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Love and loss part I

Ariza | 19 June 2006, 10:45pm


If you live long enough, loss is inevitable. So when I began an informal friendship with an old anglo-indian neighbour of mine for a few free drinks in his yellow-light filled apartment I expected it to have no impact on me. But i suppose that in this life he was a stifled story-teller, a writer may be, and when he began recollecting his life in short glimpses for me I simply could not let it rest. These churned the half baked ideas inside my head and left me more battered than confused.

The theme that runs through all of them is Love. Mr.Miguel, childless, who lives alone in his flat now, loved his wife. It is a statement I can attest to with my own observation. Each day early in the morning I would see them walking down the road on their way to the church immersed deep in their conversation of what topics I could never make out. I remember one cold foggy winter day in particular: On their way back Mrs. Miguel met an old friend who offered to take her home on her two wheeler, Mrs.Miguel was suffering with a painful leg ailment then, and she agreed. It was only when I saw Mr.Miguel burst out of the fog looking like he had been hit by something and like he was rushing home to get it fixed did I realise what he was missing: his wife.

He hasnt been to the church since his wife died. Our association began that same year when he called me to fetch the christmas cakes with the same unchanged expression on his face and then to prove it that he was ok he asked me if I wanted a drink. We were on. The first story he ever told me was about a dinner soon after his marriage when he had asked some collegues home. He thought that it went well until late in the night when he woke up to find his young wife crying beside him.

"How could you do this to me?" she asked.

"do what?"

"You knew that I had an exam tommorow and you still called them. I have spent the whole evening cooking so that you dont look bad and now I am tired. My exam is ruined. A whole year gone."

He didnt know that. He tried to console her without much conviction and fell asleep thinking that she would get over it by morning. A little while later he woke up again when his wife came up to him and shook his sleep out for the night.

"Dont sleep like that now. Help me with it." He was reluctant. He had to go to the office and what would she do with a degree anyway? (1950's remember.) But he still hadnt lost his bachelor-hood shyness around her. He took the book and started asking her some questions.

"Soon", he later told me, "I was in it." "It was history and she told me fascinating stories about now-long-dead-kings. I realised what all this meant to her."

I think he saw the passion in her eyes. He never doubted it again. She needed it with more intensity than he needed to do his mundane job. He guessed my thoughts and added:

"It was a legendary night because thats when I realised that I had got myself a fire brand."

Another time he told me about her dreams.

"She always had a grand way of dreaming" he told me. "Then she would wake up early in the morning and tell me about it and I could see it sometimes, like I had been there with her and I would be in a fantastic place because she dreamed in bloody cinemascope." It was GGGRand with a capital G I realised.

"She would tell me about hundreds of funeral pyres on a desolate river bed or of a rain forest with sky high trees looking down on her with suspiscion in her eyes. Sometimes I would wake up by the force of her dreams!"

She had been infectious too.

Somewhere along the line we had agreed that I wouldnt ask any questions and Mr.Miguel liked it because of that. Often I found him lost with his glass in his hand and then his eyes had that expression that said he could see something happen right in front of him and I knew I could be lucky if he agreed to transcribe it for me.

(to be continued)

Current Mood: Feeling Better
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Comments

  1. 1. By ariza  |  22 Jun 2006, 7:07pm

    you know what I would have to be old to write this well. Right now I am just in love.


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