CHAPTER 24 - My Broken Love

Love, Loss, Loneliness and Longing, part 8

*My Broken Love

Much later, when our vastly-complimented (and derided even) affair of love and longing began inviting envious stares and glares from the jealous people such as Savitha, everything about us suddenly began their downward spiral; we let our love affected by what people like Savitha thought was a mistake; it felt abandoned as if falling on the wayside – yes, all thanks to the misgivings, misjudgments, and back-stabbers, and my unintentional glowering at some despicable people of miserable gumption. 

It was tough fighting to keep the world of the antagonistic crowd like Savitha Tandavi at bay. Open indignation and insufferable crudeness on the part of our own friends had become noxious for us to bear. Monami Roy chucked out too. My sudden and frequent lapses from my friends' lives had led them to believe that as if I have been transformed into a sort of organism of deceit and self-flagellation to boot; that I have no other concern, with the exception of chanting Una, Una, and Una all the time. That’s true but it was my business, not theirs! What a world we live in! Hah! Thankfully, Padmashri had unwittingly become a person with whom I had my emotional bereavement shared for some measure.

The unforgiving realm of remembrances and memories began to tug at my shattered heart after we broke up. The truth is we never did really 'broke up' per se; we simply did not pursue each other anymore. We let Savitha do the honours of breaking our relationship. Neither of us could 'unbreak' his/her heart to make amends. My relationship with Una - my ‘special someone’ - had ended abruptly. Needless to say, Savithas of the world were up and about throwing kitty parties to celebrate the end of my relationship with Una and visiting General Bazaar to buy a crazy salwar kameez or gobble down 10 beastly gupchups on the street leading to the raving, ranting Bazaar. Yes, it’s no doubt true. What uses a war of words with a loveless fawn-like Savitha would be? Nothing! But it really breaks one’s heart to even think of such a thing when one becomes face to face with a grief that is no less than a personal tragedy in itself. Satanic elements like Savitha shouldn’t have been a problem to deal with had I been a little more forthright. Alas, I was not one of those Hotheaded Stallions who’d let others harm you but not harm them in return. Some kind of person was I. My little love story was fed to the unkind ferocity of misunderstandings and false impressions that leaped up, with fangs bared, devouring our relationship wholly and completely – all thanks to the Resident Evil who shredded it at the first opportunity she got.

For one last time when I wrote to her, unloading all my heart’s content on to the spreadsheet of my Hotmail, I found myself reasoning with her that if I had to take umbrage at anybody in the world for our love to have resulted to this end then it would be me, just me and my forsaken fate, and no one else but me.

I have no doubt that I may have sounded a little duplicitous then taking all the blame there was to be taken of our failed, ruined affair. But the truth was I had no way of telling her what I had actually gone through after all that had happened between us, but to shut my mouth and get lost was a better escape route. I had come round to concede that the onus was on me and not her; it was I who could not judge any potential damage slithering into our relationship slowly and ever so slowly like a fork-tongued serpent called Savitha Tandavi; until it couldn’t hold and gave way to falling apart. I got no reply from Una ever again; not even to the last email I had written to her with tears that my eyes could barely hold sitting in front of my office computer typing, typing slowly. 

This was also one of the reasons I could never forget our cubicle, our beloved roaming division, on the 5th-floor office of the Tesser Towers.

All throughout the last parts of the last millennium, particularly the romantic year of 1998 so to speak, I had been yearning, more like a loser, for those glorious days that I had spent at Satyam to come back just for one last time; yet I know they never at any point will. God bless Una… I knew there could nothing be amiss about Una choosing not to reply because stating the obvious was not her flair, never was; our relationship has obviously ended, and what was I thinking.

One last strand of memory: Rarely but when I have to go towards the SD Road or towards the now-defunct Sangeet cinema, my heart remembers to tug at my chest and unfailingly craves to have just one last look at the much-familiar long staircase leading up to her 2nd-floor office at O. Plaza. So many times have I been there to her office climbing up the flight of stairs to meet her, hold her hands and look into her eyes. So very often have we stood on the marble steps and talked for long periods of time before I had to drive away burning rubber and breaking all speed limits on the way to my office on Raj Bhavan Road. And those gorgeous eyes that looked down at me from her position of one flight of step up. I can still remember very vividly: holding her hands in mine, tickling her chin, feeling each passing moment as if sent from heaven, amidst the fragrance of our love, and not wanting to leave her there and go away... I never went there ever again. Those memories will never be forgotten even if I want to.

[The good old single-screen, 35 rupees' balcony, Sangeet theatre has been razed to the ground; it is no longer there! (That's reasoning enough for me to continue hating expensive multiplexes.) The last time I had been to Sangeet to see a film was probably in the year 2005. Back during the college days, I and my friend Strong Selvajar once saw two movies there back to back. The first one was Sleeping with the Enemy and the next one was Pacific Heights. We both liked the former better, although the latter was a good movie too. (That was only and the last time I ever saw two movies one after the other in a cinema theatre!) Many memories are associated with this much-loved theatre on SD Road. Sunel Goan-Kalay, Sateesh Eloor (both close buddies), Strong Selvajar, and Arinvan Maliek – all four of us used to go to Sangeet to see movies. I remember it used to feel so special and a warming experience altogether to visit it with friends and college buddies and see English movies there, often with a bottle of Coke or Thums Up in hand, and munching on chutney sandwiches, sometimes on egg puffs or onion samosas bought at the stalls - just too good to be true. Those days will never come back again. I still can’t believe why do they have to demolish such a historic landmark and build a stupid multiplex there? A clear case of greed I suppose.

After almost a year, I had called Padmashree Raoh once in the month of July 1999 and shed copious tears. I remember the exact month because the Hindi movie Mann was released that month. I saw the film and thought the story was mostly similar to my own doomed love story, except of course Manisha Koirala losing her legs in the movie (that was really preposterous if you ask me). Padmashree had persevered to say: “nazar lag gayi…Arinvan” of my relationship with Una. So true. Her understanding of my puppy-love confusion and her perseverance and thoughtful reasoning was right on dot.

I, a late-bloomer of sorts, always been, had been told that in the quest of my passion for Una Artoran, I forgot to be “rational” and “properly sensible” and a little “radical in approach”. While one can make out words like “rational” and “sensible”, but “radical”? I still have no clue on that one. All that I read in books and saw on TV and experienced it myself is that love knows no bounds, no religion, no caste or creed, and even no purport of words from the dictionary of Human language is required to define what Love is. What is required or one hopes for while in love, is simple, just, and pure unconditional god-like love - the meaning of love which is propounded by the Gods and Goddesses themselves for the human hearts to take an everlasting shade under. Yeah, right! (See I grew up, guys!).

Richard Marx has been “right here waiting” for his love to come back and so have I replaying the song - “where ever you go, whatever you do, I will be right here waiting for you…” – over and over. Is there an iota of truth in waiting for someone whom you once loved to come back? Let's say it is true. Hope floats.

END OF PART 8 OF ‘LOVE, LOSS, LONELINESS AND LONGING, part 8’

(To be continued...)

By Arindam Moulick

*Note: The above story Chapter 24 – My Broken Love is reproduced here verbatim from the original story titled "The Memory of Love, a short story" (web link: http://arindammoulick.blogspot.in/2011/07/memory-of-love-short-story.html) published here in my blog Pebbles On The Beach. "The Memory of Love, a short story" was written in the year 2011 with different character names (but same storyline) has found its way here as part of the chapter-wise presentation of my memoir "Lost Days of Glory, a Memoir". I have merely changed the character names of the original story with new names and additionally made some small changes (basically some words/sentences are put in a different way) in the overall narrative to suit the present storyline titled under “Chapter 24 – My Broken Love”. This is for the reader’s information only.

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. All incidences, places, and characters portrayed in the story are fictional and entirely imaginary. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental. No similarity to any person either living or dead is intended or should be inferred.