I Love You

September 6, 2015 by Usha Pisharody 14 Comments

Once upon a time there lived this girl, who walked with her head in the clouds, her feet barely on Mother Earth. The world was kind to her, in that she rarely tripped, or even met with an accident. A silly, foolish girl, no doubt, but one supremely confident and buoyant, solely dependant upon herself for her own entertainment, and support 🙂 The kind who smiles gaily at dogs, cats and kids. Who stops for a bit of hopscotch and a game of marbles by the park. Who reads poetry aloud, to the birds in that park. Who talks to the peanut vendor, and corner shop grocer. My kind of girl. It wasn’t her looks, hair blowing in the breeze, or the crows feet crinkling the corners of her eyes, the absolute “young”ness of her smile, spontaneous – it was her love, of life, and every breath. You did not have to speak to her to know her kindness.

So. who am I? Just a foolish lad, so in love with her, ever since she stumbled in so cliched a way, into his life. Carrying, don’t hold your breath, a few baskets of flowers, to deliver in the apartment block where my mother lived.  😀 That I turned a stalker, to simply fill my life with her beauty was a given.

Ingredients for the mushiest of stories, ain’t it? And me the Mush specialist – such a sinner against gender stereotypes. I’m a writer, by the way, who does them dime a dozen romance novels, where everything goes wrong, except the ending. I love you  is me, and what’s more, I believe in each and every story I write.

So you can well understand my predicament, when I did not have to woo her; she was unwooable, as adorable as she was. She had to need me. And she did not. How can a man not fall in love with a delight like that? How? You probably have the same answer a lot of my friends have – that it’s entirely stupid of me to have fallen in love. With the unloveable. Duh.

So here we are. I wrote them stories, she delivered flowers. She became my world, and I barely inhabited hers.

I had to do something proactive, to spur a direction to the one sided romance – shake up the impasse I had reached.

Nothing like taking the bull by the horns, I wince, as I think. A bull, for heavens’ sake!

To take that bull, sorry, the young lady by surprise, I decided to ambush her as she walked to the park that afternoon, book in hand. Joining her from behind a conveniently placed gulmohar tree, whose flowers I distractedly notice have laid a red carpet at our feet, I smile at her. She smiles back, cheerfully.

What are you reading? 

Oh, Rabindranath Tagore. It’s his “Gitanjali”.

Ah. Soulful. I was feeling the feel by then! Make me thy endless lute…? Flute? I seem to have forgotten. Near hysterical laugh, quickly suppressed.

Oh! How wonderful! You know his verse?

Well, “Where the Mind is without Fear”, is the extent of it, though a hazy memory of the first verse lingers in the essence of the lute? Flute? I was finished, for sure!

She read aloud, right there, in the middle of the path:

“Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.

This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.

At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.

Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill.”

And then she paused. Looked at me. Simply looked, and smiled a slow sweet smile.

Come and sit with me, she said, and if you like, I’ll read some more.

Thank you. Please, I’d love to listen… 

She read, and endless was my pleasure. So bottomless was the depth of the love, for her, that surged within.

I love you, I do.  I whispered, somewhere between her reading, content that I could say it, and to her. It suddenly did not matter whether she heard it, or would respond. It simply did not. For I did, and at that moment, that was all I needed to do.

23 August, 2015 / 6 September, 2015

Apparently there is an “I Love You” day, supposedly, allegedly 23 August. I received a forward that day, with instructions to send it onward to a number of people within so much of time, else be prepared for bad luck… yada yada yada. I sent it back to the self same person (who shall not be named 😛 ) that many times 😀 Then began this… but it kind of petered out sadly. Today it became my mission to finish it. Don’t like to leave unfinished drafts. They niggle and nudge and do not let one be 😛 So today, this one wrote itself out. All credit to the forwarder and the write – not writer 😛 😛

Image courtesy Google search for “I love You” 😛