Sunday 15 June 2014

Strange Relations, Stranger Emotions


“Sometimes it’s a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence” – David Byrne

In my previous post I had attempted to write a short story. I managed to write something. But some of my readers felt that the story should have a more conclusive ending. I agree the ending was slightly abrupt. But that was the intention.

For those who don’t know the background, let me take a step back, and start again. There are two individuals, the protagonists as we may call them. They are from different backgrounds, different ideologies, different upbringing and probably different thought processes. Yet there is one thing in common. They are alone. Till the time they meet and start talking. And that’s where the story ends.

Yes, I could have given it a happy ever after ending, where they meet and decide to stay together. Or else, I could have played the devil, and made them part ways, each carrying their own share of pain. But I didn’t do either of this. Isn’t this what life does to us? It opens the door and then leaves us with the decision of venturing out or not. Isn’t that a fair treatment? And for now let me leave it at that. As now it’s for you to decide if my decision was right or not.

As far as I am concerned, I have already decided.

Coming back to my story, what happens after the two protagonists meet is not the crux of it. To my mind it doesn’t even matter. What matters is that the meeting results in conversations.

Conversations – the core of any relationship, personal or professional, family or friends, likes or dislikes. These conversations decide the depth and the intensity of the relation. They determine the emotional quotient. They bridge the gaps, and bring hearts closer.

The latest superhit Bollywood (Hindi cinema) movie ‘Queen’, is also based on similar plots. The protagonist, a simple & naïve girl ventures into the big world. She lands up in foreign lands, surrounded by strangers. Yet the friends she makes, the bonds she forms and the experiences she gathers, help her discover parts of her personality she was totally oblivious of till that time.

In a similar example, from the movie ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ (another superhit from Hindi cinema), one of the protagonists is able to share his deepest emotions, with his love interest, a European girl, who doesn’t understand his language, but struggles to share the same with his childhood friends. Thus is the language of love, connections of heart. Which though conveyed through words, transcends the barriers of language and vocabulary.

Some of these connections are nothing but momentary, these relations transitory. They are beyond the definitions of friends and family, and at best can be classified as a mere stranger. Yet their impressions on our heart, their footprints on our memories are permanent.

Haruki Murakami had said, “Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves.” And any one person can not join all the missing links.

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