Marriage | Ramu Das

True love is hard to find. Once found, there is nothing like it – it is complete bliss! Love makes the world go round, don’t you know.

To a lover, in the beginning, – yes, I will be talking only about the beginning stage of love, for, you see, gracious reader, I am a beginner myself – no one in the world seems as important as his/her lover. When you find your special one, friends’ friendship does not remain as strong as it were before; brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers, relatives seem, all of sudden, secondary. Lovers’ love becomes the top-notch objective; lovers’ interest comes before anybody else’s.

It may seem strange to others, as it once seemed to me, how lovers often confine their worlds around each other; how upon the slightest utterance of one lover’s name the other brightens up, becomes somewhat restless, blushes. The way one lover takes care of the other, it seems to a lover, no other can do. The loverly love is divine (or so, a lover finds).

Everything to a third person may seem ridiculous, but only a lover knows love’s power. You must fall in love to know this, this peculiarity of lovers; what feelings/thoughts one lover evokes in the other.

Newly in love – my love, I ought to say, is true to the core – I feel elated and excited. I could not have gotten any other person as good as the person I have found. I love her for what she is, and she reciprocates. The woman I am in love with is the woman I am going to marry. I am not married yet, you see, neither is she married (you may verify this bit of information if you like, ha-ha!), so I believe we were destined to know each other; now I have come too far and I cannot think of not marrying her, and, of course, I cannot allow my mind, not even remotely, to think she would not be mine. Love is ours, and our solid emotional investment must bear fruit (veterans, don’t discourage me by some stupid funny quotes like this one: “A man in love is incomplete until he has married. Then he’s finished.”). Our relationship is going great. In most of my waking hours I think of her, and, she tells me, she does the same. I feel lucky to be in love with her. She is, in more ways than one, better than me. But we don’t really make any comparisons. Our love is unconditional. Love makes a person humble. We stop being headstrong and learn to compromise wherever necessary. We crack silly jokes and laugh at them too. In short, I am happy with the way things are going; I am happy with my love life. I have learnt to be selfless, and now I am more concerned about her happiness than mine. I know if she is happy I will be happy.

More often than not, lovers are possessive about each other. My roommate often quarrels with his girlfriend (lover). They have a long-distance relationship; he stays in west side of the country and she in the northeast. They call up each other every day and speak for hours and hours. With them every petty issue slowly turns in to a major problem, and, when helpless, my roommate comes to me for advice and suggestions as though I am a love guru or something of that sort. Just the other day he had a long argument with his girlfriend. In the morning, he sent her some messages on WhatsApp and although she saw his messages but he got no reply from her. He saw her online and yet she did not respond to his messages. He was enraged at this. He called her up, her phone was busy; she was talking with someone, but who? At this thought he was further enraged. Every now and then when he comes to me with his complaints I try to console him as much as possible. Earlier, when I was not in love, I used to find this outburst of emotions unreasonable and superfluous. Now that I am in love I know this outburst of emotions is reasonable and genuine.

If you are not in love you would not know what feelings lovers have, why they are possessive about each other, why they act and react the way they do. You would know this and more when you are in love!

I like this song and I dedicate this song to my love, my dear Moon (by the way, Moon is her name), and to all other lovers like me:

Oh this weather! Oh the suffering! I’ve received a chilly greeting from the very beginning of this chilly season. Oh winter, why haven’t you been nice to me this time? Some may like this season, some may not. But no matter you like it or not, it will keep recurring year after year, as so has always been the nature (quality) of nature from time immemorial.

Chest cold, and I’m coughing like some hardcore smoker coughs. I’ve a high body temperature, headache, runny nose (I’ve to sniff every time). My throat pains. My tonsil is hurting. This noisy explosion of air from my lungs is unbearable, to me as well as to the bystanders. At a distance do my friends move, as if they might get hurt, as if a bullet chases them. Perhaps they’ve started considering me a boor by now. “Go away, then, you might be shredded into pieces by the bullet coming out of me.” I want to say but I don’t say. It will make things worse, I know.

And I think bum is the wrong place for a boil, for the area is very sensitive and the pain is excruciating. Had it been in other areas of the body such as the hands or the legs or maybe the shoulder I wouldn’t have complained a wee bit. However, I would have equally complained, had the boil made its place beneath my nose (this area too is extremely sensitive), or on my face, I fear it would damage the handsomeness of my precious face ( ha! – that’s a joke).

I’m not sure if any of these diseases and infections got anything to do with winter, but, since, all these have been making my life miserable in this season of the year, I have no choice but to curse this season, at least this time. Even a little pain in this season seems unbearable. But, I’m pretty sure, married couple or newly wedded couple would prefer winter than summer. I still have enough time for it, I guess.

Today is our Republic Day (that is the 26^th January, here in India). The secondary school near my house has organized a function. I can hear the loud music coming out of the speakers. I can also feel the vibration that is produced by the dancers stamping on the wooden stage (wooden? Yes, that’s what my brother told me, and I gladly believe him, as he had been to the function a little earlier). But I cannot go out and be a part of the celebration; I’m homebound, as for now. I have become so weak that I can’t even walk to and fro. I can just sit in the chair, that too, turning more towards the left side. Why? Because of the damn boil! Oh, this small swollen thing has made my life pathetic. Anyway, I hope everything will be fine soon.