For once I sat down listening to the song. An old hit from a Bharathan classic, ‘Palangal’ (Railway lines).
Etho janma kalpanayil
Etho janma veechikalil
Ninum nee vannu
Oru nimisham
Ee oru nimisham
Veedum nammal onnai
And suddenly, I thought about her. It occurred to me the radio was playing to me our song. Our relation always needed an explanation. To justify it maybe. This song said it all. 'We had become one, for a moment, as we met across many births'. And we had lived that instance like a lifetime.
As the strains of music ‘grew’ I became restless, I called her up right then and played her the song over the phone. She whispered back to me instead, reminding me she was in a sales meeting. ‘Oh… I’m sorry. Sure baby, you carry on’. She had told me last night about this sales review thing and I forgot. ‘Shit’. I keep calling her my baby but all the time it was me who behaved like one.
Sometimes I did get it. Mothering me most of the time took a toll on her. But I couldn’t help it. I was the kid that never grew up. I still am. And maybe I always will. Behind the hardworking and serious self that I project, I have always been an irresponsibly emotional and a hopeless romantic who always craved for attention. She had to be there for me always. Even if it meant she had to screw up her life for it.
However she tried, I never made it up to her. Ours remained a stormy relation as long as it went on. Sex was good. But then there was more to a relation than sex. She might have wanted it too. She left at the point it her drained of all her energies.
It’s raining outside. And I miss her presence besides me. The once soothing tune has begun to get on my nerves. But then the end is always meant to be painful, isn’t it?
