Broken Love

Our Satyam Days, part XIX

Among the good things lurked an aberration of a friend's deceit:

Jealousy and envy—a dangerous tandem of mind pollutants for any offense to others—are classic examples of how they can unleash profound emotional disturbances and wreak havoc in people's lives. It can be that serious. When these emotions become intertwined or mutually exploitative in a person's misguided thought processes, or when they have 'self-centred' opinions about a 'situation' (that was not of his making), they can damage relationships so severely that they may never regain their former innocence nor do they get to mend: whether they are only a day old or have persisted for months or years.

Contrary to what Kavitha tended to think, she quickly had her staunchest ally, her best friend Una Artoran, on her side as she became snug within the noxious belief system rug that people in her part of the world were partaking in, and like a classic case of a ‘Tandavi’ in the gory act of metaphorically shooting down the flight of dreams, which were those of her friend Una and her beau, fumed to the teeth, shattered the hopes they were beginning to have for a bright future together, that Kavitha, in her moment of, what shall we call it, frustration and fierce anger boiling inside her, unfairly jumped as though straight off the cliff of the gross conclusion her close-minded pettiness could fathom that one of her colleagues might have a thing or two or might be involved with someone named Ann.

Kavitha felt her best friend was in for a sure-shot betrayal or some hare-brained similar nonsense that nobody needed but her; thinking this to be a red flag, Kavitha, who was constantly in the habit of becoming green with envy just on a whim, browbeaten Una's unwary, easily deceived sensibilities.

Strange that Una found no compelling reason to check out the sickening antecedents of her so-called dear friend Kavitha, who was perhaps taking her life to go down blithely in a very different direction altogether than she would have wanted had she continued living in this town.

All this ho-hum absurdity instantly provided our colleague Kavitha her spicy gristmill fodder for well-deserved stressful spells, even as she sat bolt upright like a WWE's Undertaker or a strict nun stirred up abruptly from her sweet sleep in her office chair, burning with vengeful jealousy, racial animosity, and begrudging resentfulness, all colliding simultaneously in her fervently paranoid brain as she began frantically to make phone calls which she did throughout the day, desperately misinterpreting a reality so obvious she could never bring her mind to believe: No wonder then that the bare truths were twisted out of proportion for swift consumption for whom so ever concerned in her lunatic enterprise, dispatching her prejudiced sermons one after another first over the phone and then in person to her staunch ally, her bestie who worked at a financial organization situated on the east side of town, and who—unbeknownst to her: that her so-called fast friend Kavitha's unfortunately wrongful bent of mind worked overtime to commit a professional level of immoral hara-kiri that no one could suspect or feel anything of, least of all Una herself—had been driven to relocate to another state down south, and abandoning a blossoming relationship of the romantic persuasion during those brief but unforgettably beautiful months that all but had perished like a premature love fruit right before all our eyes.

+*+*+*+

He poured his heart and soul into his dream of Una, the girl of his waking life, who, as he fondly recalled those days, sparkled in the enchanting moonlight of '98 when the evening sun was slowly dipping below the horizon. He treasured every passing moment, anxiously waiting until she arrived at the little underground coffee shop, his heart racing with anticipation.

Catching a glimpse of her face at the coffee shop and in that ephemeral moment of sitting enthralled like a star-crossed couple opposite each other at a romantic table, he felt captivated. Her lips formed a delicate, straight line that slightly curved into a pink smile, radiating an enchanting quality that seemed almost magical-surreal to belong to this world of immortals. A soft, warm blonde light glowed within her beautiful, alluring persona, creating an aura of magic and elegance that defied conventional beauty perfections of the time. Her curly hair framed her face like falls of shining silk, accentuating her luminescent dark eyes and adding to the allure surrounding her fairy-like persona…

…Sadly, a few months thence, he found himself surprised, entrapped in the cold, unfeeling shadow of an unfulfilled fantasy love story that didn't go so far as to stop hoping for Una altogether, still holding close to her lovely memory as nothing short of a lifeline. But it also meant running up against Kavitha's cunning deceit, which severely damaged his relationship with Una beyond all hopes of the redemptive power of love, which he somehow knew was only a novelistic trope, and there's nothing else to it. His little dreams for the future with Una had suddenly become unattainable and elusive. With each passing day, he became more entrenched in the steadily accumulating memories of the past while his dreams slipped further and further away from his grasp. Their love was beautiful, a love filled with joy. However, his colleague Kavitha's perfidious intentions shattered everything he and Una had just started to build together. 

Time will heal the wounds of yesteryears, although the heartbreak never fully mended.

+*+*+*+

The world around him remained indifferent, just like Kavitha and her ilk had been toward his most cherished dream of Una: never coming true and being forgotten gradually. As he grappled with the raw vulnerability of his unfulfilled prospect of trying to be true love, he felt the emotionally draining consequence of disappointing friendships of her kind weighing on him as if the heavens were falling and the end of life had been a long time coming. None of those beautiful dreams had come true, and deep within him, a troubling reflection of reality had finally emerged: How could they ever come true? And what was he thinking?

Here's hoping against all hope that, at least now, Kavitha can see things clearly, enabling her to resurrect the flawed beliefs that fooled her before when she worked with us at Satyam. While it may not change the past, it no longer makes a difference. But still.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

Note: The account presented above is merely a product of my imagination—a mosaic crafted from the spectre of idle thoughts, which I concede are often whimsical or downright peevish, playing tricks on my mind, nothing more than habitual thought processes running on autopilot in me, if you will. 

I'm barely tethered to reality anymore.