Love Redefined
Mala Rasaily
Katmandu
I am Sudha Mehta, a 40-year-old woman happily married for 20 years and presently working in a Government office 9am-5pm. Today is a special day for me as it is a holiday. Who else can understand the value of a day off more than a working woman-cum-housewife? So today with a thought to spend some good time with myself, I went for a day walk. After a few hours, I felt hungry so I decided to go to the nearest cafeteria to have lunch.
I sat on a corner table and ordered my favorite food.
Till I was served with it, I looked around. To my right was a couple seeming to have a serious conversation almost audible due to distance proximity.
Boy: Saaya, do you even know how much difficult is it for me to stay without you?
Girl: Karan, it is the same for me too but my entire carrier depends on it. Just 2 years Karan. Iam doing this for our future. Don’t you trust me?
Karan: It is not that I don’t trust you. At least I won’t have chosen you to get married unless I have trusted you. You know, Saaya, we both are unconditionally in love with each other for 5 years. But even today I can’t hold your hand in front of 2 people. Don’t you feel a need to be knotted in a relationship? You can do all this even after marriage.
Saaya: Karan let’s be practical. With your single earning, it is difficult for you to run your family and carry on your study. I don’t want to add to your problems. Same is the problem with my family who are waiting for completion of study of their only light of hope in the darkness of their financial crisis. They have given their whole life for me. If I am not able to give them happiness, at least I don’t have the right to hurt them. Plus I too want to stand on my own feet with my own dignity. Please try to understand me.
Karan: (Pauses)
Saaya: Speak Karan.
Karan: You are too good for me, you are so much practical that I can never see you wrong. At any point you are always correct. But…
Saaya: Love means patience too…
Karan: Ok Saaya, respecting your feelings…
Saaya:(interrupts Karan’s speech) Promise me Karan that we shall not meet for 2 years or till I become something because I can’t see you like this in so much pain. Your pain flows down my cheeks as tears and I don’t want you to be my weakness. I want you to be my strength.
Karan: (After taking a deep breath) Ok, Saaya go and fulfil your dreams. I will not stop you. But remember, a piece of my heart is not only literally but practically going away from me with you. Life shall not be same for me from tomorrow but I believe in our love. (Bringing an artificial smile) May be by then I will also become mature, understanding and earn a good life for you.
He holds her hand on his. They promise to meet in the same place after 2 years.
Both try to hide their painful emotions at the departure which isn’t incomprehensible to a stranger.
THE FAITH SIDE OF LOVE.
My lunch came. It was too hot. I thought to leave it so that it’d cool down. Accidentally my eyes fell on a 20-25 year young boy who came following a nearly 36-38 year old woman in a rush. They sat just in my front table.
The young boy seemed nervous, sad and impatient.
But the woman seemed calm.
At first I thought she was a strong mother advising her son. But I felt awoken from a dream
When the conversation followed:
Woman: When would you stop following me? What do you want? I told you it is not possible. What will the society tell? Damn! I am nearly of your mother’s age.
Boy: I am sorry if I caused any trouble to you. But love doesn’t believe in or need any rationality. I love you for what you are and my love won’t end only because you were born before me. I don’t want any big commitment; just allow me to meet you once a day.
Woman: Why do you love me so much? Do you know, boy, there is no destination of this relationship. I am married and I have 2 children and a loving family.
Boy: But do you have that person in your life who will understand your feelings before you speak out, a guy who shall not leave your hands even in crowd; who will make your freezing hands warm in winter by keeping it in his hands; who will see all the pain in your eyes; who will promise you that whatever difficulties and problems that happen in life shall pass through him before affecting you; who loves you for what you are; who remembers and cares the smallest things of yours; who cries for you. Please give me a chance to prove that my words are true as my prayers for god…..
The boy’s voice seemed shaken as if he would cry…
He was unable to control his emotions and may be suddenly he realized where he was and so he was about to stand and leave the table.
Then a miracle happened. The woman stopped him by holding his hands.
Woman: (looking on the floor) I know it is impossible, I know it is not right, I know I should let you go now, but I shall not be able to look at myself again in mirror if I let you go today because it was the love that every girl waits for………….It was the love I was waiting since I was 20. Since I met you, I too have same feelings for you but I thought what society will say so the best way I found was to detach and stay away from you but now…………(she whispers) I will try to manage don’t get upset!
Both walked outside the restaurant together.
When they walked past me, I felt a need to take a deep breath. Oh my god! What are these people thinking of? Can’t they even see how their future will be after few years? This 2 people are about to ruin their life with their own hands. What is going wrong with their minds? Then I came to know it is that which inactivates the thinking capacity of minds in which a person feels the world shall be more beautiful place than heaven to live with that person and without that person life is worse than hell! As if the world would end and he/she becomes ready to do anything to get that person in his/her life whether it is right or wrong who has time to think?
THE BLIND SIDE OF LOVE.
Whoever told, falling in love is absolutely true.
I began to have my lunch. I am really a foodie. I like no interruption when I am eating. I like to concentrate totally and completely on my food. But it wasn’t possible that day because the conversation happening on my nearest front table really shook me. God! It’s the day of wonders for me. Two love stories completely contrasting from our times were demonstrated in front my eyes in the restaurant and frankly speaking I wasn’t mentally prepared for this third one. A love story that only less than half of population can understand, half of them can accept them in our society and even their half may rarely fall in such love.A girl named Tejasvee, as I heard, was sitting next to girl named Dristi.
Dristi: Do you know, Tejasvee, it has been 2 years since the day I first saw you.
Tejasvee: How can I forget that day, Dristi?
Dristi: But till today, we are not able to give a name to our relationship.
Tejasvee: It is more than a dream come true for me to get you in my life. I don’t want anything else.
Dristi( Holding Tejasvee’s hands): Same here my love! I can’t even think of my life without you. But how long will we continue to hide our feelings in front of others. Frankly speaking, how long will we continue to meet like this? Till when will we say ‘no’ to all marriage proposals in our family.
Tejasvee: Until all proposals end (she laughs).
Dristi: Are you joking? I am serious.
Tejasvee: Dristi, according to me ,we shouldn’t worry for things that we can’t change even if we try.But even if the world can’t change for us, Dristi, we too won’t change ourselves for this world. It would be a betrayal to continue a relationship with anyone else because I am desperately in love with you Dristi. The day I proposed you, I had the courage to face the world in case whatever happens.
Dristi: That’s the reason I loved you because you are so sure of what you want. In your presence, I can be really what I am and above all you complete me.
Tejasvee smiled. Thought something and whispered a few words in her ears. Probably something not to be said in a public place.
I guessed it must be some intimate things between two lovers which this society won’t allow them to speak in normal voice volume.
Dristi( seems serious): Are you sure?
Tejasvee(nods in a yes)
Dristi: Ok I will come to your house tomorrow (seems a bit nervous).
After having coffee, Tejasvee kissed Dristi in her hands and both left the restaurant. I watched them breatheless. After going out of the restaurant, they bade goodbye to each other and walked to the opposite directions.
I felt as if I was seeing a dream or as if I ended up reading a book and couldn’t even draw a conclusion. I felt a mixed response. First I felt pity for those 2 girls. I wished if only one of them would have been a boy what a perfect love story it could have been. But still… isn’t it possible for one heart to love the other. May be this is a question I could never have an answer to.
THE ABSTRACT SIDE OF LOVE
I felt like I was again awoken from a dream when the waiter said,‘anything else ma’m?’. I went to the counter with heavy feet thinking all about those 3 love stories I saw today. I felt more tired than on a work day.
I walked out of the restaurant thinking maybe this is a generation gap between love stories of our time when a boy rarely proposed a girl and came to ask her hand with her parents and the the most complicated love stories of modern times. But…finally something struck my mind. I came to a conclusion but in both cases love is same, feelings are the same. Both have a power to cross every hurdles of life, both have power to make a decision, it can never be left in a half way. If it is left in a half way, it has capacity to come to a conclusion, if it can’t then for sure human emotions have been misunderstood and it is not LOVE.