Best man wins. I ‘m yet in the game.

To the most refreshing flower of my garden,

It’s over three months, since I wrote to you for the last time.

You must be little curious to know as to how I have been doing?

Even if that is not the case, I don’t mind.

There is no comfort in complaining on things that you cannot do much about.

Not all the stories I tell need to be heard by people. Isn’t it?

I have a hilarious story to tell you anyways, to begin with.

‘Are you married’ Dr.Updhyaya, a coach who came to conduct a training session for us last month asked me.

‘ Yes .. for the last 10 years’ I said.

‘ Vowww..you look young; what’s your age?’ he seemed surprised.

“Difference could be just 2 years by which either I’m younger to you or older to you” I answered with greatest composure.

‘What do you mean, I’m 45..’ he softly bit his lower lips with his upper teeth, overtly shrunk his eyes and kind of interrogated - as though I was playing a comical ploy.

‘Come January, I’ll be hitting 40’ I answered, unperturbedly.

‘Man.. I thought you are some 28-30’ he smilingly responded.

I defended, ‘…it is just that some people won’t easily accept their defeat and fight an untiring battle to surprise themselves ’

****

I’m posting my latest photograph to show you as to how do I look, these days.

Trust me; there is no makeover, except the sepia effect that a friend of mine who clicked this photograph has treated the snap with.

Tricks of the time seem to have left a little bearing on my looks as much as they have done over my attitude towards life.

I’m nearing forty but not old.

Years have been getting added to life; not age.

Age after all is mind over matter and I won’t mind things that do not matter to me.

Ten odd grey strands of hair besides giving me a mature look offer me an academic reason to claim that I too have grey cells.

Although, I’m losing hair but I’m not bald.

I no more live to earn; perhaps earn to live in categorical denial with the Maslow’s hierarchies.

I haven’t gained the world’s best riches though, but I have nothing left with me to lose. Or, I have not gained anything that I would lose and repent.

Life runs an undeclared nemesis by giving me many unsolicited things by blocking the things that I ask for. And I realize that just I happen to be one amongst the six and an odd billion deprived folks, in this world.

I do not know whether I’m walking or running, but life is in motion.

I no more yearn for long lonely moon nights, but prefer dark nights that assure me a sound sleep.

Amidst many statements that by far are my expressions in doubt, there is one thing that is firm; my endless connection with you.

***

Am I writing this letter to congratulate myself?

No, not really.

I’m truly not in a plight to earn a decorous distinction to my personality that I seem to be getting to know less, as I walk past, year after year.

By no wild stretch of imagination, would I ever call myself even ‘a remotely a perfect man’.

Lack of perfection doesn’t however mean that, the man is bad.

I also want to dare other men, at this moment.

I’m more than convinced that no man was born and died as a gentleman.

Thank god, we saved this world by not letting it to become yet another heaven.

What a misery would it have been to live in a perfect and a pious world with angels clung onto harp?

***

That said, what is the darkest secret and deepest urge yet alive with me?

I think, a saree clad old woman with her well shaped heavy breasts still in place, perfectly covered by a veil slightly revealing her whitish but flat belly as well as her clean and a shiny back, can still drive me nuts. And that’s my dark secret!

Alas.. is there one, meeting the above standards?

I may sound harsh, but many of the Indian women have a desire to have a perfectly toned but a stapled body with rarely visible flab, but have no discipline to have one. One in thousand is the standard.

Thank lord; the high standards in a way, have deprived me of my most investigational crush.

Let me get, a little serious, candid and contemplative.

Actually, what stopped me from being bold is the love and respect I have developed towards Uma, over these years. Take a heed over these two categorical words: love and respect.

Love -because she waited till I returned - to be and to become her husband, sharply defending her belief in an institution called ‘Hindustani Marriage’.

Respect - because she created not one but two lives through her delicate womb and brought them into this tough world. How can any man be so stupid and unappreciative to not to acknowledge such a stirring miracle that many woman create on earth?

Man is no more the same man, once he sees his woman transforming into a mother, less as an object of recreation and reproduction. This thought, seemed to have redefined my standpoint on a woman, generally.

Uma helps me see a different but a simple world and I see the same world, often with complexity.

This difference makes two of us; distinct poles of a battery unaffectedly placed apart, yet united.

The very contrast and the design keep us charged.

She has accepted me just the way I’m.

Though she desires some changes in me, but makes no fuss about the unchanging irregularities. Like all the women, she too has something about her husband rather she wishes away. But she knows that her man like many (any) is a man of few mistakes. She has no qualms over it for she knows that life is like a white space with couple of black spots. When people mark the white spaces with a black marker and ask ‘what do you see’, the immediate response is ‘a black mark’.

Alas, such a wide-open-white space gets ignored!!

Must you have a black mark, at all?

Answer is no.

Because you have one or two marks, do you become characterless?

Answer is no.

The true respect in the relationship surfaces, the moment when the two people in a relationship accept each other not because of similarities in the way they expect, but irregularities in the way they conduct.

Best thing is, she doesn’t have a single benchmarked man, to tally me with.

None truly exist, and she is aware of it. And she has no intention to worship me as a god on earth.

Though she saw me dropping off many of the bad evils and not pick-up new one, the only unsolved mystery remains between us is, your existence.

While she understands that my obsession over you is more literary and not a literal one, what she doesn’t understand is the rationale behind the attraction.

She often wonders whether you exist in real terms as one of my past flings or you are just there in my mind as an illusionary character that I have concocted.

My attempt to convince the objective meaning behind my obsession over you only compounds the confusion. Uma, I and you form an interesting triangle like many bollywood potboiler; let its glory be manifested through its complexity for few more days, not by its relative rudiments.

None should stand before an ocean to count the waves, after all.

With spurts of intellect and abundant stupidity, with dimming mischief and the strengthening obedience, I today am a repackaged item, set to pen few more letters and dedicate them to you.

What makes my pen write is not the pain of my mistake with you, but abundant pleasure that I have had while making mistakes with you.

Am I making one more by writing to you? I do not know and I do not want to know.

I have enough wrongs by my side, but not a single sin.

Best man wins. I ‘m yet in the game,

Un-tired and thriving to play and perfect the game.