On second thoughts,
I want to sublimate Want.
Tricky, huh?
I just wish you didn't expect me to.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Friday, July 20, 2007
Want
When You wanted, it was all there, laden out before you. All Yours for the taking. For You to ask for. For You to keep.
And now that I am in want, all I get is Want. More Want.
And now that I am in want, all I get is Want. More Want.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
The Economy of Love
They loved each other. It was as simple as that. No wild flights of romantic thrill, no overwrought outpourings of effusive amour. They had known one another for almost a year now, and love was getting easier every day. Mechanical, almost, she thought sometimes (and then chose not to think that).
They had woven their lives around each other. They had set routine ‘conversation’ timings, (tiny call post- breakfast, His commutation to work and back, a quick good night call before bedtime). They had rationed cellular phone talk time (rupees twenty every day = one hour and ten minutes). It had taken time, and she still struggled to come to terms with the Routine of Love. The Calculations of Love. The Mathematics behind what may seem to start out as an instinctive affinity to another separate, yet similar soul cased in a different body.
But they had done well so far. He said it was imperative to have structure, discipline: even in love. He claimed he needed it. She acquiesced. The possible validity of this argument had, in time, unwillingly settled within her, and she often found herself calculating how much the cost of the last conversation had been. Reprimanding herself silently if she had surpassed the stipulated amount allotted for the call before it was made. She had begun to lose track of the many minutes she spent immersed in the ‘economics’ of love. She called it that. Made it seem fancy. Noble. Governed by a higher cause. For the Greater Good. If not anything, it had definitely improved her mental mathematics, she joked. Something she had never ever been good at. Something that he had always excelled at. Among many other things. “My little mathematician”, he used to call her sometimes, wearing his broad kind smile, his voice singing with the affection-tinged condescension that he mistook, sometimes, for acceptance.
So yes. They had learnt what love meant. That it meant companionship to one, and ache for another. She knew she was the one who felt the ache. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that love had become the absence of something, rather than a surfeit of it. She resented him for that sometimes. For making her calculate the time they should allot to Love. For always being the first one to lift himself off the park bench first, whenever they met. For always being the first to remember that it was time to go home. For always saying politely that it was time to hang up and start studies. He was a winner. And Love, once won, had taken its place, next to the neatly arranged cups and medallions he’d won on different occasions, housed proudly in the glass-face cupboard built specifically for that function.
They had woven their lives around each other. They had set routine ‘conversation’ timings, (tiny call post- breakfast, His commutation to work and back, a quick good night call before bedtime). They had rationed cellular phone talk time (rupees twenty every day = one hour and ten minutes). It had taken time, and she still struggled to come to terms with the Routine of Love. The Calculations of Love. The Mathematics behind what may seem to start out as an instinctive affinity to another separate, yet similar soul cased in a different body.
But they had done well so far. He said it was imperative to have structure, discipline: even in love. He claimed he needed it. She acquiesced. The possible validity of this argument had, in time, unwillingly settled within her, and she often found herself calculating how much the cost of the last conversation had been. Reprimanding herself silently if she had surpassed the stipulated amount allotted for the call before it was made. She had begun to lose track of the many minutes she spent immersed in the ‘economics’ of love. She called it that. Made it seem fancy. Noble. Governed by a higher cause. For the Greater Good. If not anything, it had definitely improved her mental mathematics, she joked. Something she had never ever been good at. Something that he had always excelled at. Among many other things. “My little mathematician”, he used to call her sometimes, wearing his broad kind smile, his voice singing with the affection-tinged condescension that he mistook, sometimes, for acceptance.
So yes. They had learnt what love meant. That it meant companionship to one, and ache for another. She knew she was the one who felt the ache. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that love had become the absence of something, rather than a surfeit of it. She resented him for that sometimes. For making her calculate the time they should allot to Love. For always being the first one to lift himself off the park bench first, whenever they met. For always being the first to remember that it was time to go home. For always saying politely that it was time to hang up and start studies. He was a winner. And Love, once won, had taken its place, next to the neatly arranged cups and medallions he’d won on different occasions, housed proudly in the glass-face cupboard built specifically for that function.
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