Its been a long year, one that has curled around the edges, gone over fences, sometimes has hidden under silent cold blankets and shirked away the restlessness. All in a day's work, on a more macroscopic scale. Heh.
There's so much to talk about, and yet nothing seems pertinent enough. Everything is, though. Pertinent enough to be not talked about, that is. So, i'll try and trace back, to a time, when I could tell the difference. A jealous lill kid, betrayed by the fact that the love of my life, the one who i gazed at starry eyed, Hrithik Roshan exchanged ceremonial garlands with his childhood sweetheart. Names dint matter, even then. So anyway, not being a regular follower of the Bollywood gossip streams, it came to me as quite a shock, staring at me right out of a newspaper (I'll confess, that by then my adulation had died down only by a mere inch, which is why I had not kept up with the whispers around B town, but I was too vain to admit that. I still am. Nevermind.) A diligent and faithful, starry eyed fan, I obediently followed up and lapped up all the stories the media generated about how the subject of my (and a million other women/girls/both) adoration, finally married his childhood sweetheart. Over the years, the media made their real life seem like reel life - the ones where the happy couple, walks off happily ever after into the sunset, and that is pretty much the end of the road.
A good few minutes ago, I read about the 'will last forever' couple having issued individual statements to the media about their split up and impending divorce. Still, not a regular follower of Bollywood channels, this news too came to me as quite a shock. Not that this time it triggered personal emotions (I like to believe that I've grown up beyond fandom, except for, when it comes to Johnny Depp), nevertheless, I yet again lapped up all media speculations that the first page of Google search would give me. The media did what it does - speculate and spin more stories, some very fancily titled with very badly edited images. One publication after another trying their best to get the scoop, make for a more spectacular story, sell a few more copies! The pandemonium of tragedy, when it strikes.
However, what was striking was the residual set of thoughts. About love, life and the likes of reminiscence. I, the self-proclaimed non-believer in all things pink and precious, was left a lill ajar. We all agree that 'happily ever after' does not exist, as much as leprechauns and topic change fairies do, but then what replaces it? The previous generations believed in 'ever after, happily or not', but we, as a generation of self-achievers, vouch our loyalties to 'happily, ever after or not'. Whatever works, works for us. 17 years later, i wonder what did not work with the couple that had the fairytale love story. It is perhaps the same thing that does not work for most of us - Life. I keep talking about it, but what really happens when the fairytale ends? And it ends, mind you. Life becomes mundane, where romance is replaced by 'these socks need to be washed', where the zing dissolves into Zinger burgers, where those consuming electric stares become blank ones of thoughtfulness that is inevitably followed by a 'huh?' That is perhaps the chemistry then, that you're expecting to be kissed underneath the stairs, such that the thought does not get your heart racing like it used to. Excerpts become rituals, excitement becomes regular and eagerness becomes reticence. You and me becomes us. But is that not what we wanted from the day we perceived the tension blooming? Perhaps is, but we humans, in our silly follies and inability to hold on to contentment, overlook the pitfalls of familiarity that we so desperately crave. Sometimes, I can even extricate myself from this endless loop to see the consequences of merely peripheral vision.
It is perhaps wise, to accept then. That we fail, to want without the law of marginal utility. But we succeed simultaneously, in keeping intact, the transient totes of love. Perhaps, it is ok, to be dejected and crib about how you barely ever are caught off-guard anymore. Perhaps, it is ok, to be then caught off-guard, complaining then.
Trouble is, that you always knew, that the legendary butterflies in the stomach are transient. As is the cocoon and the caterpillar. Tranformation, though, is what they call Life. And it happens.
A few days ago, giving precious words of advice to a friend who is currently in the 'I'm not sure what I want from this' stage of courtship, I relayed 'Stay unsure for as long as you can manage to. After that, the teas will seem to lack the flavour - the one that the zing of conversation added!' A trail I've been trying t trace around and over, step aside the precarious hidden trenches, jump over some of the not-so-hidden ones, finally seems to be catching up with me. And I am still not very sure, if I am actually complaining.
