A love letter to an unknown someone

Hi Unknown someone

I have a feeling you are out there somewhere. I don’t see you on those long drives where you are supposed to magically turn up even though you aren’t actually there. You don’t interrupt my conversations by romantically appearing in my head. You don’t sing and dance. You are just there, somewhere, unknown and convinced that you aren’t finding love anytime soon. But I know you, I know you very well. I promise I will surprise you in the next few minutes because I will get very specific in the way I describe you. You will wonder how I have known you this well. I am the one in your head.

You are sitting somewhere right now reading this and wondering why these words worry you. You weren’t planning to read it but, well, force of habit. You are probably choosing this over a bowl of ice cream, a cheese crust pizza, a cup of coffee on the terrace or the first few minutes of a movie. You prefer waking up next to a book than me right now but you wish that time could fly into the past or the future, and i’m right there. You wish me well from a distance not coz you are far but coz you wish you could be closer. You take those walks all alone and you don’t even know why you enjoy them. You don’t necessarily think of me but you still end up smiling because you know i’m capable of a joke or two. Or you already know it. When you fight with me, you don’t storm away, you take little angry steps when you walk away because you know I will find that cute. You know I cannot stay to angry at looking at you walk away in a collective huff. I know you know that i’m not going to be the kind that will hold your hand during a movie. I’m pretty sure you would rather lick the cheese off my popcorn stained fingers or be hunched forwards lost in the movie. You cannot possibly choose that numbskull who buys you a drink at the bar. I’m the one who is going to force a waiter to get you that mind blowing mix of coconut chutney and gunpowder. Ya, that’s what I will send your table at that roadside Udupi restaurant. Dig that girl!

We surely won’t set balloons and birds free. We will drink and dance late into the night all by ourselves, only to wake up hungover in a house which isn’t ours and in a city that we don’t belong to. We won’t travel the world, we will just unravel all its mysteries. No picnics by the river, just long and painful runs at altitudes that will get us panting like we will in bed later that night. There will be no moment that shall be dull and the ones that will be quiet, we shall savor, but not looking into each others eyes but by finding that passage from a chapter in that book you will be reading. You won’t read it out to me, but you will just fold the end of the page and ask me to read it later. You will not be bothered if I will read it or not because you know that later that night, while you make me the strongest cup of filter coffee, I will recite those lines for you. And I will recite them not because those lines are from a soppy book about the vicissitudes of love, but because it inspires you and you know that they will move me. We won’t change cities and homes because of work but only because we have lived them and don’t want to settle. You will love me not because I can read your mind, but because I find it so hard to. And you will enjoy uncovering the little sub-plots that seem to make me, and every time you discover a bit more about me you will rejoice in silent victory. Rejoice with a few tears which you won’t want to share with me because you’ll know that our victories and our digressions are for us to reconcile with. And that every time I come to you and admit i’m sad, i’m not looking for comfort but i’m surrendering to your greater wisdom in that time. Because for those few moments i’m not vulnerable but I need an able guide who will walk me through it. And I promise when we get to the other side of that arduous journey, everything will be fine again. I will be renewed and you will have a new ‘me’ to uncover. I may let you down but I will never stop keeping you on your toes. I wouldn’t expect anything different from you.

We won’t go quietly into the sunset darling. We will bring the roof down, we will also silently tiptoe into lives we never knew we could lead. Make the mistake, learn and I promise we will make more mistakes after that. And I just know that you will love it because every time we fall, we will fall together, gather some steam, get right back up and get going. I won’t promise to walk right by you because i’m hoping we are always out-running, out-thinking each other. Every step, every day, we will always be together and mad. We will conquer the world one at a time and together.

So don’t expect me to just love you. I will for every day that we are together, challenge the life out of you. Game on darling. This is going to be fun 🙂

Regards

Certain someone you’ll meet soon

My background score

I have been fortunate enough to watch a number of great films in the last couple of days. Managed to squeeze a couple of hours every night to just fit it in or squeezed it out of a good weekend. There was Ugly, Anurag Kashyap’s best. There was Birdman and Wild which was possibly Michael Keaton and Reese Witherspoon’s best too. A lot of ‘bests’ and a lot of thoughts. The past week has also posed a lot of questions to me. In terms of where i’m headed as a person, emotionally and structurally. My emotions about most things seem to be skewed to rationalising it way beyond what is required. The structural part is the bit where I feel a gradual shift in all that is fundamental to me, becoming a little hazy. All in all there seems to be a dissonance that I’m finding hard to get to grips with. Then something struck me, something rather surreal. Well, besides the great acting performances and some rather brilliant cinematography in all the movies, all of them had an inspiring soundtrack. And nothing, absolutely nothing can light up a great scene like awesome background music. So I decided to add some to my life.

So as I had this realisation I plugged in my earphones and this is what I began to hear. Instantly, it all changed. The structure or the lack of it began to become clear. It formed a shape with which as the music soothed the moment and me, the problem started becoming apparent. After years of ignoring the idea of love, for once it was challenged. Every lego block that was put in place to hold together my stubborn stand against love was genuinely challenged and for once I had the chance to prove my inconclusive theory about love wrong, and move on to a better world. I was offered the chance a couple of times and as the music began to tail off, so did my focus and all that seemed to make sense. I was back to where it began and it felt like the structure was here to stay.

Until this song began to play. And then it felt all warm and fuzzy again. Like life and love had returned. Even though it was unattainable and exciting, dangerously so. It was still there, real and I finally felt something after ages of chasing and running away from it at the same time. As the song picks up and falls, the riffs arranged and amazed the mind, the feeling of gratitude flowed like a wave in me. It felt peaceful, innocent and fun all over again. And as the song died so did this short lived sense of joy. Well, it had to. It was forbidden after all.

After that little flight of fancy I very quickly landed into the lap of what I had been missing. It’s like my mind had decided to get it right this time. To make up for all its indiscretions and to finally give me what I was pretty sure I didn’t want. To convince me it played me this song, as my background score as I put my vehicle into gear and decided that this dinner would be different, this night and every moment about it will be life changing and like nothing ever before. I will not be lost in her eyes this time but in her words and promises and let myself go like I should have many a month ago. As the night progressed, it was very clear that the song was chosen for a reason. I was expected to understand the depth of this feeling well before the song ended because as it ebbed and hit its quiet and warm end, I had already begun to let go of something beautiful again.

Then there was this song close to the climax, hoping and wishing that as the protagonist I would do justice to this wonderful track. It was the last call for help. It was dark and eerie and signalled of the days to come in hope that I might snap out of my stupor. I walked and then ran, ran very fast and efficiently in hope that I would cross some imaginary finish line at the end of which would be my solution. But it wasn’t to be. There were no rains, no solution, just that sickly feeling of letting another chance at something beautiful go. This wasn’t the track that was meant to inspire confidence, this was the one that was supposed to be a warning to the audience that this wasn’t a happy ending. A lesson to the protagonist that there was much to be accomplished and much to be forgotten before you had any chance to get your act together. It wasn’t just a long walk or run that would change it, it would be a struggle that would define you.

And as the credits began to roll, the soundtrack began its last number. A classic. One that hadn’t been heard for a while but one that you don’t get tired of. Just because, you never seem to hear enough of it. Because every word and every second of it reminds you of the person you were, the one you are and the one you wish you could be. As the names of all the characters, the directors, producers and supporting cast roll up the song picks its pace. The audience begins to sway, look at each other, smile and cry at the same time. There are candles being lit for the protagonist and then the guitar kicks in and so do the goosebumps. It becomes a haze as the entire theatre begins to jump. A dance in hope and a prayer for me. They scream and shout and hope that I can hear them as I keep my earphones plugged, driven by my life and my ambitions and my clear concept of my self. They want me to stop and look at them but the credits are rolling fast now and the songs that made up the movie begin to flash in front of their eyes as they become inconsolable. As I begin to become a speck in the distance the music dims and I hear them all singing loudly, I can hear all their voices. I want to turn and thank them and assure them that I will be back but I don’t know anymore.

The song stops. The credits end. The movie is over. Get up, go home..