Celebrating the Valentines Day, these days, is just as usual as celebrating one’s birthday 10 years ago. Be it an elderly couple watching “My Name Is Khan” in INOX, a middle aged gentleman roaming around Shyambazar with a gorgeous lady with boy cut hair and terracotta theme cotton saree and black rimmed oval shaped spects, or just two cute little babies (a boy clad in Mickey tee and a girl with two tentacles stuck to her hair band and a pair of butterfly wings attached to her back, both below the age of 5 years or so) - playing together at the top floor children’s park at Forum Mall – Valentines Day was so special to everyone as I could see. The day being a Sunday, helped the cause. People could throng in large numbers around the hot and happening places of the city.
I, on the other hand, celebrated the day differently. Yes I was out with a friend, and spent the day with lots of fun, but she was not my valentine. She is more than love. As I believe Amity is sometimes something more than love. You fall in love, you fall out of love, and you fall in love again. You date people, you propose them, and you marry one of them in the end. But sometimes it’s so difficult to find a like minded person or a friend who has the same sort of likings and thinking as you have. And I was awe stricken when she took out this small, little, simple and sober gift from her vanity (bag). Weeks ago I was thinking of the same thing – a gift that I can gift her – a photo frame with no photograph in particular, but with lots of images and scribbles that mark the number of events and occasions that we spent so far. (Like the coffee cup – as we spent time in coffee shops, the creative things that we made together, the specific words that we utter and are liked by each other and so many such things). And when she made it for me before I could do it for her, I said, gosh was she made with the same set of genes that I have?
I am generally a reserved kind of guy, but when I am with her I am too much talkative, and I guess this is the story of all others who fall in love, or at least in half love like me. And I interrupt her so much while she speaks. She, like, I guess, many other cute girls, has this habit of turning and twisting her fingers, palm, and hands in peculiar shapes to carry out the non-verbal part of her communications. And that’s something I am in love with. And often while she speaks, I either gape at those funny gestures, or interrupt her with a word or two of mine, and she gets annoyed and violent (violent with not sword or machine guns, but with bombs of tear drops that she sheds so frequently, to win the battle even before start). My frequent interruption hurts her as she thinks we have too little time together to complete the conversations with so many such interruptions of mine. And the sight of tears dropping and dripping on top of her plate of Mongolian Noodles makes me sad, and I take the oath (again and again) not to interrupt her in future. We have small fights like this almost everyday.
But there is something that binds us together despite all these tussles - the sheer liking for each other. I don’t know why on earth she likes me. But I know why I do. We were watching this controversial movie that has tried its bit to make the point clear – no matter which religion you follow you can be classified in either of two ways. Either you are a good person or a bad one. And sometimes, I ponder over these lessons, and feel sorry about it. I feel sorry because though I personally have no communalism at all, sometimes we are compelled to behave in a different way as we are guided by our traditions, social practices and our family values. We all love to see the onscreen chemistry of SRK and Kajol, who hail from two different religions in the story and still get married. But I wonder how many of us would dare to follow this. Won’t we hesitate a lot before going for an inter-religion marriage? Forget inter-religion affairs, we even get many a hiccups to accept an inter-caste marriage even in this age of Twitter and Wikimapia. The other aspect of the movie is about accepting people who are having some sort of abnormality. When we see SRK acting in the role of an autistic person and somebody is making fun or laughing at him, we become suddenly so rebellious to stop that person at once. But once the two-and-half-hours-drama is over do we really take home that newly developed mentality? No, I guess. We just dump it outside the theatre hall, and while on our way home, if we see a spastic child or an autistic man, we be the same devils as we were previously, and we take the lead to mock at them without a prank of conscience. Inspired by movies, stories, and books on personality development, we take the oath to be a good man, but sometimes we fail in real life.
But here is this different story. After watching the movie we headed towards the terrace of the BURP food court atop Forum Mall. And there while we were enjoying time together, a kid, about 13/14 years in age, well dressed, came to us with a weird facial expression, he was delighted to see the bottle of coke kept on our table, and said something incoherently to I don’t know whom while trying to extend his hand towards the coke. We were astonished at this and I had so many thoughts running in my mind. First it reminded me of a guy who could try to be an extra smart kid and checked if he could take the bottle without our attention. Then the callous way in which he was trying made me feel that he was not that smart. He might be a poor fellow like the one who would ask you for money or food at the pavements near Esplanade and I thought how people like these could get into this sophisticated and civilized(?) shopping mall. But then the dress of that guy was saying against it. So I was trying to develop a third line of thought like this guy may be a victim of the disease I have just heard about but haven’t faced in reality – kleptomania. While I could think about one more line of such thought, a graceful gentleman with a little embarrassment in his face came running towards our table, and took the kid in his control, and said sorry to us. And then while he was busy feeding his child with some food and coke that he has just brought from the counter, I was still thinking about reasons why that fellow did it. And the gal who was accompanying me asked me if I would get angry if she did something. She wanted to give that guy one of the chocolates I brought for her. I paused to work out reasoning behind the child’s action and looked at her. I felt I am once again in love with this simple girl who earns mere 5 thousand a month working 10 hours a day and 6 days a week inside a cramped textile workshop in one of the filthy streets of Burrabazar. It’s not that how you live makes you great; it’s just about how you think. While I was thinking in an exactly different line, - of logic and reasons like most other civilized chap, this girl did try to make that kid a bit happier if she could.
Often when I think that this gal is not mine and someone else’s girlfriend, I feel I am guilty if I love her. But the thing that I believe now is no matter if she is having a boyfriend or not, no matter whether I am the one to marry her or not, no matter what other people would think about me if they know I am dating someone else’s girlfriend, there’s nothing wrong in loving a truly good person by nature. And I am proud to be in half love with my half-girlfriend once again.
Post Script: When she offered the chocolate to that kid, his father was happier than the kid, and that made me happy. Later, before parting, the gentleman came to us and conveyed his sincere thanks and said that he hails from Bangladesh and came here for the treatment of his child, and the child is really enjoying in Kolkata, and he is so pleased to be here that he is not even game to go back to his motherland. The city has won the heart of even that spastic child. And sometimes, the word WIN reminds me of its Bengali equivalent, JOY. Kolkata, like the extraordinarily ordinary girl of my story you are so wretched a city, but only now I know why people call you the city of joy!
I am generally a reserved kind of guy, but when I am with her I am too much talkative, and I guess this is the story of all others who fall in love, or at least in half love like me. And I interrupt her so much while she speaks. She, like, I guess, many other cute girls, has this habit of turning and twisting her fingers, palm, and hands in peculiar shapes to carry out the non-verbal part of her communications. And that’s something I am in love with. And often while she speaks, I either gape at those funny gestures, or interrupt her with a word or two of mine, and she gets annoyed and violent (violent with not sword or machine guns, but with bombs of tear drops that she sheds so frequently, to win the battle even before start). My frequent interruption hurts her as she thinks we have too little time together to complete the conversations with so many such interruptions of mine. And the sight of tears dropping and dripping on top of her plate of Mongolian Noodles makes me sad, and I take the oath (again and again) not to interrupt her in future. We have small fights like this almost everyday.
But there is something that binds us together despite all these tussles - the sheer liking for each other. I don’t know why on earth she likes me. But I know why I do. We were watching this controversial movie that has tried its bit to make the point clear – no matter which religion you follow you can be classified in either of two ways. Either you are a good person or a bad one. And sometimes, I ponder over these lessons, and feel sorry about it. I feel sorry because though I personally have no communalism at all, sometimes we are compelled to behave in a different way as we are guided by our traditions, social practices and our family values. We all love to see the onscreen chemistry of SRK and Kajol, who hail from two different religions in the story and still get married. But I wonder how many of us would dare to follow this. Won’t we hesitate a lot before going for an inter-religion marriage? Forget inter-religion affairs, we even get many a hiccups to accept an inter-caste marriage even in this age of Twitter and Wikimapia. The other aspect of the movie is about accepting people who are having some sort of abnormality. When we see SRK acting in the role of an autistic person and somebody is making fun or laughing at him, we become suddenly so rebellious to stop that person at once. But once the two-and-half-hours-drama is over do we really take home that newly developed mentality? No, I guess. We just dump it outside the theatre hall, and while on our way home, if we see a spastic child or an autistic man, we be the same devils as we were previously, and we take the lead to mock at them without a prank of conscience. Inspired by movies, stories, and books on personality development, we take the oath to be a good man, but sometimes we fail in real life.
But here is this different story. After watching the movie we headed towards the terrace of the BURP food court atop Forum Mall. And there while we were enjoying time together, a kid, about 13/14 years in age, well dressed, came to us with a weird facial expression, he was delighted to see the bottle of coke kept on our table, and said something incoherently to I don’t know whom while trying to extend his hand towards the coke. We were astonished at this and I had so many thoughts running in my mind. First it reminded me of a guy who could try to be an extra smart kid and checked if he could take the bottle without our attention. Then the callous way in which he was trying made me feel that he was not that smart. He might be a poor fellow like the one who would ask you for money or food at the pavements near Esplanade and I thought how people like these could get into this sophisticated and civilized(?) shopping mall. But then the dress of that guy was saying against it. So I was trying to develop a third line of thought like this guy may be a victim of the disease I have just heard about but haven’t faced in reality – kleptomania. While I could think about one more line of such thought, a graceful gentleman with a little embarrassment in his face came running towards our table, and took the kid in his control, and said sorry to us. And then while he was busy feeding his child with some food and coke that he has just brought from the counter, I was still thinking about reasons why that fellow did it. And the gal who was accompanying me asked me if I would get angry if she did something. She wanted to give that guy one of the chocolates I brought for her. I paused to work out reasoning behind the child’s action and looked at her. I felt I am once again in love with this simple girl who earns mere 5 thousand a month working 10 hours a day and 6 days a week inside a cramped textile workshop in one of the filthy streets of Burrabazar. It’s not that how you live makes you great; it’s just about how you think. While I was thinking in an exactly different line, - of logic and reasons like most other civilized chap, this girl did try to make that kid a bit happier if she could.
Often when I think that this gal is not mine and someone else’s girlfriend, I feel I am guilty if I love her. But the thing that I believe now is no matter if she is having a boyfriend or not, no matter whether I am the one to marry her or not, no matter what other people would think about me if they know I am dating someone else’s girlfriend, there’s nothing wrong in loving a truly good person by nature. And I am proud to be in half love with my half-girlfriend once again.
Post Script: When she offered the chocolate to that kid, his father was happier than the kid, and that made me happy. Later, before parting, the gentleman came to us and conveyed his sincere thanks and said that he hails from Bangladesh and came here for the treatment of his child, and the child is really enjoying in Kolkata, and he is so pleased to be here that he is not even game to go back to his motherland. The city has won the heart of even that spastic child. And sometimes, the word WIN reminds me of its Bengali equivalent, JOY. Kolkata, like the extraordinarily ordinary girl of my story you are so wretched a city, but only now I know why people call you the city of joy!
I am proud to have you in my life...........!
ReplyDeleteand I also feel proud.....when I think that, .....I love you.....