He grew on me like a song. The more I heard him speak
the more I fell in love with not what he said but how he said it. Like a song
with poor lyrics but great music that you play on repeat, I fell in love with
him. Each time. Every time. That day when we met after three decades, he was
busy solving the biggest jigsaw ever – his life! The turn of events in his
life was, to say the least, dramatic. His wife after all those years of marital
togetherness had left him in pursuit of ‘independence’. “Once her mental and
biological age aligns she would gather that there is no such thing. Our lives
are but a warp and weft of dreams and sacrifices”, he had quipped when I asked
him about it. He sounded prophetic. I could smell his cologne splashed liberally
around his clean shaven face, his grey eyes refusing to meet mine. He looked up
at the clear blue skies standing in the portico, his left hand firmly placed
inside the side pocket of his khaki trousers. A pair of tan suspenders held
them around his thinning waist and held their weight over his drooping
shoulders. As he spoke he let go a puff from this cigar marring the virginity
of the crisp morning air in the Coorg valley.
We got drunk on freshly brewed coffee from extra-large
mugs clasping it in our hands on cold mornings. The steam from the mugs fogged
our glasses on each sip. They say a good conversation is as stimulating as
black coffee and as difficult to sleep after. So we spent the whole day and
most of our nights until they broke into early mornings sitting beside the
crackling fireplace, speaking about our past, our fears, the joys we had, the
friends we made and those we lost. Steve and I had studied Arts together about
30 years back. Our paths crossed again as part of a book launch of a common
friend who had managed to gather a decent audience to launch his maiden book. Our
friend Roy - the author, as we now called him surprised us twice since we knew
him. Quarter of a century into his life he confessed his love for another man.
Now, another quarter of a century further, he confessed his love for writing.
It was this love that we were all there to celebrate - Steve having lost his
and me having never found one.
At the launch, as we shared our awkwardness in the
middle of prolific writers, we discovered we had more in common than we thought
we had years back, including some of the pills we popped now. Engaged in
muffled conversations over glasses of red wine, the saxophone playing a sweet symphony
in the background, we sat across a table, with a bunch of red roses separating
us. He sat across the table, with his brown
woolen flat cap covering his head. One could see tufts of perfectly silver hair
jutting out over his big ears. His grey eyes seemed funnily large through his
thick glasses. I sat there in my salmon pink saree, a string of pearls around
my neck, my grey strands neatly tied in a bun, with solitaires in my ears but
no sparkle left in my eyes. I had spent my life without having to impress anyone.
But today, as I sat across the table looking at Steve, I felt this desire to
impress him, to draw his attention, even as his grey eyes wandered to devour
everything else but me.
That night when we walked back after the launch, the
garden lights leading the way, the sound of crickets breaking the silence, I
popped him a question “How would you spend the rest of your life?” We stopped
on the meandering path laced with pebbles, the crickets now seeming louder than
before. I could see, even in his slightly tipsy state, he was taken aback. His
eyes seemed larger, than they already were, brimming with a surprise he hadn’t
expected me to offer. This time his grey eyes met mine, for the first time,
that long, since we met thirty years later. He didn’t have an answer. Instead
he looked away, devoiding me of a sinful treat. It made me wonder if that was a
question I wanted to ask myself than him and just uttered it too loud. I was
returning the following day, my tickets booked, bags packed, a signed copy
of the book held in my hands that would forever remind me of the beauty of the
valley and Steve – his companionship.
I stumbled upon love accidently, twenty five years
since I last lost faith in it. They say the first heart break is the hardest. I
had three first heart breaks. Each time like a phoenix I had risen from the
ashes in the hope of discovering it all over again, only to be burnt down. My
agile young mind saw a pattern developing and I decided to let it die a brutal
death – that crazy, stupid, love! This time however when love greeted me like a
long lost acquaintance, I realized it had aged too. Time had mellowed it. It
posed itself with open arms, inviting me under its warm abode on that wintry
night.