The Couple

I consider myself blessed to be able to live in Pondicherry. It is the place of stay of my favorite poet Subrahmanya Bharati; and also of stay of Sri Aurobindo. Both Bharati and Sri Aurobindo were contemporaries between 1910 and 1920. One was the former revolutionary (Sri Aurobindo) and the other (Bharati) the current revolutionary of the times.

I many times visited the places where Bharati has composed his various poems; like the  Chidanandaswamy Koil (Temple), Subbayya Thoppu (gardens) etc., I also many times visited the house where Bharati has lived and which is now a government museum. And I daily pass through the Aurobindo Ashram which is near the beach. Another pastime I joyfully indulge in is to sit in the beach and watch the sea waves, their rise and fall. I will daily spend evenings for one hour watching the sea. During that period my mind fully relaxes and gets recharged.

During one of such pleasant moments when I was engrossed in watching the sea and its rhythmic waves, I heard a sweet voice speaking in Telugu, of course with Tamil incursions and accent. When I looked beside me, a couple has settled a yard from me which was not there when I first sat there. The girl is conversing through her cell phone. The boy with her is just observing. It is dusk and not yet became dark. The girl is so vivaciously enjoying her conversation that she almost ignored her boy friend. Here I must confess that I do not know whether they are just friends or husband and wife. Possibilities for both are equally probable I thought.

But I am attracted to the joyful way the girl, of around 22 years, is conversing oblivious of her companion. She is giggling and full of fun and joy. With whom she is talking I could not guess immediately. The way she is talking it should be a male on the other side. Meanwhile the boy’s cell phone rang. He started talking equally joyfully. Both of them are sitting side by side but are not aware of each other’s presence. I am very curiously observing them. As they are speaking in Tamil, I could not make out anything. The girl is intermixing Telugu in her beautiful voice now and then.

I am really perplexed. Are they just friends or husband and wife? I just observed the girl for any signs of marriage on her body. But I failed. Her leg fingers are not having the silver wear normally the married women wear. It seemed both of them are software engineers by their appearance and demeanor. He wearing shorts and T-shirt and she left her hair completely loose and is wearing jeans and sleeveless shirt.

Their simultaneous conversations went on for 15 minutes. Then their cell phones fell silent. They did not talk with each other much, later. They spent time just watching sea. They got up and started leaving. Then I observed the silver wear on her toes. Earlier I could not see because my spectacles got wet with humid sea breeze as I sat very near the sea and sometimes the waves have sprinkled water on me.

They might be software engineers, just engineers or no engineers at all. But the oblivious way they talked with their respective friends has interested me. My mind started imagining and jumping to conclusions. Somehow I could rein in my mind. Because they might have talked with dearest friends. I tried to gauze the relationships and married lives of modern youngsters who are earning much money and who are enamored by the western way of living. Of course all this is none of my business. I am in my middle age and my life and brought up are traditional and not heterodox. My imagination should not tar others. My imaginations are just thoughts or just thoughts I do not know. And how much I am capable of thinking justly, unbiased or unprejudiced?

I stopped thinking about that couple and by that time I reached Manakula Vinayakar Temple and had darshan of the deity as usual and sought his blessings for the welfare of all of us and also prayed God not allow me to be tempted to poke my nose into other’s lives as I mentally did a few moments back.

That couple might have reached their place of stay.