Aug 03, 2007 12:43 PM
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The shade neath that peepal tree is cool and inviting. The tree talks to you if you go down on your knees. If this sounds too dreamy then you may do yourself a great favor by skipping this write-up altogether :-)
I have loved Ruskin's characters like the struggling writer who is the narrator of the story at hand. It makes me feel good because I too am a dreamer and would love to settle in hills and write romantic stories. A little too wishful I know.
Love is a sad songis a beautiful story which I will urge you to read even if I am not able to do justice to it here. This story will remind you of your own past that you may have long ago forgotten. It will stay with you for a long time after you are done reading it.
You will remember the days how he or she managed to assuage your impatient heart with so much ease.
This is a story of a young writer settled in Dehradun. It begins with him sitting alone underneath a peepal tree and remembering his past. I am unable to remember the name of our writer. Anyway the story is written in first person.
He is sharing the room with her uncle. Her name is Sushila. She and her younger brother have come there on holidays. The brother and he get along like a house on fire.
Love can happen in strangest of places and under strangest of circumstances, and here we are talking about two young people in a perfectly romantic and laid-back hill town. These are signs of incipient love. Their attraction is immediate and immense. And his love for her is intense.
You close your eyes and take off your glasses (if you use one) and try to think. You try to think about the story but it takes you back to your past.
For a long time I stood looking away and then my disturbed eyes met your deeply intense ones.
He takes her through the dense forest to a lonely stream. They get oblivious to the world existing outside the forest. He plants a kiss on her cheeks. The temperatures soar as the two get passionate. **The strength of their emotion is like a thunder in the air. He hears a bird, presumably singing - It isn't time that is passing by, it is you and I.
You can take me where you will - Up the creek and over the hill.
As we went a little further, beautiful notes from piano filled the air. As I stood mesmerized, the notes hovered around me for a while and melted in the damp air of the hills.This story is going on well. It is a little too late in the night and still the sleep won't come. Such stories trouble you sometimes. You are a little interested in knowing more about the girl in the story and so you read on.
Lonely times are around for our dear writer. Sushila is back in Delhi with her family. Our writer has taken the decision to move to Delhi. You can follow her to the edge of the world, but where does it get you? Anyway he moves to maelstrom life in Delhi but now he cannot meet her as her family is around. The problem with dreamers is that they get despondent easily. Our writer is no different. However remember girl's brother? He gives the much required solace as he has by now understood the state our dreamer is in really.
The dreamy writer is returning to the hills finally. He is out of luck & is running dangerously low on finances. However he has spoken to girl's mother and is sure that she will give her consent to marrying her daughter to this 30 year old struggling dreamer. He is prepared to wait. A few things in life are really worth waiting for. Isn't it?
30 years - hmmm. Isn't this the time when world gets dangerous for dreamers? Neither are you too successful nor are you too mature.
At this point in time you realize how low the writer in on practicality lessons. No dreamy lover will ever pay head to any practical problems in his or her way. Whatever are the roadblocks just appear to be stepping stones to success.
He gets an unusual visitor, someone else who has also been in love with this girl. Here is another dreamer. What do you do? They are around in abundance and are so vulnerable. He has come to seek help. He is much younger and hence better suited to marry her. I mean age-wise. However he realizes that coming to this writer is of no help as he himself is fancying his chances of marrying her. The visitor tells him that he also is ready to wait but a writer can give her more interesting life. Our writer does not consider this newcomer as his foe. **He understands that like him, this youngster is also held captive by her devastating charm.
Only last few paragraphs remain now. This story has held me. So clear are now the images that I hear the same sounds that I had to follow - once upon a piano time. I will keep my fingers crossed for my dear writer . In more than a hundred ways he is just like me.
He has got the shock of life. There is a letter from her uncle (his old roommate) that he should forget about marrying her. Before getting totally devastated he makes a quick trip to Delhi. He meets her younger brother and tells him that he is prepared to wait. The brother advises him not to. His point is that she is still too young and what if after making him wait for years, she just changes her mind? Our writer is still insistent that he will wait.
The brother gives him the real story. She is not going to come to him because she has another man in her life. And this one is no ordinary person like our struggling writer; he is a bank manager and has a car. The only thing our writer could say as he realizes that this is the beginning of the end - "Oh! And I can't compete with the car." Doesn't it make his struggle as a writer even worse?
So the story began with my writer sitting alone under a tree and remembering his past. Dear writer you stay neath that peepal tree. It is full of shade and is lonely. **The tree is drawing me near. I've got to find out why.
It was way past midnight and outside the rain fell dark and slow. My thoughts were still with the writer. He did what he could do. Anyway, everyday the dreamers die. He will learn too.
Dear struggler, Ruskin would have said - "May you have the wisdom to be simple, and the humour to be happy." These are all I can also give as my parting words to you. Your parting words are amazing and they reflect your state well - "I may have stopped loving you Sushila, but I will never stop loving the days that I loved you".
I will never ever be able to forget these words. They say that a dying star burns the brightest …
- Just as I totally fade away .
