Someone someone else

You think of someone
Yet you desire someone else
You need someone
Yet you want someone else
You live with someone
Yet you cant live without someone else………

She penned down these thoughts and put aside her writing pad. Almost immediately, the door bell rang. A letter from her Bestest chum. Ah! Indeed it was a happy day. Forgetting everything, she ran towards her bedroom, holding the letter close to her heart and slowly went through the contents..

17th July, 2004

My Dearest Chims ,
Hey! For a pretty long time I haven’t written a letter to anybody and now it’s like doing something totally new. I don’t know how to begin or what to write. Life is taking its toll. I am sure you can guess. I am in a mess. Why is Life so hard Chims ? I think I am a psychopathic case- one that’ll be an asset to any museum of perverts.

One thing I discovered about myself. I am looking for some great love, some passion that will be powerful, addictive, that burns like fire, and wherever I’ll get it , I’ll give everything to keep it burning.

With Siddharth , I have found honesty and constancy, companionship, committment and protection. Believe me, I love him like crazy and I’ll never hurt him. If for any reasons I have to give him up, I’ll die of guilt conscience or kill myself. He can’t express his love (something most honest men are unable to do) and he is not romantically inclined. He is passionate about me but his passion is a practical one – governed by the mind rather than the heart. But what he has given me is – ALL- all of his love, his faith, his trust. All of which I keep next to my heart and will do so till kingdom comes. He is the man who’ll make an ideal husband.
But, He is not my ideal lover.( You think of someone, yet you desire someone else, you need someone, yet you want someone else, you live with someone yet you can’t live without someone else………) I thirst for a passion that is all consuming. Someone who is crazy about me, who loves me and is governed by the heart and the impulses – a love like I have within me and I am finding it difficult to settle for something that is probably much better in several ways- it is long lasting, trust worthy- instead I am hankering for something fiery but furtive, burning but short- lived, and which will eventually bring me misery and pain. And my search is driving me nuts – into the arms of Praveen for instance.

Praveen- an Old friend of mine whom I met after several years, sometime back. He was so changed – 5ft 10”, lanky, kind of good looking. It was a shock to see him so changed. I felt awkward and tongue tied. Soon, we found ourselves, chatting happily, laughing at jokes, discovering several things in common. I was so so so taken by his easygoingness and his level of understanding and his intelligence was so attractive. Then one day, he disclosed to me that he was tremendously attracted to me. I was surprised and pleased and I told him that I felt attracted and attached as well.

(Sounds Strange ? doesn’t it especially when I say I am already committed to someone who loves me so much and whom I wish to spend my entire lifetime with) It didn’t take us anytime to get closer to each other. It was Incest ! But I was happy. We laughed and chatted like old friends and we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. It was more of the physical attraction than emotional. It means it was not that he was in love with me or me in love with him. It was a deep liking for each other combined with a great comfort in each other’s presence and all extended a little more, just crossing over the border of propriety. Of course, we kept saying to each other that ours was a friendly love.

Praveen went away to delhi to prepare for his CAT exams. We kept in touch still. He told me all the sleazy stuff he was upto. I joked with him, I told him he was a jerk. We laughed .By this time I had told him all about siddharth. He said he was jealous but that we understood that since there could be no “us” so it was best I married Siddharth and got on with life.

Every time, I set out with the resolution of stopping this because I realized I was falling in love, each time we met it was only so natural for us to come close , hug and make out that I ended up making promises to keep this liaison going even after marriage. I made my promise with all the sincerity I could possess.( you might be thinking how could I be falling in love when I had already found my man . Life is pretty strange Chims. Don’t know why it happens. It was dangerously like love, it was dangerously escalating into one. From my side it had jumped the limit ( from my side, can you imagine?)

One night, I told him( in an exceptionally emotional moment) that I wished I could be his wife, the mother of his child. I know he was shocked. Seeing him so shocked, I was Shocked. What I had said was not something impulsive. Naturally, he wasn’t thinking on those lines. ( Strangely I didn’t feel I was doing something wrong. It was only too natural for me to love him) I was scared of loosing what I probably did not have but was under the illusion of possessing ( and that’s where I lost him) .

The experience is beyond words. I am miserably in love with him ! I need Siddharth yet I can’t do without Praveen.

One Sunday in the wee hours of morning we were talking serious stuff. He reminded me that this relationship would bring pain for both of us because we have to see each getting married to someone else. Despite all my agony. I can’t do a thing.

I love this guy, he is caring, loving passionate. Yes his passion is what I’ve been looking for and which ( unfortunately ) I did not find in siddharth though I have found in him what I’ll never find anywhere else in the world – constancy, honesty, love all bestowed with trust in me. But though I have trusted my impulses and gone so far, I have not been able to get over paltry fears – fears of losing either of these two men and fear of the truth being disclosed……..Yet it’s true I have loved each of them…You might think I am crazy but it’s true. I have been true to myself. I need them both to make me complete.

She sat there with the letter in her hands – dazed. Slowly she leafed through the pages of her diary……

You think of someone
Yet you desire someone else
You need someone
Yet you want someone else
You live with someone
Yet you cant live without someone else………What had made her write those lines. Does it happen with everyone ? Perhaps it’s true …each one of us experiences this but few have the ability to live it. What she had with Praveen was intense yet short lived ( gradually his hand slipped away from hers)as had been predicted by her. Yet it was something she’d never forget for the rest of her lifetime. He had never wanted to possess her and had expected the same from her. Till the time you love someone , not because you want to possess him but because you admire the person in him , you are free too, knowing he is all yours. You can love him the way you want. Then even if he wanders away you are happy because you still have his love – you haven’t bound him, you’ve set him free. That inturn sets you free.

She wanted to live with Siddharth and that’s what she did.He might have been unromantic but she had to teach him. Every relationship lacked something so that both of them could get together and work on it. And that’s how you learn to live together , to love each other , to understand, to live.

Time passed…………….

She lived happily with siddharth – the father of her only child. A loving husband , a splendid family, what else did she want.

Yet there was a part she couldn’t hide…Those searchful eyes…as if still looking for the comfort that he had once found in the arms of someone else…you would be forced to believe…

You think of someone
Yet you desire someone else
You need someone
Yet you want someone else
You live with someone
Yet you cant live without someone else………