A Rendezvous and Thereafter

He came after the rains. It was a bright afternoon. There was nothing serendipitous or momentous about their meeting. He had just called her, said he would love to meet her and would drop in at her office on his way home from the airport. But still, she had chosen her dress with care – a black georgette salwar kameez, which was the best piece of clothing she had in her wardrobe. It was not flashy but elegant, she reassured herself.

When the office assistant called and said she had a visitor, she got up in such a hurry that her dupatta got entangled between the wheels of her chair. She cursed. She had been waiting for this moment all morning and she still had to be clumsy. She rushed to the bathroom, made faces at the mirror, pinched her taut cheeks unsuccessfully to get some healthy pink on them, and walked as calmly as she could to where he was waiting.

It might have been a coincidence, he was wearing a black shirt.

“Hi,” he said. “I am sorry I am a bit late, got delayed at the airport.” He smiled.

He was too fair, she thought, and not really tall. She liked his smile though. There was something quite open about it.

“Shall we go straight for lunch? It is quite late.” she asked in her most cultivated voice. First impressions are everything.

“Sure. Shall I call my driver to bring the car around?”

“Oh, no, it is just walking distance. Inside the gates.”

They walked down the Technopark campus. There was a stiff breeze blowing which was invigorating. She saw the lushness of Technopark with an outsider’s eyes. It was spellbinding but comforting too – the seductress and the soother. And then the massive stone man came into view, looking forever seaward – and something masculine creeps in, predicting storms and realizing dreams.

“Wow,” most people said that when they saw the statue for the first time.

They ate. They talked – and talked some more. She could not later remember what they spoke that day, however hard she tried. There were just two things fixed in her memory – a black mole on his biceps – no, just where the biceps and triceps muscles meet, the stickler in her corrected – and the way he bit his lower lip ever so slightly when he was thinking or listening. And he was a good listener.

When they parted that day, it was already evening. The sky was steamy red on the horizon, as if a master artist had painted a blazing scarlet on a whim. It looked passionate, erotic, caught unabashedly in the moment. They turned their eyes away.

“Are we meeting again?” She asked almost shyly.

“Yes, definitely. Aren’t we?” He asked back. “I have got something for you.” And he opened the car door and got out a small brown box. “They are Godiva truffles,” he explained.

“Thank you,” She said. It sounded exotic.

They met again, and again, and again. They had lunches and dinners together. She was the one who talked mostly, he listened. They typed long, meaningless e-mails. When he traveled for work, she pretended to get busy with work too. She was suffering from what she called Penelope syndrome. She claimed she was waiting for her Ulysses. She would weave and unweave imaginary tapestries. When they met again, they held hands. They dreamt of kissing each other. They argued. They wagered. If he won, he would kiss her. She lost. They kissed.

He asked, “Should we get married?”

“What do you think?” She asked back.

“I think yes.”

“Well, I think so too.” She was shy again.

“Shall we tell our parents? They would want to know.”

“Yes, I guess we should.”

That was how it happened. In a nutshell. They got married next April, on April 22 to be precise.

Afterword
Seven years have passed. He still has the mole, he still bites his lower lip. But as each day passes by, there are more things about him to add to my list of favorites. I still suffer from Penelope syndrome now and then. I still weave and unweave my tapestry, at least to kill time, forever being Penelope to my Ulysses.

My Cocoon, My World

Amrapali seldom saw beyond herself. She was the most valued asset of her nation, she was every man’s desire and every woman’s nightmare. All men craved for her, and she danced for the highest bidder – danced and did some more. She played with men’s lives and souls. She lived in her tightly woven cocoon of life and was not ready to step out – that was until Buddha’s path crossed hers.

We were practising hard for our dance drama on Amrapali, the famed courtesan of Vaishali – every poet’s dream and every philosopher’s victory. I just had a forgettable role in the whole dance drama – that of a stereotypical monk. I also had to double up as a maid-in-waiting for Amrapali (there was a clear dearth of forgettable dancers in our group). Although my role wasn’t as juicy as I wanted it to be, the whole enactment was brilliant and refreshing. We were exploring a little bit of the heroine’s psyche – an arrogant Amrapali, too sure of her worth, scheming to lure Buddha; a smitten Amrapali not quite knowing what there was in the saffron robe-clad monk that attracted her so; a bewildered Amrapali with her ever-increasing questions on life; a delirious Amrapali who saw Buddha everywhere; a surrendering Amrapali who gave up everything to claim nirvana – that holy grail for the soul.

When my whole five-minute bit practice session was over, I got back home, a question still rankling in my mind. Would I ever give up my comfortable cocoon for nirvana, just like Amrapali? Forsake the world as I know it and embrace a painless, lifeless existence? What is nirvana? Is it freedom from worries, freedom from sorrow, freedom from change, freedom from life? Would I ever step out of my concreteness for such a hard-to-define liberation?

All life is suffering. Change is suffering. Pleasure is transient. Thus spoke the enlightened Buddha. Attachment is the cause of misery. Detach yourself from the world and you will be free of suffering. Buddha charted out a gradual path of self-refinement to achieve that end. Once the suffering ends, you will attain nirvana. The four noble truths were thus born out of enlightenment.

If we could all enlighten ourselves, where would that lead the world? To human beings attuned towards higher happiness, where sensual craving gives way to monotonous bliss? To a perfectly staid society? To a lifetime of impeccable drabness?

I have built my cocoon with exquisite care. These are my walls of imperfection. This is my little niche in the vastness of an ever-changing world. My senses are my warp and weft. I lie, I cry, I suffer, I change, but those are my realities that I don’t want to trade – not for nirvana. I would rather live my life in all its transience. I decide. I don’t step out. I step back into my fortress, shut the gates, in a bungling attempt to keep myself safe.

If I had a say...

I am called Ruble. I don’t really like my name. If I had a choice, I would have called myself something less mercenary-sounding, like Tao or Buddha. Legend has it that my ancestor was a once-famous St. Bernard in Siberia, and they wanted to preserve my Russianness. They could have called me Dostoevsky or even Rasputin, I wistfully wish. But then, I really had no say in the matter.

My first memories of my childhood (or should I say puppyhood) are about this ridiculously big red bow I wore around my neck on my first trip home. My new owner had just bought me and he had tenderly placed me in a mothball-smelling wicker basket in the back seat of his car. He had miscalculated my size a little bit (by a wide margin rather) and I could barely squeeze in there. Then he flourished a flagrantly red ribbon out of nowhere and tied it quite ineptly round my neck. I must have looked silly trying to attack it with my slobbery mouth because he chuckled and ruffled my head. He gazed at me long with his kind eyes and gave me a hug. I think that must have won my heart. But if I could have had my way, I would have torn off that nasty red ribbon.

I realized soon enough that I was his present to the woman he loved, the woman of his life. I admit I was a bit skeptical initially, I think I am congenitally disinclined towards the opposite sex. But she was beautiful, tender, and so friendly. She declared in our first meeting that she loved me. She won my puppy heart too, and at first sight.

They got married that fall. It was a lavish Indian wedding with parents and relatives especially flown in all the way to LA from India. Cacophony was the theme. I had grown pretty big by then. A short-sighted, bald old man called me a cow. He couldn’t even get the genders right. I sulked. I got in everyone’s way. In retrospect, I think I enjoyed myself; although I would have enjoyed more if that bald old man had called me a bull.

I wish my story ends there with a boring happily-ever-after. But it doesn’t.

Two years went by in a lovers’ haze. Perhaps the headiness of love wears off after some time. Anyway, something went wrong somewhere. It started with arguments – on food, books, friends, parents, culture, bringing up, religion, god, dogs (!!!). I patiently sat through tears and outbursts. Then there were interminable silences, which were more difficult to handle. I said to myself that they still loved me and that was all that mattered to me. Until it struck me one fine day that they did not love each other anymore. If humans could fall out of love with each other, could they fall out of love with a dog? I panicked. I loved them so much.

Time came for that inevitable moving-on-in-life. Divorce was discussed. I hung in there, too sad to even think what would happen to me. Divorce was agreed upon. Was there going to be a custody battle for me? I did hear arguments on that. My vain heart rejoiced for an instant knowing that both of them loved me enough to fight for me. In the end, it was decided that I would stay with her. She would get the house and they did not want to take me away from my home. I was his gift to her after all.

One day, he came to say goodbye. He ruffled my head again and gazed at me long with his kind eyes. There were tears in them this time though. I wished I could cry too. He said he would come and visit me often. And he left. She hugged me and she cried.

If you ask me, they are two good people who used to love each other and who still love me. If you ask me, they could have had a lifetime of happiness, a lifetime of love, a lifetime of me (my lifetime, that is). But then, as with many things else, I really had no say in the matter.