Ours was a strange relationship. We were drawn to each other; but I am not sure it was in an amorous way.
She is truly brilliant. Her ability to come up with the just right words and the right number of them and then pepper them with bits of apt poetry and prose all the way from Chaucer to Charles Dickens and more contemporary writers would make me read her numerous, long letters to me over and over again.
Each one of them was a literary masterpiece, penned meticulously in good old long hand. There was nary a scratch anywhere, indicating a mind that seemed to have neither doubt nor hesitation about what the gold medalist student of Literature from Calcutta University had to say.
They dealt with many issues of day to day existence that would engage the mind of a twenty one year old endowed with a superior intellect and a heart in the right place.
It was purely my stupidity that blinded me from anticipating that the owner of this extraordinary faculty would one day be bold enough to elope with a student maoist who was believed to have gone underground during the emergency in a bomb manufacturing case.
As I watched the movie Kahaani this Saturday I was taken back to the many moments of my life, many decades ago, when I used to visualize myself on the parks and streets of Calcutta. Of the many debates we had through long letters thanks to telephony that was not affordable. And oh yes we must have met three times in all our lives. Of my refusal to join IIMB so I may stay back and try once more my luck at going to IIMC until my Dad put his foot down.
One of our favourite topics was morality in personal life. We returned to it very often. We quibbled a lot on the semantics of morality. Was morality violated by thought? If it took an action to be immoral how intimate did the act have to be to deserve disapproval?
Would that then not mean that most of us would have been immoral when we tolerated an improper touch that occurred involuntarily and deep down in our minds we may have secretly been happy that the touch did happen at all? Was I being immoral when I first shook hands with another seriously endowed orator, MSR of Stella Maris at Madras, and could not help admiring the sheer tender softness of her palm?
At the other extreme was the Russell view that I write about in a different and somewhat provocative blog: http://sgchalayil.blogspot.in/2013/02/multiple-roles-and-monogamy.html
We used to be amused by the frequency with which we revisited the topic. I would wonder what was it that we were obsessed with - the right side of morality? Or, the dark?.
As I saw the yellow taxis, the rumbling old buses on the streets of the City of Joy and the decrepit buildings that reminded me of hobbling old humans who had successfully defied Destiny's lasso I was reminded of the many debates between MG and me thanks to Indian Posts. I recalled her petite doll-like face and form which was in itself enough reason to be madly in love.
I would like to refer that as long-distance romance - but for the doubt in my mind if it indeed was such an affair of the heart. I guess it does not really matter.
Watching Mrs Bagchi (played by Vidya Balan) waddling through the thoroughfares of that city that never ceases to intrigue me, I smiled within myself at those many moments of happiness that I had enjoyed reading and re-reading those letters that I had carefully preserved - until one Saturday morning I burned all of them, with the last of them that had borne me the tidings of the elopement and one black and white photograph that had remained among my books for reasons I never quite understood.
I guess the best feelings in one's life are the ones that one can never explain or understand. One simply savours them while they last till one is engulfed by the pain of their loss.
I should know. I have been afflicted not once, but twice, although in very different ways on the two occasions.
As I devoured countless numbers of Lakshmi's inimitable onion pakodas and trade mark coffee and recalled my past, such as it had been with MG, I asked myself again: Was I being immoral to relive some of those moments in my mind, even if involuntarily?
Nanni....Namaskaaram...
She is truly brilliant. Her ability to come up with the just right words and the right number of them and then pepper them with bits of apt poetry and prose all the way from Chaucer to Charles Dickens and more contemporary writers would make me read her numerous, long letters to me over and over again.
Each one of them was a literary masterpiece, penned meticulously in good old long hand. There was nary a scratch anywhere, indicating a mind that seemed to have neither doubt nor hesitation about what the gold medalist student of Literature from Calcutta University had to say.
They dealt with many issues of day to day existence that would engage the mind of a twenty one year old endowed with a superior intellect and a heart in the right place.
It was purely my stupidity that blinded me from anticipating that the owner of this extraordinary faculty would one day be bold enough to elope with a student maoist who was believed to have gone underground during the emergency in a bomb manufacturing case.
As I watched the movie Kahaani this Saturday I was taken back to the many moments of my life, many decades ago, when I used to visualize myself on the parks and streets of Calcutta. Of the many debates we had through long letters thanks to telephony that was not affordable. And oh yes we must have met three times in all our lives. Of my refusal to join IIMB so I may stay back and try once more my luck at going to IIMC until my Dad put his foot down.
One of our favourite topics was morality in personal life. We returned to it very often. We quibbled a lot on the semantics of morality. Was morality violated by thought? If it took an action to be immoral how intimate did the act have to be to deserve disapproval?
Would that then not mean that most of us would have been immoral when we tolerated an improper touch that occurred involuntarily and deep down in our minds we may have secretly been happy that the touch did happen at all? Was I being immoral when I first shook hands with another seriously endowed orator, MSR of Stella Maris at Madras, and could not help admiring the sheer tender softness of her palm?
At the other extreme was the Russell view that I write about in a different and somewhat provocative blog: http://sgchalayil.blogspot.in/2013/02/multiple-roles-and-monogamy.html
We used to be amused by the frequency with which we revisited the topic. I would wonder what was it that we were obsessed with - the right side of morality? Or, the dark?.
As I saw the yellow taxis, the rumbling old buses on the streets of the City of Joy and the decrepit buildings that reminded me of hobbling old humans who had successfully defied Destiny's lasso I was reminded of the many debates between MG and me thanks to Indian Posts. I recalled her petite doll-like face and form which was in itself enough reason to be madly in love.
I would like to refer that as long-distance romance - but for the doubt in my mind if it indeed was such an affair of the heart. I guess it does not really matter.
Watching Mrs Bagchi (played by Vidya Balan) waddling through the thoroughfares of that city that never ceases to intrigue me, I smiled within myself at those many moments of happiness that I had enjoyed reading and re-reading those letters that I had carefully preserved - until one Saturday morning I burned all of them, with the last of them that had borne me the tidings of the elopement and one black and white photograph that had remained among my books for reasons I never quite understood.
I guess the best feelings in one's life are the ones that one can never explain or understand. One simply savours them while they last till one is engulfed by the pain of their loss.
I should know. I have been afflicted not once, but twice, although in very different ways on the two occasions.
As I devoured countless numbers of Lakshmi's inimitable onion pakodas and trade mark coffee and recalled my past, such as it had been with MG, I asked myself again: Was I being immoral to relive some of those moments in my mind, even if involuntarily?
Nanni....Namaskaaram...
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