Lost in translation..

To the hidden meaning of my life,

My colleague Sree Balaji asked me, a few months before “how has been the year 2013?”

“Stressful” was my instant response, as though life before was eternally tranquil.

We are crazy; every summer we say ‘oh… this summer is really hot’ as though the Indian roads in the earlier summer times were roofed with substantial snow and that was not ‘breaking news’ on our news channels.

Reactions, most of the time are derivatives of our short memories and often they reflect current state of our mind. For example, if someone asks me as ‘how has it been going,’ I wind back no more than 2-3 weeks and say ‘it is OK’ or ‘too bad’ etc. depending on what is occupying my mind, unless it is Narayana, an old patient of my father in my village, who one day asked “Doctor… is it OK now to start eating a tomato?” My father quickly reacted “Sorry, I cannot recollect the reason why I advised you to stay away from tomato, but why not try a pumpkin now?”

My father takes pride in being scatterbrained and he doesn't really remember many things including his unpleasant past. Not everyone knows how to place the past, where it belongs to.

By this very premise, I think my dad is a privileged father.

Unlike my father, I remember my past lucidly, despite the fact that I am utterly overwhelmed by the present, and innumerable hopes that it presents. 

I view at life as if it is a tape recorder with play, record, rewind and stop buttons.

I plentifully play it but when offered, I easily rewind and get wrapped under insurmountable odds and memories that I have recorded through my life. Some I laugh at and some I want to forget. I always complained on the absence of a delete button until recently I noticed that there is a hidden button called ‘recycle’ in life. I do not quite know why it is a hidden and how to operate this , but whenever I play around with this button, I move on.

***

While I rewound 2013, I found the year filled with jaded pursuits of making money, buying properties, earning loyalty points.  

I added significant amount of travel miles without getting a time to travel, within.

With asset portfolio, my cholesterol count also has gone up, significantly.

I continued struggling with my growing boys who did not know how to separate a hardnosed manager from their doting father. My mood swings and frustration that I often carried home from my office blurred my affection towards the boys, so much that they distanced me during the weekdays only to realize that their dad is tired and sleeping, during the weekends.

Just like my bank relationship officer, I did nothing much, yet assumed that my relation with Uma, is intact. I was insensitive-indifferent husband, who added million rupees into her bank account without taking into account, a small number of her unspoken wishes.

One of my senior friends from San Jose who is a divorcee said one time to me “…as a matter of fact, when I am ready to date again, I will not date an American woman because she will demand equality. I rather want to relish my small defeats in an unconditional love instead of big wins in the fights for equal opportunity”. 

All that he was referring to was a relation that is selfless and is founded on a premise of giving away, not demanding.

I don’t want to sound like a chauvinist but I feel extremely lucky that I have an ideal Indian wife who amid hundred volatile ultimatums of life, doesn't demand, especially from her husband.

Uma taught one simple lesson in life; as we mature in love, not demanding from each other almost becomes a highest responsibility.

***

Let me stay on the New Year saga a little more and explain something that happened on that day.

As the first day of the New Year was progressing, I was feeling increasingly squashed between the lost year’s definite despairs and coming year’s vague joys. There was a strange sense of vacuum, as though I had just woken up having stung by a most difficult dream that cannot be recollected to narrate.

And then my phone beeped and it was Neha’s text message.  

The message had many components to it; a New Year wish and an invitation to move beyond irreversible 365 days, a reminder that good friends exist and most importantly a mysterious question that said “Is she real?”

Neha, who avidly appreciated but patiently waited for my blogs was of course, reminding me that I’m due for my blog, but she was suspecting that Nandini is a real character.

“Happy New Year Neha ... if you read my first blog, then you would not ask me this question” I responded to her text.

“I cannot agree that she is an unreal character. The sweet pain of her in your writing is so obvious and so real. What are you hiding?”

Neha’s subsequent text had just one question, many doubts.

Before I punched a message, I paused and thought about you, for a while.

***

Nandini .. it is 20 months since I wrote my last blog.

So, it is technically 20 months since I thought about you.

Really? No. I actually thought about you twice in the last ~ 1½ years.

Once, when I saw Suhasini in the TV; she was interviewing with one of the South Indian TV reporters. Her mascara filled eyes in her brilliant fair face reminded me the same expressive character that I encountered 30 years before, when I saw her in her first Kannada movie.

It is strange that some women in this world just add years to their ages, but they don’t grow old, literally. 

The second time I remembered you, because I didn't want to forget you.

Really? No. The second time I thought of you when I saw Scarlett Johansson in her life’s best “Lost in translation” movie.

Link between Suhasini and Scarlet is weird, but the phenomenon has absolutely been normal for me who invariably craved to seek you in every beautiful woman that I grew up looking at.You entered my life when a genuine scarcity of someone very kind and graceful was overarching my fascination about a woman. From 13 till 43, the degree of my scarcity though has dramatically descended but appreciation for the grace in a woman remains, intact.You are an imagination born out of this absolute inanity, purity.

After 20 months when I’m contemplating your uncommon existence in my life, I realize that being in love with someone who does not exist is fun. It is almost like writing couplet without using words.

I have neither an obligation of remembering you nor guilt of forgetting you.

There is no pain of losing you because there was never a pleasure of attaining you.

You exist, just like a tree next door whose existence is subtle, but obvious during the change of seasons.

My deep connection exists with you beyond present and future, above real and unreal.

You are just an endless emotion till time lasts. 

***

I thought my attempt to defend Neha’s suspicion would only raise a doubt on my very intentions to be insane. Sometimes, the easiest way to live a turbulent life peacefully is to remain insane on issues that cannot easily be explained. Some clarifications are not worth, especially when we know that others have made their mind not to get convinced.

I chose to reason out Neha’s question, but not to respond.

After all, I don’t want my precious reasons to be lost in translation.