to me that I can not alienate myself from philosophy and any attempt which does that will result in a hodge-podge. A balance is difficult to attain. But I will have to remain 'real' because although I want to explore the truth, I do not want to cease being 'real', which is the latest threat in my life. 'Aisa lagta hai jaise maine apna jeevan jeena hi chod diya hai.', I will be humming the song today. The third person that I have become even for my own self advises me to remain calm over the transition because what difference does it really make even after the transition? I feel that it is something that is bound to happen to everyone; to the rare ones it happens only in the last breath. But it does happen like the eternal truth of death. So what difference does it really make if I am sensually dead, so to say because I am lacking proper words to describe the unusual transition? A man of twenty-five yielding to the gloomy life-force! It is an uncommon thing to happen, but not for me because I have in the past years grown more than few decades old. I tend to be taken over by hollowness almost every minute later. Where is the end of it? Why we all are fed up of this world, badmouthing that every person here is bad. Then we forget that the person next to us is saying the same thing and the persons he abhors in this world include ourselves. So what can be the solution? To run away from it! Or to start improving the world one by one and ultimately to reform the world completely, which 'is' an impossible task. There follows a dilemma, whether love is the solution to most of the problems in the world. In fact the troubles in love have made me a cynic and I start detesting the very name of it at times. But is not it because we don't know fully what 'love' is? Probably God keeps on showing His reflection in a loving heart, and we poor ordinary mortals of ordinary passions fail to retain it within our mind for long. But there is again a flaw in this assumption. If God is truly a God why should he test us always by sending a reflection and allowing us to forget it in our mediocrity? He has to be above the ordinary humans and 'love', if it reflects God at all, must not be a reflection. It must be a vision, not a distant one, but something that is permanently ingrained in our hearts and is called forth whenever bitterness, selfishness, cruelty, indifference etc. start ruling the roost. Even when I am writing these, I know that I myself am not sufficiently qualified to delve in philosophical, moral, ethical or metaphysical monologues. But tell me a single soul who is? It is indeed with a great sense of moral courage that I write despite the fact that it has failed me so many times that we can alleviate much of the sufferings through love. God forbid it will not betray me again. And I will become like many other embittered souls, which I pray not. I want to leave everything in the middle. There is a sense of loss as to why a fighter has to quit in the middle. The beginning was made all right, but I fear I cannot proceed to its completion. That is the greatest of my fears. Had I been eighty and writing these lines it would have been okay. But at twenty-five it is really discouraging. Have I really lived all those glorious years and raced ahead towards graying quite early. Can it be due to my acceleration all these years of youth? I confess it is preemption. But it’s true. The rationality advises me to look beyond the hype and hoopla and analyze the situation at ground zero. Rightly said. Because it is ground zero from where I have to start now. Can't I strive towards becoming Superman day by day? Nietzshe is now within my mind as he talks of being haunted by the vision of a 'Superman' even in his early childhood. That similar thing has struck me although it has struck me quite late. I reminisce a date with an astrologer who suggested to my parents about me that the boy has tremendous willpower and will tide over all his troubles with consummate ease. But what has happened these days? Probably astrology is not even the tip of the iceberg in our lives. Probably astrologers are all incorrect and they somehow manipulate the planets and the stars too. So I think I will have to make a zodiac for myself and I will have to ordain a special star to rule my temporal life. I will forget that there is a God above and I will henceforth try to be the God of my life. But it is not arrogance that prompts me to say this. It is knowledge of my limitations. And I know that I will not be fatalistic anymore. If God is all in mind for many, including me, the mind can think in any other way. I will try to inch closer towards the 'Superman' every moment. Probably it is the Nemesis for all my animal activities all these years. I also know that this transition will affect many who know me closely and some of them will not like it even. But then they will have to. They too will change like me one day, I am sure. Probably not in twenty-five but quite later, say in their eighties. But they will change too for sure. One can go on laughing and enjoying like a newborn child, but that happiness holds little charm now when we have seen tears, anguish, frustration, anxiety, hatred etc. in a single life. And till the time I don't find a better way to live I won't be demanding a reincarnation from God. I will wish to finish the existing one somehow.
There comes a time when man departs from his desires and efforts all due to circumstances. There comes a time when man feels how good it would have been if things happened differently. And there can be no vindication, which becomes the cause of sorrow. But what difference does it really make if things happened the way we liked? We could have had a tailor-made world but the emptiness would have remained; the blasé emptiness. Man without philosophy was unimaginable for Rachin and he believed that to go on living was indirectly like believing in a philosophy; the greatest one in fact, which was the philosophy of life. He never wished to be didactic although it was impossible most of the times for his disposition and more so because he was a philosopher.
7th April came. Roshan wished him a happy birthday.
"Rachin, you are 25 today."
"From today it will bother me less because I am in the 'grihastha' ashram nowadays."
"Why should it bother you less?"
"Because I love being in a more mature stage now, because the frivolities are gone and the Vedas have stamped their approval too."
"I think since we don't live the full 100 years the classification in all ashrams should go for a reduction in the number of years."
"For example considering the smarter and more evolved generation that we have today must be allowed 'Brahmacharya' ashram only up to 20."
"It will go on decreasing with the coming generations."
"It has become a cliché to say that the younger generation is growing smarter. It is undoubtedly. Now what should be done as a consequence?"
"Depends on the way you treat it."
"Obviously the smart youth must be taken full advantage of."
"But the youth's essence is destroyed in the process of getting smarter."
Rachin stopped here and pondered over a loss again. It was true indeed that in a positive there always skulked a negative and vice-versa. He said a second later," Talks about 'essence' are not valid anymore and they must not be because the Social Darwinism demands so."
Roshan maintained a more stable approach. He remarked that it was necessary to lose out to forces of civilization in order to remain 'civilized'. He pointed out the contradiction in giving oneself back to the primordial 'essence' after breaking away from them once and for all. He thought it to be impossible. Rachin said after a brief pulse of optimism rung his heart, "Roshan, it is only within the capacity of the humans to lose their essence and get it back too. That makes me proud of being a human at times."
"Have you got yours back?"
"Not yet, but the hope is there that I will get it back one day."
"That's the spirit."
"And never shall it dampen, it is my firm belief."
The Razor's edge by W. Somerset Maugham reflects how much tough the path to salvation is! It was indeed. First of all, what exactly was salvation? It was a term so much heard of in every corners of life in adulthood, but the term always reflected a hazy picture for the majority. Still everyone relished talking of salvation. Where was the apparent contradiction? There was a missing link somewhere. If the path to salvation is very hard and not even worth trying for the majority, this term deserved to be proscribed from the common lingo once and for all. Next morning, in the wee hours of daybreak, he looked at the Sun. "How does it manage to remain so much circular? There is a sort of unmatchable engineering ingenuity by the Almighty. Then again there is a sort of unmatchable consistency from the part of Sun. No wonder sun is a creation by God to be emulated in real life. Howsoever man tries to imitate God's work, it is impossible. Our best of paintings pale into insignificance by comparison to a typical landscape of God. Our best of music cannot match the original sound of rain splashing down an alley. But still we go on trying for it. When will we realize that we cannot be God and just stop gratifying our ego by painting, singing, dancing et al like God ordains for its creations." Saying this in mind he cast a fleeting glance all across the sky pervaded by the grief that he has lost the original love for nature too. He thought that he was not a part of nature and the desperation of being unwanted by God's nature choked his mindset. But a minute later he decided that no matter how long it takes he will return to nature and be a part of it again. Rachin decided to wait and wait for this thing to happen because he knew he would not be able to achieve it overnight. Later in the afternoon he vomited and blood poured out. What did that mean? Feeling distraught he started thinking whether his end was near. Being half-learned about blood vomiting only worsened his depression. But then he tried to inculcate a positive thinking even in this fearful happening. "Life is to be over, if the blood vomiting is any indication. It can be just a normal thing too. But do not I fear death again? Why do I feel like living a long life, despite complaining daily of its futility? Let me think from a different perspective. This life, a tragic one as it has been till now, will end and I will become free. Then there will be no rebirth, I pray now. Actually God must not impart a wretched life to wretched soul. And I am one such soul. But whatever will happen to my mother? And whatever will happen to Sukriti? I know that death need not necessarily be lamented and can be taken as a change, just a change. But will Mom take it this way, and Sukriti how will she live after my death? Like other souls I am also mired in the Maya tangle. Maya, will it never leave us equable? We ask for death and start fearing what will happen to our near and dear ones after we are gone. But what remains to be feared once that we are gone. Nothing. The flesh gets burnt and the soul probably departs for a new body. What is left behind then? I know this much for sure what is left behind. Memories (hundreds, thousands, lakhs .... of them)! But of what good is the memory when we ourselves are gone? I don't know and will perhaps never come to know even after my death. Who knows if we are just presented a distorted and manipulated version by saints of whatever happens after death? And the trouble is that we cannot question them without feeling it. Oh, come on Rachin dear, just leave it. If it has to come let it come. Why to waste the remaining few hours over it. I will try to enjoy as far as possible henceforth. And cigarettes, probably they have consumed me. No problem. Something will definitely consume me even if it were not cigarettes. The latter simply hastens the eternally true process. Never mind I am in a forgiving mood as of now. So let me have my quota of tobacco now?" Saying this he proceeded to the shop to buy a Wills piece. As smoke blew all across the room he wondered if he was being exhumed. God lay in details now for him as he started reading the masterpiece 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' by Robert M. Pirsig again. There were few novels that reflected something new in the same old lines each time they were read. It was one such novel. The other novel he thought of in this context was 'Shekhar Ek Jeevani' by Agyeya. The great scientist Poincare caught his fancy and one whole night he scribbled on paper the lines of Poincare. Phaedrus, the central character of the novel, lurked in the corners for him for a week in succession. The ghost of rationality that we all are bogged down with! And Phaedrus spent a life searching for a ghost. What kind of ghost he was searching for was still unclear to Rachin, but he sensed the insanity in himself too, albeit in a different manifestation. His search was the search for reality and not a ghost. Does reality ordain us to be depressed forever? Or the contrary was true? If the former held sense then there was no point in going on living amidst such a tyrant reality? And if the latter was true then where was the respite? But he decided one thing that since his search for the answer- or the better term respite- might just continue lifelong; he must take up philosophy more seriously and try to build a career into it. Because he knew that he has to get a job too to keep up his insane searching. Rachin decided to surf the web for jobs related to philosophy. There were not many takers for this branch although philosophers frequently stamp it to be the highest echelon in educational system. They claim that all other educational streams originated from philosophy. Most of us know that science is indeed a philosophy. But what has the software to do with it? It needed to be addressed properly. Despite his rejection of this creed he decided to take up philosophy in the earnest as a separate stream and not because it was the parent of all other streams. The ego in being a philosopher was not with him. It was a necessity for his restless spirit and his limited practicality showed him that he could eke a living out of it too.
He had started reading 'Critique of Pure Reason' by Immanuel Kant. Philosophy as a subject was really interesting. There was something divine about the philosophers. Rachin thought that a philosopher, if he/she was a poet too, was like icing on the cake. But he wanted to write poems of happiness now. Surprisingly he had won over sorrow slightly but there wasn't any ego after this win. He thanked God that it was Him who had made him a winner despite for a short time. He tried to remember his first day of his first love. He saw Sukriti asking him permission to enter inside the class. A voice rang in his mind, "Sir, please may I come in?" Rachin said it aloud, "Do come in? You are always welcome in the mansion of my heart. And now things have changed. Do you need permission now?" And then he started smiling. He was feeling relaxed after a long, long time. There seemed no shadow even of strain.
Somebody was singing, "Chote-chote din raten lambi lambi baten hain..... .... Baton mulakaton me umar jaye beet mitwa...."
Rachin responded to that call by humming the lines himself. How beautiful are simple things in life! He had learnt it after a long complex struggle. But it did not matter much as he reflected over his past struggle. "Never mind. It is over at present." And he proceeded for the book in his mini-library. In the library he felt the urge to write few lines in praise of life. Writing on and on and on was his favorite pastime and he felt that there was a sort of 'mini-orgasm' in it. And thus he started the process as soon as the lust to write originated in his heart. "Now what should I write today is the question. Yes, I can write on why we need to write. Let me think for myself. Well, I write when I am frustrated, to vent my frustration. I write when I am happy, to dissipate on paper the surplus energy of happiness flowing within me then. And also I write when I feel my love for Sukriti. Now, what has writing given to me, I know not exactly. It has not benefited me monetarily. Neither has it won me glory. But it has kept me living. Whatever notes I possess till date are manifestations that there lived a man called Rachin Srivastava once. Koi badi bat nahin likh raha hoon. You all know these things quite well and better than me. But it will serve well to remind these simple things only. I am nobody but someone whom God has chosen for the moment to spread the word that He is in His heaven and all is right with the world. I am your servant. I am everybody's servant for the moment. Kick me like you kick your dog and see that I won’t mind. Why should I? The humdrum existence of the days of yore! Seemingly contented with my non-entity now, I request to all you superior souls not to spread hatred all across. Life was never given to hate. It was given to love. I know I am reiterating pretty simple fundamentals of life. So many have said them before. But let me add to that list. This addition will simply help my soul to proceed another inch towards purging. Sukriti, are you listening too? I remember one similar day in my life when I had started aiming just to remain a human. Here I am again today. So things do repeat themselves. They do and so I will again get to see my Sukriti just the same, the way she was when I first fell in love with her. I do not desire much than her love forever. So I must finish writing today. Will have to wake up early tomorrow to meet Sukriti as soon as possible."
A week after Sukriti rang him and burst a small ‘chutputiya’, which became audible to him.
“What is this, Sukriti?”
“I too have become mad like you these days? Tell me when are these ‘chutputiyas’ burst?”
“On Diwali night?”
“You see I read a story somewhere just as you always read. Now I too will tell it to you.”
“Take care the telephone bill does not become excessive.”
“No worry. The story is more important.”
“Tell it then.”
“When it comes to describing myriad of hues and sounds I cannot but help recalling a special incident in my life in my late teen that affected a lot the shape of things to come.
I had started seeing Anuja(not even the namesake of my present wife), when she first shifted in my neighborhood. With lots of efforts I proposed her and stated courting her.
Since ours was a conservative society and our parents would not accept the pretty simple funda of teenage Mills and Boon romance, we followed surreptitiously, so much that we would not dare to meet even in the college campus.
Then came the Diwali night. It added so many hues to the already colorful life of ours. Anuja came to meet me in a temple that night draped in a saree. Sitting near a temple pond, I took a close look at her I discovered that she had grown few years and was reflecting her womanliness. Now and then crackers were bursting. The sky seemed to be loving the coronation of its grandeur by all and sundry.
“Ronit, are you going to be a little more serious about our marriage.”
“Anuja, the hitches in my mind regarding my joblessness are there. Your parents won’t accept me thus.”
She laughed and insinuated an immediate marriage within the temple premises. It could have been a straight lift from any old Mumbaiya movie for anybody but not for us. We were in the throes of passion.
Thus we got married.
However, things started worsening gradually within two years. I failed twice in my attempts at IAS and lost the required experience to get a good job. In the meantime, Anuja’s parents engaged her to a multinational engineer despite her protestations.
Things were going on and on, toeing the lines of the ‘Devdas’ script. But I decided to retract sensibly.
After few years we had very nearly forgotten each other.
Five years later there came a topsy-turvy in my life. It was again a Diwali night. I saw someone smiling at the door. Anuja!
I could not utter a word of greeting even. It was she who broke the ice.
“Hi, Ronnie.”
“She remembers it still.” I thought and felt piqued.
Asking her to sit down, I started gathering my wits together.
“Anuja, how come you here…..”
“Ronnie, Diwali has always been special to me and you know why.”
I was not expecting open demonstration of nostalgia because it was after a long gap that we had caught each other. Just to play safe, I called my wife from inside and introduced Anuja to her as an old cousin who had just returned back after a long trip overseas.
Anuja was staring at me and I felt a quiver within at her stare. When my wife took leave for getting the tea, I took Anuja’s hand in mine.
“Anuja, let us leave this place immediately. Let us talk somewhere else.”
“Yes, let us go to the temple.”
“What do you mean, Anuja? But yes, let us go there only.”
An hour later we were sitting at the same place where we had got married in a flush of teenage romance.
I cast a cursory glance at the night sky. Diwali lighting was there all across. Crackers too were bursting in a similar manner. And my heart was again feeling the first love of my life. I looked at Anuja expecting an anecdote from her past, which she did deliver.
“Ronnie, I am divorced from my husband.”
“Why Anuja, I mean what was the pressure?”
“He was very cruel, not like you at all. He used to get drunk and beat me severely in the nights.”
“I chose this day to meet you. You know why.”
The same nostalgic talk again.
“But Anuja I am happily married with a son you saw. What can I do now for you?”
“I chose this day to meet you just to relive few happy moments from the past. That is all.
Believe in me that I could love you alone all my life and even after my marriage.”
“Yes, but it is not right. We both have been married once. And I am not a misogamist either.”
Anyway she caught my intent and bade goodbye to me after delivering a parting kiss.
“Goodbye my only love, Ronnie. You won’t hear of me again.”
She left and I came back home again as the quintessential family man.
Anuja often comes in my mind since then. I shrug off saying in mind that conventionality is morality and I must not break free.
Diwali is again promising to come. Despite the apprehensions, my heart still yearns that Sukrit will come. As the days are nearing I am struggling to retain my sanity. I fear that this time if Sukrit resurfaces on Diwali night in the temple premise I might just slip away with her away from the society, just as I was planning the Diwali night we got married to each other.
People sometimes live dual life, one for the society and the other for themselves. I have not been an exception.
Just the other day, I noticed my small child trying to pierce the ‘Chutputiya’ with a throng. As it burst I started reminiscing the sounds that were around when I had first garlanded. When I saw my son playing with a ‘Roshni’ I reminisced the colors that were around when I first garlanded.
In a way I thank Lord that this world is so full of sounds and colors. And in the myriad of hues and sounds I love those found in the Diwali the most. The reason must be obvious to the dear readers by now. Alas! Conventionality is morality.”

“Wow, very moving but this story has no coherence at all.”
“Why so?”
“Because I am not Ronit and you are not Anuja. We will get married for sure.”
“I wanted to listen just that.”
“Be sure.”
“Thanks a lot. But I don’t know why I have become so silly to keep on thinking of our marriage all the time.”
“Put the phone down. We will talk again tomorrow.”
“Ok, bye. I am light now. Love you.”
“Love you too.”

EPILOGUE:
It had taken a whole week to narrate the story because the duo ordained special hours for it. Rachin philosophized to Pooja however that the story would never end for him.
He finally said, "And Rachin lived along with Sukriti lifelong."
He had not realized that it was a very dull ending. As for Pooja, she was staring at him. She did not say a word and could not even dare to ask where Sukriti was. When she left him to be alone, she prayed in mind for Rachin, "God, You know where Sukriti is at present. Why don’t You send her back again to Rachin?"
That was indeed like a true friend.
The End.

Raktabh Mahesh

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

what is the confusion?

I have written this Novel!:)

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a classic gem by talented, Ravindra Jain(music) and actors Sachin Kapilkar and Ranjita Kaur

Dev Anand at his best in this Gem of an Indian Movie, Guide.

Sachin Tendulkar news from Cricinfo

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The Hindu - Breaking News

Power of love by Celine Dion

My heart will go on!

PaGaLGuY.com MBA News

Emotional Atyachar- Real nay Surreal experience!

ghar aya mera pardesi- sequel to dream sequence-warding off de-globalisation woes, if any!

Awara gem

(A) Few of Dev Anad's gems

ABBA performing Honey Honey in Germany,1976

Amanda Seyfried's honey honey reloaded in Mamma Mia!

Sung by Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Mahalaxmi Iyer capturing the lost loving essence of Delhi!

A salute to the living legend SR Tendulkar for producing the best knock I ever saw all my life!

Bazaar;ah, this movie makes me nostalgic about Old Hyderabad, Delhi and Lucknow

Bazaar;ah, this movie makes me nostalgic about Old Hyderabad, Delhi and Lucknow

Nikah's nostalgic songs and Ravi's music

Amar's lilting song featuring Nimmi

Barsaat

FMS

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Math reborn

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Crazy, dangerous and risque at times (not recommended at all!!!)

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Yeh Duniya ka Cricket hai!

Something of ancient Indian Philosophy

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This day in Hollywood

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