A Story

THE EVENING SUN

The man visited me again, the next was a Sunday afternoon. This time to my surprise he looked happier and cheerful. I was surprised because that is not what I thought of him all these while. He asked me if I would like to join him for a long walk. I had nothing special to do and so I agreed.

Through the busy roads we walked for a long time, wrapped in silence we reached the garden. The sun was going to set behind the trees. He excused and went behind a tree for a pee. I was standing there, nothing special in my mind and was looking at the orange-red-yellow glow of light. Through that a man walked, is he coming towards me?

The rhythm of his walk evoked certain discomfort, but I was unable to place the feeling. He walked past me as my eyes followed, meanwhile my visitor had already joined back.

The familiar garden stretched across us like silent moon, and as we walked for longer time the moon had already spread out its jasmine white all over. Now as we were sitting on a bench he queried if he can ask me something. I simply nodded since I was enjoying myself thinking of the graceful man who had walked past; and now remembered the orange stamen shaped candy of the childhood, which I always crushed with the teeth and sucked. It was a nice feeling. It melted and disappeared.

“Is it possible to make love with oneself, if it is possible to live a single person family, it should be possible to make love with oneself in a meaningful way”, the desperate rationality sounded like a drowning man’s last yell from a deep well.

It was surprising that the same question I had asked myself some moments back, and it occurred to me that this was the thought that had passed my mind right when I saw the man walking gracefully against the red-orange-yellow light. Then, I couldn’t think more about it since I was griped by that same old desire I am too familiar with (the orange stamen shaped candy of the childhood crushing-melting and disappearing).

Even now I was thinking of him, and so I answered an indifferent ‘I don’t know’, although I knew I was interested in the question.

The man’s rationality was insistent, ignoring my indifference he said, “ultimately we are all selfish, and so it must be possible to make love to oneself”. I believed that it was an ultimate statement to him self, but I was still not sure.

In the same breath he continued illustrating himself, or may be he was simply enjoying himself, making love to himself.

“I hate to part with you,
But I hate to be born again for the sake of loving you more and more,
That is the selfish hope I keep for my sake. Won’t you forgive me?”

He stopped and said that this was the last line of the last love letter he had received from someone. “Soon after that he died, I saw him die, I was only sitting a little away.”

He continued telling ...

…the breath was slow, but it was deep, for a long time it was like a slow cyclical rhythm. A couple of others were there too, in silence. I only thought that he was in a deep sleep, and before that he continuously stared at me, may be he did wanted to say something. Then suddenly the breathing stopped. The end was rather uneventful and peaceful. He was dead.

…a wasted life stretched across wastefully, I thought to myself. To my own surprise, for a moment the colours of the red bed-sheet seemed more colour-full than the whole of his life put together. I stopped myself, I never thought that I could have such bizarre imaginations; at least I should spare such moments, I thought to myself and became aware of the cold floor below my feet.

…looking at him like that I began thinking about the barren land he owned. I couldn’t think much, and I just remembered that he used to often remind me of that place. “Nothing can ever grow there”, he used to repeat, “and that is were I want to rest at the end.” May be because he constantly resisted the thought of having to be re-born… how could anyone have so much hatred for one’s own life, I was thinking. Was it hatred, or was it a sense of fulfilment?

…as soon as I turned back after the uneventful burial, I wanted to forget all about it and get on with my life.

…soon I was sitting empty, and suddenly I remembered the last love letter he had written. It contained something touching, but couldn’t remember what it was, and decided to read it again.

…after all that usual expressions of affection and love, he wrote, “love to me is not a thing at all, it is a mater of an endless relation I imagine between me and the world; me and you, and a possibility of making we and them.”

“One’s love is a struggle of wanting to fulfil a desire to merge and match with a relationship to the beloved, which in real and true sense is unattainable in this world.”

“Yet, it remains to be the most desired yearning in most of our lives, which is a tragedy for all of us.”

“I hate to part with you (although I had been only a little cry-baby, knowing that I will never get what I desired), but I hate to be born again for the sake of loving you more and more, that is the only selfish hope I keep for my sake. Won’t you forgive me?”

He stopped for a while; the story seemed to have flown over me, I was like a bud of lilly under sheets of water, I was still thinking about the graceful man.

As I kept quite, he compulsively continued demonstrating how he made love with himself:

I was sitting, and I watched,
Watched myself,
I was in love with myself,
I in love with I,
Watching all the time one self,
And, thinking of making love with oneself.

There were neither lonely nights nor days,
Once, I watched my love going out for a walk with my own love, through dark woods, on the plain sea beech, in the chill of snow,
The angel that I am, on my side,
Another time we ate together from the same plate,

Believe me, he had actually fed me, morsels after morsels,
The crushed fish curry and rice.
My palm into my mouth.

We took bath together,
We even slept in the same bed,
When I woke up,
I asked myself to sleep more…

But till that day we never looked at each other with desire.

That day I saw myself lying on the bed.
I saw myself from the half open door.
The desire ached like a ruby studded inside the stone…

(The ache, tell me friend why there was that ache?)

At that moment I was sure, I loved myself so much,
I looked at myself, touched, kissed, caressed me all over,
I felt myself all over myself. And I was myself.
Total and complete.

This moment will also pass, like any other moment, and I will forget that I had made love. And then again and again I will search for the lost myself, some day I might again make love with myself, like a snake eating its self. But again I am sure to loose myself, like today.

I was listening to him, and yet I was thinking of the nights I have gone to the garden alone, cursing and searching.

I had met Arun here. He was very graceful, and we had made love several times. Through the red-orange-yellow light each time he emerged from nowhere and pressed my hand in secrecy, and in no time we were in the fire of our desire, and together we burnt it all, so many times, in the same way always.

Empty, I felt now.

“What is there in life other than loving oneself?” I asked my friend, and left him thinking that I should never meet him again. It is pain to be in love with oneself.

Shivaji

20th Feb. to 8th March 2001.