The Unsaid Love

When I see the reflection of the fading sun in the waters of the Arabian Sea, 

I have seen you;

When I feel the wind gushing through my hair,
I have known you;

When I count the stars in the moonless sky, 
I have read you;

When I seek an answer from life,
I have found you;

You are the reflection of wind on the stars unravelling an answer.
You are true love.

It was raining heavily at six o’ clock on that Saturday morning. I was sitting on my wheelchair in front of the French window through which the view of my garden was visible. An opaque veil of mist sat silently on the inner surface of that window. It reminded me of those winter evenings which could transcend you from the world you are in to your world. But in reality, it is one of the agents of the secret services of nature. These agents obscure a view when the nature does not want you to see something specific. These secret services are spread all over the world. Rain is also one of them. The clouds impregnated with water, dark and sombre, camouflage whatever is going on in the higher sky. The world below them is occupied either in celebrating the wetness or fearing it, not even for once their attention is diverted to the world above.

Drawing my chair nearer to the window, I rubbed off the mist with my palm. Amidst the hundreds of rain drops that were falling on the outer surface of that window, there were a few streams, formed by some from those drops only. I don’t know if stream is the right word to describe that flow of water, crooked and broken along its path. All the droplets, that were not the part of those streams, shone with the brilliance of passion. This passion was not an ordinary one but was the passion to sacrifice their identity and merge into a stream. Once the stream is formed the drop will never be the same again, even if it separates. This fervent passion was in them because each droplet knew that getting dropped alone would be falling but in a stream, it would be a voyage, an adventure, a journey. This is another set of services offered by the nature; it is called the wisdom services. It tells you how with companionship you can turn your stroll into a walk and walk into a journey.

I have known this truth since I have known her. It is as if I had met her yesterday but have known her since clouds rained on this earth, since the earth came in to the universe, since He created the universe.

“Oh! Mr. Superstar, you are awake! Is there anything that you need? You know, you could have just phoned me up. I kept the mobile beside your pillow. Here you are not a movie hero who can get up in bandages and fight. How did you manage to get up? Actually why did you just get up?” There she was crouching in front of me and was speaking relentlessly just like the rain outside. She was pretending to be annoyed but she could just not fake it, the care with which she addressed me was so readable in her eyes that I could not stop making that silly smile, like the one that a little boy makes on being caught by his father when enacting him in alone. “That’s too many questions at once, I guess,” she said frowning her eyebrows and pressing her lips together in ‘I am sorry’ sort of sense. Leaning forward she continued, “I meant if you need anything you must call me. You had a back surgery two weeks ago and you are just back from hospital; you need to be a bit careful, that’s it. So now tell me what do you want?”

“Nothing. I don’t need or want anything. It’s just that I cannot sleep. I mean I don’t feel like sleeping anymore.” I replied.

“Is something bothering you? Is it some sort of pain that...”

“No, no, absolutely not. My surgery is absolutely fine, in fact, it’s healing.”

“I wasn’t referring to the physical pain. I meant if something is bothering you as in if you’re....,” she said flickering her eyelids more than the usual.

“Coffee, I would love a cup of coffee if it’s not too much at this hour,” I said in order to avoid her questions.

It’s strange that how our entire lives we seek to find someone who could not only understand us but understand us at the right time. But the strangest part is when you have someone like that and you also know that they understand you and yet you don’t want to know that they understand you. It’s like there is something, something too precious, that you have and you don’t want to name it because, if named, it might just come to your lips and eventually everyone will know about it and may try to curse it or steal it. I have always known that she is that someone and whenever she tries to talk me out of anything that’s bothering me, I avoid it for I don’t want it cursed or even touched as I want to live with the knowledge that there is at least someone who understands why I am me.

She stretched her lips a little between normal to smile and raised her eyelids, moving them upwards in a fashion as if it was the first time she had got the chance to see me. And then there was ‘I knew you would do the same’ kind of a look. There was only ‘I knew’ not ‘why do you always do it?’

“Yes, definitely, why not?”

She stood up and turned to the direction of door.

“Pia,” I said without turning back, “can you please open one of the windows?”

She walked back to the window in front of me and unbolted one of them. A strong gush of wind along with a few rain drops came over to her face. A few flicks of hair started wavering along the winds’ movement. Then it came into my notice that apart from a few flicks the rest of her hair were tied tightly, her lips still had slight brownish layer of lipstick and she was in the same salwar-kurta which she had worn yesterday when she brought me home from hospital; this meant that she too had not slept.

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I used to be a television actor those days. I had been in three relationships till then and all were fiascos. My third and last relationship had just broken. Shilpa was my leading lady in the sitcom that I was doing those days. We had been together for three years. After this break up I had been personified as ‘Mr. Relationship Failure’ by all the newspapers and magazines. It was not all this character assassination that was bothering me but her last words – ‘You are not made to be loved by women and I bet if you find one for you.’ I had started contemplating if they were really true. It had been four days since I had been to work. After death, loneliness is what most men fear, but for me, it is much more fearful than death as once you are dead, people talk about you among themselves but in my situation they talked to me. Even the thought of it was debilitating. I just needed somebody to listen to me. I could have phoned some friend but I wanted someone who did not know a thing about me, someone entirely new, someone whom I too didn’t know.

The best thing about Mumbai is that the city never sleeps; when all its dwellers are lost somewhere in their dreams, the sea and the sky sit together to talk of love. I wanted to know how they did it. They were so far apart from each other but still whenever they looked straight what they saw was each other. Both of them had secrets that the other did not know and still there was no longing in one to explore the other. There was never a contact between them only a medium: vapours, rain and wind. This was love, true love – no possession but still each others. There was something hidden in there that made their love, true love and that I didn’t know. So I went out to seek it. And there I was on Marine Drive alone looking at the sea and the sky.

“Babuji, do you want me to sing? Obviously you want me to sing. Tera mera pyaar amar....” said a girl dressed in rags, with iktara sort of thing in her hands, her hair braided in to two plates with red ribbon and a fake golden nose ring in her nose.

“I don’t want to listen to any song. Here, take this money and go. Leave me alone.” I said.

“Love stories are incomplete without songs. Although the winds are singing but the love story of the sea and the sky is divine, it deserves celebration.” she said taking money from me.

‘How did she know about it? How did she know I was thinking the same?’ I thought to myself. But in order not to look like a fool by telling her that I was thinking the same, I preferred to ask the first question.

“Who told you about their love story?”

“No one, there are some things......., you just know,” she said turning back to leave.

“Hey, listen,” I said in a higher pitch.

“Hmm... What?”

“What else do you know about their love story?” I asked.

“You are Kapil, Kapil from the serial Musafir, right?” she exclaimed.

“Yes.”

“And you are?”

“Hi......... Umm...... I don’t have a proper name. The friends with whom I share the trampoline to sleep on the streets call me Goli. They say that I have a round face, Gol, you see, so I am Goli. But if I were allowed to change my name I would keep it Pia. Do you know what Pia means? It means beloved. When amma was dying, about four years ago, meaning when I was eight, she told me that I am the most beloved of God and that He is my Pia and after she is gone He will take care of me. But I told her that I can take care of myself and it is actually God who needs my love, so I am His Pia. But I don’t want my friends to call me Pia because only God, who is in need of my love, can call me that. I know it is difficult for you to understand.”

“So Pia, will you love me?” I didn’t know why I asked that question. It just rushed out of my mouth.

“Are you God? I thought you were Kapil from Musafir. You are God! Oh My God!” she exclaimed with her black eyes bulging out.

“No, no, I am not that God, but you see God lives inside all of us, so in a way, yes, I am God. What I am definitely sure of is that I am in real need of love. So if you have no problems, you can be my Pia.”

“You are big; I don’t think you need my care plus everybody loves you.”

“But I need your love.”

I didn’t know what I was saying and why I was saying it all. So helpless and so much in need, I was in front of that little girl.

“I have to work daily to collect money for food and I don’t live permanently at any place. How are we going to meet?”

“You can come and live with me, if you want, I mean I insist.”

“I don’t know how to do household job but yes I can polish shoes and clean dishes. I will learn slowly and make a good servant. But for now you will have to give me some time.”

“You can live with me like a friend not a servant. But there is only one promise I want from you – you won’t leave me ever.”

“Obviously no, you just made me your Pia, so I love you now and will always love you, leaving you is out of question.”

There began the story of a twelve year old girl and a twenty nine year old man – our story. It has been seventeen years since then. We just live together without any relationship but a relationship. And it was the first and the last time she said I love you; it was since then that we had never talked about love but have always loved each other.

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“Coffee,” she said.

“Hmm.... yes, yes, thanks....” I again gave that dumb smile. She too smiled in ‘I know what is going on in your head’ kind of way.

As she stood near that window partly looking at the rain and partly at me, I just remembered what Shilpa had said, “You are not made to be loved by women. I bet if you find one for you.” She was right I was made to be loved by a Goddess and there she was in front of me with a kind of love in her heart that could not be talked about, spoken about, written about but only felt. It was love, true love like that of the sea and the sky: the unsaid love.