Dear Juliet,
I wish you had lived to spend a life with Romeo. Tragedy makes for great romance? Only for others maybe.
The other day I snuggled up in my quilt and watched a film called Letters to Juliet after a night of sipping on Prosecco. My senses -- of romance, wistfulness, longing – were all at their zenith, yes. It began with an American girl reaching your land with her fiancé for a pre-honeymoon. There, while her fiancé is busy with wine auctions and truffle hunts, our girl set off on her own in Verona. She soon arrived at that balcony, where you were supposed to have spent time being wooed by Romeo Montague (or should I say Montecchio…)
The sight which she came across had me mystified. It was of scores of women sticking notes on the wall beneath the balcony. Some weeping, some sitting and musing while writing notes. Others sobbing hysterically. One of the weeping women blubbered out to our girl that it was a tradition of women writing about their love stories, their love problems and any matters related to the heart to you, Juliet Capulet. And oh, there was a male tourist rubbing his hand on the right breast of your bronze statue. Lucky for him, you could not land a tight slap across his face (apparently there’s a rumour that rubbing one’s hand across your breast would augur good things!).
And guess what, there were a bunch of women who called themselves your secretaries. They sat and actually wrote back letters to all the girls who posted those chits on the wall.
I was charmed. I found out the next day that there indeed exists a club called The Juliet Club in Verona that replies to letters mailed to them by mostly American women. I am now looking for a book that has been penned on it by some Friedman.
But it set me thinking. If I were to write a letter to you O Juliet, what would it be like?
I would probably write about my love story to you. And I would wish for you. A better life with a better ending. A happily ever after with everybody leaving you alone to make or break your own life.
18.1.11
11.1.11
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time...
A few things which somehow are very simple and when I say it, you will probably laugh and say hah, these are what I want too. But do you really want them? Because I do. I have lived my life wanting them.
Ever since I could think about my life, I knew I wanted to be independent. By that I mean, I wanted to live on my own, have my own mobile phone, a place of my own, a car in which I could whizz around. But somehow it never occurred to me that I could have any of those.
You see, I am quite the lazy human being. I might have wanted those things, but I lay back without thinking of where I was going. A heavily ambitious cousin of mine once asked me when I was in my teens, “AB what do you want to do in life. Where do you want to go and what do you want to do?” My brother overheard her and said, “Oh AB goes where the river flows”. And he sniggered. Well that brother, however much I love him at the end of the day, was always a bit of a moron.
So life went on. I graduated and I sat for a random journalism school exam. It brought me to Delhi which I thought was completely life taking its course. It had no input of mine except sitting in that dank hall in Calcutta University with a pen and a paper and no will really to make it. My father and my brother made sure I came to Delhi even though my mother was adamant about not letting her daughter, who had lived all her life at home, from venturing outside the city.
Then these things happened. I did get my own rented place, I did buy my own phone and I did get to live on my own. Along the way I realized I did not really need a car. I am happy reading my books on the metro (which has changed my life a full 360 degrees) while plodding my way to office and back. After all, there are some things which you let go of occasionally as you adjust to life as it happens to you.
In between work, I have been traveling, something that I have always wanted to do. It might not be the extensive travel of the keen jetsetter, but the going has been good. I could not ever imagine walking underwater in Mauritius with the pattern on the zebra fishes match my bikini top (yes, what a coincidence, right?!), patting a python in a snake temple in Malaysia, getting oil-soaked for a Shirodhara treatment in the green environs of Kerala, seeing a panda chewing on bamboo shoots in Hong Kong, or simply sitting in a Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka feeling the serenity soak into my very being. It’s been surreal.
And then while I was dating randomly, because I never could find that one elusive thing in my life, I met you. It was again surreal. The most beautiful thing that could have happened to me. We dreamt of a life together and now from nowhere, there seem to be a host of complications. Complications which we are thrusting upon what we have. Which makes you doubt about whether you want to even be with me, decide dates for our wedding, answer the world about my status updates…Why is the world so much with you?
But let me tell you about my perception of life. I just want love. Love with an intensity that leaves me breathless. Love where I do things for you not because I am trying to prove a point. But because that is what I want to do, and where I want to be. Where I cannot think of anything beyond you. Where I want to see the world with you, live with you, build a home together, laugh together, cry together, share our dreams together. I want to wake up beside you, every day of my life.
Do you feel the same way?
Ever since I could think about my life, I knew I wanted to be independent. By that I mean, I wanted to live on my own, have my own mobile phone, a place of my own, a car in which I could whizz around. But somehow it never occurred to me that I could have any of those.
You see, I am quite the lazy human being. I might have wanted those things, but I lay back without thinking of where I was going. A heavily ambitious cousin of mine once asked me when I was in my teens, “AB what do you want to do in life. Where do you want to go and what do you want to do?” My brother overheard her and said, “Oh AB goes where the river flows”. And he sniggered. Well that brother, however much I love him at the end of the day, was always a bit of a moron.
So life went on. I graduated and I sat for a random journalism school exam. It brought me to Delhi which I thought was completely life taking its course. It had no input of mine except sitting in that dank hall in Calcutta University with a pen and a paper and no will really to make it. My father and my brother made sure I came to Delhi even though my mother was adamant about not letting her daughter, who had lived all her life at home, from venturing outside the city.
Then these things happened. I did get my own rented place, I did buy my own phone and I did get to live on my own. Along the way I realized I did not really need a car. I am happy reading my books on the metro (which has changed my life a full 360 degrees) while plodding my way to office and back. After all, there are some things which you let go of occasionally as you adjust to life as it happens to you.
In between work, I have been traveling, something that I have always wanted to do. It might not be the extensive travel of the keen jetsetter, but the going has been good. I could not ever imagine walking underwater in Mauritius with the pattern on the zebra fishes match my bikini top (yes, what a coincidence, right?!), patting a python in a snake temple in Malaysia, getting oil-soaked for a Shirodhara treatment in the green environs of Kerala, seeing a panda chewing on bamboo shoots in Hong Kong, or simply sitting in a Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka feeling the serenity soak into my very being. It’s been surreal.
And then while I was dating randomly, because I never could find that one elusive thing in my life, I met you. It was again surreal. The most beautiful thing that could have happened to me. We dreamt of a life together and now from nowhere, there seem to be a host of complications. Complications which we are thrusting upon what we have. Which makes you doubt about whether you want to even be with me, decide dates for our wedding, answer the world about my status updates…Why is the world so much with you?
But let me tell you about my perception of life. I just want love. Love with an intensity that leaves me breathless. Love where I do things for you not because I am trying to prove a point. But because that is what I want to do, and where I want to be. Where I cannot think of anything beyond you. Where I want to see the world with you, live with you, build a home together, laugh together, cry together, share our dreams together. I want to wake up beside you, every day of my life.
Do you feel the same way?
4.1.11
When everything seems bleak...
I think it is so refreshing to come back to my blog. It has always been my favourite ranting space and I guess it will always be. Small mercies after all.
Have you been weak ever? I seem to be turning weaker and weaker when it comes to taking decisions. So here's to a new, trying-to-be-stronger me.
It was for a random holiday quote (yes, I have to still make inane calls for those and beauty quotes still, which makes me think that it is probably time I moved on in life) that I called up an art curator. One of those random calls which out of the blue make you happy. Something I have not been for some time now.
So I am going to hold on to this rare feeling. And hold on for better days.
Have you been weak ever? I seem to be turning weaker and weaker when it comes to taking decisions. So here's to a new, trying-to-be-stronger me.
It was for a random holiday quote (yes, I have to still make inane calls for those and beauty quotes still, which makes me think that it is probably time I moved on in life) that I called up an art curator. One of those random calls which out of the blue make you happy. Something I have not been for some time now.
So I am going to hold on to this rare feeling. And hold on for better days.
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