How can one ever forget?
The first foray into the
world of fling and flirtation
Of love and liaison.
Days of sweet abandon
spent in the sensuous arms
of dear darling dalliance.
Those hot summer sojourns
at that ancestral house,
dallying away my dear days,
amidst its sun-soaked lawns.
Under the sheltering expanse
of the canopy of “their” romance.
“Them” that came together.
Lithe and lissome she.
An older cousin.
“Nectar” her name meant.
The demure damsel, the fem me-fa-tale.
Distressed and drained, pale and pained.
Soft-spoken and sensitive, silent and serene.
The well versed home-maker, the model daughter.
Brown, brazen He.
Sun-tanned to the very eyes.
“Son of wealth” was he called.
Balderdash, a veritable bronze-god.
The go-getter, the bloom-snatcher,
the soon to be ravaged, ravager.
Our own swank small-town hero.
Oh, it was the gathering gusts
of a tempestuous love-affair.
I blithely, besotted and blameless,
got caught right in its middle, unaware,
as their crony, as their confidant.
Basking in the glory, of their romance,
my romantic-self bloomed into being.
Those cacophonous cricket matches
opposite the house, on that empty yard.
Those eye-to eye eloquent exchanges,
played on the pretext of picking up the ball.
Those family gatherings, of processions
and prayers, of cavalcades and conventions
shove them and shelved them together.
Loud and booming,
self-assured, all-assuming
his all-encompassing ambush,
he cast for her. Demure and downcast,
fingers fidgeting on her lustrous plait,
with her lowered eyes and diffident ways,
she entangled and drank him all in…
In their hearts and their eyes,
In their breaths and their sighs
In their every glance and touch
In each of their words and ways
In their smiles, and their sayings
In their frames, their whole being
Effervescent, this new desire, new passion.
A new frenzy, that liberated and bound them,
Gave them an aim and abandoned them
Steadily consumed and fed them,
Made them ill and immunized them,
Made monstrous liars out of them,
Made them also bewitchingly beautiful …
Oh they were so mad, madly in love.
A love so infectious that
It seeped and it crept unto my soul.
Made me carry their joys in my heart.
Guarding their stair-tops, guarding their doors,
running their errands and passing their notes,
plumped up in my pride, playing the perfect Cupid.
My every step lighter, my every day brighter.
I felt their every fever, every flutter.
Their agonies slimming, me down.
The butterflies were in my tummy,
Their thuds and their shudders
shook and staggered my body.
Their silent sighs and stolen glances
etched forever, in my heart.
Will my star-crossed lovers ever meet?
What will happen if they get caught?
Will they be forever torn apart?
Oh why is this world so cruel?
Or why is not love free?
I stomped and stormed,
mad and sad in their worries.
The morning sun blazed in my face.
Already arrogant, in its power to scorch,
as I woke from my dream of other ill-fated lovers.
The coffee notes from the indoor kitchen
and the firewood fumes from the outdoor stove
fused together. As I breathed in, with love
the comfy fragrances of my favorite home.
The aromas were all the right ones,
The melody though was misplaced.
The soothing voice of that familiar anchor
on granddad’s old radio was estranged,
by the odd notes of the loud wails of my aunts,
the raised rantings of the uncles. I turned
to that empty mat at my side. And, I knew then.
I bundled up, all of me, my fears and the bed-clothes,
altogether, gathered right, clutched tight,
I set sail, to that backyard by the well.
There they were assembled all,
ready to stage their dramas tall.
To take the blame and hurl it back until,
that fateful moment, when their eyes fell on me.
They shook me they bore me,
they drilled me and they grilled me,
a hundred questions they hurled at me.
“Oh at last, you are up and about.”
“You” “you who were her shadow.”
“She…. your favorite cousin”.
“you sure might have known something?”.
The uncles stated, the aunts quoted,
the dad demanded and the mom moaned,
the cousins cajoled, the dog too awaited.
“What did she tell you?” “Where did she go?”
“She was just lying next to you.”
“She is been missing the whole night”
“And you just slept on through it through?”
I didn’t know, sister less, clueless,
I didn’t know how to tell them,
that I didn’t know. I, who thought had scripted,
this play, screen-played and directed it all,
had snored on in sweet slumber, by her side,
on those straw-mats in that starlit terrace,
while “my lovers” fate had turned its tide.
My eyes darted to and fro, to and fro,
as the depth of her ditching dawned on me.
At that fourth house on that sandy street
What if he was missing too?
And why am I missing now, from their plan?
Why was I now all of a sudden?
A mere meddle-some girl of just eleven?
The wagging voices and the nagging noises
of the whining adults around me wavered.
As I wailed and wriggled, squirmed
and squiggled, cried my heart out,
in the middle of that cool courtyard.
All spent-up and propped up on that pale pillar.
My “pity-picture”, at their hearts, struck a chord.
They were too harsh with their little kid.
That they all unanimously agreed.
The other cousins, aunts and uncles, mom and dad
held me, humored me, petted and reassured me.
Nothing bad would ever bestir, my favorite sister.
And granddad and his conglomerate they said, were
On the case, being there, right now taking care.
The Patriarch entered, pristine in his whites.
Silent and stately, crossed the threshold
to his library. He, the writer.
Nobody dared to prowl after or follow,
Him, amidst his shelves of Dickens and Shaw.
Away from the frenzy and all the furor,
his dark wood world of Whitman and Tagore.
The world that I had co-inhabited
Faithfully, every summer until then.
Happy with the books that he recommended,
looking up his dictionary and numbering his pages.
Content with the world of pen and paper, ink and romance.
Until the romance in the real world drew me away.
And I ditched him for my star-crossed lovers.
Time now, to follow him into that familiar world.
Time to end these days of endless suspense.
Of protecting their passion, of covering up
their distractions. I entered that dark, cold,
lofty temple of books, renewed in my reverence,
back again into the arms of Austen and Dickens,
the inevitable return of the prodigal grand-daughter.
Delving deep, steeped in thoughts
in his ancient easy-chair, sat grand-dad.
Under the dead-slow, jarring- churning
of that enormous ceiling fan. I stood silent,
timid and tongue tied. Searching for words
as I stared at his prone form, immobile.
His aged, murky, pained eyes, pried open.
Oh there you are! My inquisitive imp,
the name-sake of my dear departed wife.
What brings you back to my library?
Not busy anymore? Playing paramour
to your beloved sister? Ah yes. I see.
Nobody dare face the big-bad, old-wolf.
And you are here, to inquire, on behalf of all .
Bidding me to sit beside,
taking both my hands in his, he spoke.
Your sister, my dear is now a married woman.
She had caught the earliest train,
to that near-by, famous, temple-town,
to be garlanded in glory, all alone, with
none other than, that cricketing hero of our own.
She who looked, so timid, so content
always eager to please, with many a talent,
the first female of the family, to have
stepped into a college. Everybody’s darling,
god fearing, scared and scattered even by a cockroach.
How could she have dared, stormed and stepped out?
Taken such a momentous decision with none of us about?
Ah! Love. Love you would tell me.
that over-rated, much adulated emotion
that turns all worlds, order less, topsy-turvy.
What would an old man? Ever understand?
About love? An old man who has yearned away
half his life among these books, pining for
the wife who died forty years back?
Wouldn’t I heed and listen? arbitrate and ascertain?
Wouldn’t I then have taken a proposal?
to our hero’s home? Wouldn’t I have coaxed, cajoled,
bid and ordered my daughter and son in law? To consider
the will of their daughter, understand what she preferred?
What is the point of all this secrecy? This ignominy?
Am I then really this cruel, adamant ignorant old man?
There was the slightest trace of a tear
in the corner of those deep-set, dreary eyes
that brought down the flow back to my eyes again.
And this time, it was not out of spite for being left out.
It was out of genuine love for this frayed old man.
My dear, dear, grand-man and his infinite, forgiving love.
Love, unbound by laws of secrecy, gender and generation.
I fell in love with love that day.
for the first time understanding it
fully in all its embellishments.
Understanding all of its responsibilities,
its affectations and its cares, its liaisons and its ties
its ties to family, faith, pride, parenthood and honor.
And a million other things that it comes tagged with.
Get busy living 