Thursday, July 16, 2009

Love and words

Love and words for me, are the two most compelling passions in the world. And I often use one in place of the other, I think them rather interchangeable. Once, I met a wonderful old lady on way to Bombay from Poona on the Deccan Express and she told me her very heart warming love story. I have never really penned it down; I shall do it today before memory and time take it away from me forever. She had grown up in a predominantly Gujarati area in the city of old Bombay and belonged to a deeply religious Hindu family. She went to an all girls school and she loved reading. SatyaBen, her name is, and she and her friends went to a football field to watch their brothers play in the evening. She was always escorted to and back from the field by her brother. One day he went out of town and she sneaked out to the field by herself. She noticed one particularly handsome and athletic young man and started secretly doting on him. Every day she went there only to see him. He got a whiff of her affections and one day came by the school at closing time to acquaint himself with her. They fell in love. Minor omission- he belonged to a strict Muslim family. Her trials and failures at convincing her parents to let her marry him, his relentless pursuance of his own family, nothing yielded anything noteworthy. Finally, they eloped to Poona with help of certain daring friends and married in a temple. Their families still don’t talk to them. They couldn't bear children and they adopted 4 children and have raised them to practice a religion of their choice. One of her daughters, who was accompanying her, kept smiling throughout the rendition. I will never forget those two faces...etched in my mind forever. Love makes people do ridiculous, crazy, beautiful things... And words express them better than any action can.

5 comments:

zephyr said...

yesterday me and my best friend ree were talking about why our generation doesnt fall in love like the way u have described.. I think we are too realistic a generation. Logic and practicality. Convenience. All these terms drive our decision. Can love like the one you just described exist now? I hope it does but I am not sure.. Because for a love like this to survive both the people in it have to be able to take risks.. to be able to look beyond logic and convenience... But we are too realistic and practical a generation.. too bad na.. we wont have fascinating stories to tell our grand kids..
I have started sounding cynical na.. :)

Aparna said...

Random blog hopping brought me here.
Could not help feeling moved by the story. Such people are rare and precious and I hope we will have many more such people in this world.

Pankaj said...

life can be like a tale sometimes. lucky are those who can find such glorious love.

thusspakerono said...

beautiful indeed...thats pretty much how my parents got married actually. Although both were Hindu, my dad being Bengali faced stiff resistance from his folks when he announced he wanted to marry a Telugu girl. Then one day he threatened to leave home and all became well:)I am glad he did that cause if he had chickened out I wouldn't have been sitting here typing this comment and feeling smug about it.

Tech Guy said...

Kambakht Ishq!