Girl-meets-boy, their hesitant, fluttering eyes meet, their hearts beat fast, they are at a loss of words, mumble numerous incoherencies but ultimately live happily ever after!!! Incorrigible clichés all….
Now, at the ripe old age of 86, I assure you that love can surely happen at the first ever sight. And at any cost.
So if I told you that I fell in love at the first sight, you would naturally assume that it all started one fine, beautiful sunny day…Hell no! For me, it started on one of those nasty, wet, gloomy Mondays which one loves hating and cribbing about. When I first saw her, I was a typical careless, pimpled, “only-I-know-what-is-right” type of a teenager. But the moment I laid my eyes on her, she took my breath away and left me completely floored. There she was, distinctly beautiful, elegant…flawless and chaste. And in one of those emotionally foolish moments that comes with the surge of youthful ecstasy, I fell- hook, line, sinkers, rod, worm etc. etc. for this heavenly specimen and decided on the spot that I will have her, come what may.
Her supposed “family” were the richest industrialists of my town. She shared their affluent looks of elegance and grace in every way and it made me so jealous to see how abundantly they showered her with the minutest of care, loving attention as if she was most fragile. But the spaces between her society and mine were so immense that, I thought it would take me another lifetime to get even close to her, let alone have her. As she faded away from my sight alongwith her kin….I resolved yet again, to make a consummate union with her, as soon as my young life permitted. It would be her and none else.
And overnight the careless young boy, without a care to the world was transformed into a young man with a purpose…to woo the object of his dreams and bask in the glory of her charm. And everything changed, forever.
I started spending hours in my shabby little study, whose use had been a bare minimum until now. My average middle class parents had spared that room for me, in spite of lack of space in the tiny house. My hours of slogging increased to a feverish pitch and of course my parents loved the change. Soon, I managed to wriggle from the bottom of the class to somewhere near average. Slowly but curiously, math and economics became my favorite subjects. I spent hours studying the demand supply curves, which were reminiscent of her appealing curves. I studied harder.
I entered college as a gawky, starry-eyed but eager and confident scholar; having topped school in my favorite subjects. My dire spirit of independence needled me to join and fervently work long nights at a far away garage and manage my time between painting damaged water shields and studying vehicular dynamics. This did wonders to my practical knowledge and within a year, I could not just coat but also drive and repair to perfection any of the beauties who arrived there in want of my attention. Once when I saw her pass by my modest workplace with her family, my heart skipped a beat. Will she come in? Will I be able to see her close, brush my hand carelessly against her maybe…but my hopes were easily dashed as she faded away into the fog. The more I saw her, the more badly and desperately my desire for her grew. And made my resolve stronger.
Years passed more quickly than I’d have liked them to. Working as small man in a large organization wasn’t my glass of wine. The entrepreneurial bug had bit me early on and I couldn’t rest until I opened a firm of my own. So with whatever little experience and capital I could muster- a tiny little office cropped up in my parents’ crowded flat. My business was new at that point of time. I was offering services to a world who did not know that things could actually be outsourced. But there I was. Pushing my luck and seeding ideas into people’s brains, making them follow my thoughts and embrace the nascent, inevitable modernity.
The number of my ideas grew proportionally with the people whom I employed and within a span of ten years, I was doing international business, confidently. I neglected my wife and my newborn son. They were simply not visible to me. My parents also were growing older and I wanted them to see her, as part of our family. Numerous bottlenecks threatened to weaken my tenacity but I drove on like a possessed maniac. To be frank, I hadn’t reached her stature, yet. And I had to, very fast.
So, I made life happen at a frightening pace. I made my employees work, as if there was no tomorrow. And I kept news of her family coming to me, almost daily. To see her again …touch her spotless body or woo her with my eyes wasn’t enough for me now. I had to have her forever. One day, a bleak piece of news told me that her family had lost their everything in business and were rapidly sinking towards mediocrity…even poverty. According to my sources, she still was with the family -which instilled the hope in me that she still could be mine. Maybe this was my chance. The thought itself was so enticing; I could barely do much else the rest of the day. It was finally time for me to swing into action and I did.
With zealous ambition and some trepidation, I finally stepped into the household. She was nowhere in sight, her radiant presence conspicuously absent from the scene. My heart skipped a beat. The head of her family spoke to me with obvious sadness; he could not save their ancestral business and it was rapidly sinking into misery. Their long illustrious history, reeking with stories of success and growth was begging for mercy & capital. So sorry was their state, that I could offer very few words of condolence.
I decided to come directly to the subject and spoke about her (to any one else other than myself, for the very first time) and his face brightened for a second. She was their joy & pleasure since years. But very soon he was worrying abut her future. Was anyone there for her…? I was ready; to strike the iron at its hottest. The proposal that I was preparing for since childhood came tumbling out as smoothly as it did everyday in front of the mirror. But the response was poles apart from my expectations…..
It was far too obvious that he had only days to live & his family, his business were falling painfully apart. He did not have the time to think. Could parting with her save his family pride and social stature … could this marriage save it all….?
Convention and modernity were united within days. My burgeoning firm acquired the rumbling old empire of her family in an acquisition that made history and is talked of till date. My parents’ heart almost burst with pride. And then she came. Gleaming in the sun, she drove into my life as regal, proud and graceful as ever. She hadn’t changed a single bit. I touched her cool white smooth body and every curve till I was electrified, not daring to believe the reality that…she was mine, at last. I looked at her proudly. Love at first sight did triumph all odds. Sadness & triumph was smeared all over me...
It was the fire-freeze moment I was waiting for all my life.
The vintage white Mercedes- the first ever Mercedes Benz Limousine the world had produced was now mine…
