Exit from Paradise

I’d recently tweeted to see if someone would give me a topic to rant about. Any dysfunctional social scenes that annoyed them or amused them, but it didn’t generate any response and I eventually threatened to write about Love and jazz to disgust everybody. So here goes. This is to make sure you take my threats seriously next time. You don’t just mess with Corleones or Kapoors, assholes.

Just so you know, I’ve snagged the best balcony in the entire college residency and it had eventually begun to be referred to as “The Sutta Point”, before the usually indifferent non-smoker self got irked with the cigarette butts on the floor, as I’d step out with my mug of coffee. I don’t smoke and I don’t care if you do, but they were destroying the glory of my balcony. I’m sitting here today after a long while, because a Pigeon family had rented the place to gloriously procreate many more useless staring machines. I’m just glad I got my place back, with ten days of college still left. Fly away and fulfill your destiny, fat baby pigeons.

My balcony, to the left, it over looks a row of cascading palm trees, a green carpet of lush grass, what’s left of the Deccan plateaus, beyond that and a lake in the distance. The Osman Sagar, to be precise. Sometimes, during monsoons, rainbows rush and end right at my parapet. It’s perfect. Clouds break and build patterns of sunshine on the imposing pink building of the boys’ residence to the right. Every day, sunset touches all of this with a sweep of gold. I can see a couple in the distance. He twirls her around and then leans down for a kiss. She told me she’s dumping him next week. But that’s how Paradise works. Adam and Eve fall.

None of this imagery is made up. The couple isn’t fictional. I witness this; I live in this parallel Paradise. And very soon, some obnoxious slut of a junior will smoke cigarettes on my beautiful balcony. I broke from this paradise to present my B-plan, because every Paradise got its apple and I’d like to break to you that I live in a B-school. As I’m sitting in the last row, waiting for my turn, my best friend points out that the recently christened Mr. Popular is eating his booger. It is good to know that he does things other than suck up to the Farewell Awards Committee.

So back to Love, yes? By the way, Mr. Popular, I hope you read this. We are graduating in a week and  me and my friends were sitting around discussing and counting the number of couples that would finally make it to the altar. We could think of about three couples. In a batch of 800 students and majority of them involved, that’s a pathetic ratio. I’m not sure why people are in relationships anymore. Some of them are just silly enough to need tutors, some are bored and others are just sexually frustrated. I don’t think anyone is in love.

My mom is just concerned about how I’m totally happy being single and I told her “Ma, I'm a lot of work. We’re all at crossroads. Everybody wants an easy catch. Not someone they have to work for and run after. Nobody knows if any of this is permanent and they won’t invest such emotions and energy with me. They’ve done MBA’s. They know their ROI’s”. So I’m just sitting here in my Zen place, like a retired monk, basking in the glory of sunset, laughing at the couples, retired from love.

My dad says Love isn’t anything but being used to somebody like they’ve become a part of you. I know he almost recalled Mom from her trip to London last year, only because I think he gets annoyed if he can’t yell “Anitaaaa” every half an hour. Then when she’ll get there, he’ll just have her sit around while he works on his laptop. He just likes her around once he’s back home and she’s complaining about missing White Collar or whatever. She loves going out with him best of all because she says she doesn’t have to carry a phone when she’s with him.

I hope I can love somebody like that. Love them, not to twirl them around and steal kisses under rainbows, but love somebody enough to have three children with them and still want them in the same room every evening.  Want them so that they liberate me from gadgets and incessant calls. Want them despite the fights. Despite the work. I have a friend whose girlfriend doesn’t let him leave his room for meals. My dad travels for work every fortnight.  I want trust. I don’t understand possession. I don’t fantasize about a possessive man.

I want to love with all my brain. I want to love rationally. And I’m waiting like a patient retired monk, for I've romanced the Devil himself. But I leave Paradise soon. And I’m so glad. I don’t know how this story ends. But I just know it ends well. I’ll keep you posted.