11

I wanted to understand Arjun’s views about love. It was a story about love, and who better than he to define love? Often there is a discussion between lovers and friends to define love, and each one comes up with his own version - compatibility, sacrifices, cannot live without each other, close your eyes and you see her, understanding, affection, etc. I realized there are so many interpretations of this simple word, a word which binds together the world, but no single definition which could be used as a common one encompassing all thoughts.

So I did what most people do now to find something, I Googled ‘love’. The first hit of the search was “an intense feeling of deep affection.” Wikipedia was more elaborate: “Love is a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes that range from interpersonal affection to pleasure. It can refer to an emotion of a strong attraction and personal attachment.” The definitions were as diverse as they could be.

I asked Arjun, “What’s first love all about?”

He smiled at me, and immersed himself into his ocean of memories and thoughts. Being an actor and a magician and epitome of love, and a crazy Bollywood fan, this is what I got, and it made perfect sense.

“When I saw the movie Joh Jeeta Wohi Sikandar and saw Aamir Khan dancing on the mountains on the tunes of the song Pehla Nasha (First Intoxication more like First Love), throwing his sweater in the air in slow motion, I laughed, it was all so stupid, I thought. How is it possible that when you are in love, automatically there is background music and the actor suddenly is the best lyricist in the world and the best dancer cum choreographer? I was amused by such scenes and dismissed them from my memory as something which exists only in Bollywood movies, never in Hollywood and definitely not for real. People go to movies to see what they cannot achieve themselves, like running around trees with their girlfriends, rolling on the grass, singing and dancing on the roads, one actor beating the guts out of ten goons single handedly without a single weapon, etc, etc. Movies are made by people who sell dreams to the common man and make money out of it. A common man goes to the movies, lives the character of a super hero, and comes out of the theatre feeling like one. But once in contact with real life, all the heroism vanishes. So does all the fake romanticism which is shown in the movies.

I was not in love in those moments when I felt that. But this was only till I met Karishma and realized eventually that I love her. When that realization dawned on me, I wanted to do these exact crazy things what I once laughed upon. It was as if my heart was playing the music of love and romance I wanted to sing and dance with her, roll down the grass and declare to the world, “I love Karishma!” and wait for the echo from the valleys to come back repeating the same over and over again. I used to get up on my bed and throw the sweater in slow motion singing to the tunes of ‘Pehla Nasha’. And then wanted Karishma to run into my arms in slow motion as the echo played out and tell me in my ears, I love you too Arjun, mere sapnon ke Raja (the man of my dreams). And then as the music played out we would break out into an impromptu dance sequence matching each other step for step just like Jeetendra and Sri Devi used to in the movie Himmatwala.

Suddenly all this was no longer stupid, it was love. It was happening with me. I now saw complete sense in things I used to consider nonsense. I was in love, in love with my soul mate, with my dream girl, with my hanseeni (swan).”

Arjun was just lost in his thoughts and I didn’t have the desire to bring him out of his dreams, his dreams of the woman he loved so dearly and he had now lost her. His face was radiating, never seen him so peaceful, it was as if he was meditating and in discussion with his soul. If I brought him into reality right now, he would be heartbroken. How could I be the villain in his life to snatch this moment of love from him? I let him rejoice in his moments of love till I saw a tear creep into existence from the corner of his eye, perhaps realization dawning on him that his romantic movie was over and he was back into reality, the reality which he first admired and now I am sure he hated.

I handed over a tissue to him and said nothing, as he turned his red eyes towards mine and said, “Sorry, I got lost, in love.”

I couldn’t say anything but, “I guess you found yourself.”

He asked, “Did you get your definition?”

“Well I found my love.” I said that and left, I had no patience to be in a melodramatic discussion with him, and show to him that a tear existed in the corner of my eye for my own love.

That day while leaving his place, I somewhere felt that maybe someone was made for me as well, a detective ought to fall in love and experience this which only a person in love can experience, happiness and sadness and euphoria and helplessness all in the same moment. And my love was Susan, I wondered whether I would ever have the Aamir Khan moment of throwing the sweater up in the air in a slow motion and Susan running into my arms and telling me, ‘I love you, Rahul.’