Intoxicated Happiness

“My wife loves you more than she loves me.” Rohan said. The director smiled. Ash of his cigar fell down on his leather boots but he didn’t bother to clear it away. He waited for Rohan to say more. He knew there was lot in him, waiting to come out. Rohan asked him, “Why don’t you say anything?”
“I don’t need to say anything Mr. Rohan.”
“I have travelled this distance of two thousand kilometers just to talk to you.” Rohan said.
“Is that my fault that your wife loves me?”
“Yes.”
The director looked at him. Rohan was already looking towards him. He asked, “Don’t you love her?”
The director took some time to speak. “It’s destiny, Mr. Rohan, that I met her before you. Will you consider this a fault?”
“Just because you still love her, she is unable to forget you.” Rohan said.
“You cannot stop me from loving anyone.” The director said. “And moreover, I have never talked to your wife since the day she was married to you. I never interfered in your life.”
“I feel as if, living with me, is killing her from within. She is unable to reciprocate to my love because she thinks she has betrayed you. She thinks she has given you false hopes. Everyday I see her living this compunction.” Rohan said.
The director remained sitting on the stairs of the spectators’ stand in the stadium, like he had been for the last twenty minutes. He didn’t speak. Rohan had been waiting for him to say anything, to hear what he had to say. He wanted to know what the reality was. The young director looked at his cigar, threw it away as far as he could. It fell down on the field, in the green grass. He looked at Rohan, this time with an answer for him. “Yes, she did give me hopes.” He stood up, put his hands in his pockets, descended down some stairs and looked at the set of his movie – that huge stadium, that cricket field, the pitch, the score board, the night lights, the spectator stands. He turned back and said again, “It is true Mr. Rohan. I love your wife. I still miss that love for me in her azure eyes, which always gave me hopes. Hopes of being together…which are still alive.” He turned towards the field again, “In fact, I still love her, the way I loved her earlier…and this love will never subside. Those hopes will forever live with me.”
Rohan’s heart skipped a beat. Till now he had thought that his wife’s love was just one-sided but that was not true. The vague anticipation, he always had in his heart, had unfortunately come true. He always thought that his wife was in love with this young film director just because he knew her personally; there was no chance that this man could also be in love with his wife. He didn’t know what to say to him. He was perplexed. He felt as if loads of grief was plunged on to him. There was nothing left for him now. He wanted to be alone. He stood up and turned back to leave the stadium but the director stopped him. “Neelima and I met seven years ago. I was just a writer in Bollywood, too inhibited, diffident and unsuccessful. She was working here with a fashion agency. She was so ardent, effervescent and gregarious.”
The director went near Rohan and asked him to sit down. They sat back again on the stairs and the director went on telling him the story that had changed his life.
“We met in Barista for the first time. We shared the same table. Both of us were alone, so we chatted; got acquainted with each other. We sat near a pianist, listening to the pleasing old love songs. We sat at the stairs of the shopping mall, chatting, eating and looking at people. Before leaving we exchanged phone numbers. We met some days later again at the same place. This time we explored more. We tasted lots of different foods. We went for shopping together. We tried different clothes although with no intention to buy any. We analyzed our choices - in apparel, in food, in shoes and in various things. We were quite different.”
“We started meeting daily. Trust between us was soaring. A relationship strengthens when secrets are shared. We told each other about our secrets, our lives, our families and each and every thing. We had come closer to each other. The alloy of compatibility and trust between us was overwhelming. Day would refuse to pass on its own if we didn’t meet; such was our relationship. So true and pure.” The young director looked vaguely at the stadium on the opposite side. There was nothing to look at. He wondered would he ever be able to perceive those feelings of love. Would he ever be able to get back to that aura of passion? Rohan looked at him. It was painful for him to see another man pining for his wife.
The director continued, “There was a tenderness that kept encircling around us always. That was the real essence of our relationship. That love, which was unexpressed, was actually comprehended on its own. It had always been lurking there, peeking from behind from time to time to make us realize that it was there. The existence of it, which was always felt but was never seen, was now becoming visible. It always felt so good to love her…even when I was alone, her thoughts would bridge me to her.” He looked at Rohan, “You know what’s the best thing, when you are in love? – It’s the feeling when you come to know that someone whom you love, loves you more than you love her.”
“Till date, I’m oblivious to this feeling.” Rohan said.
“When you’ll get to feel that, all that time when you have waited, wouldn’t matter at all. You won’t bother for anything. You will just want to feel that intense pleasure. It’s intoxication…and no one wants to come out of it.” He said.
Rohan looked vaguely at the man.
“There was no need to express this love to each other. We knew we were into love. But that was the time when she realized that she cannot go against her family. She asked me to wait. I did. She said, she would marry me only if her family allows doing that. Her family didn’t allow her. When she disclosed this fact to her family, they not only refused but they restrained her from meeting me. That marked the decline of our relationship. Our love had not reached the stage when we would be willing to leave our families for each other. People have at times said to me that our love was not true. But you tell me, does it becomes necessary in true love to overstep all other relationships? If you choose one between your father and mother, does it mean that your love for the other person is not true? Where there is love, there are responsibilities too and priorities too. To some people, family comes first then comes any other thing. Neelima is like that.” He looked at Rohan again, smiled, “you know, Mr. Rohan, my heart feels elated to know that she still loves me. It feels great…” He stood up again, took a deep breath. “It feels great…to see that my love is true. It is so pure. It has not fallen. It has not been defeated. I feel like a winner.”
“I feel as if you are simply trying to satisfy yourself by saying that you are a winner. In fact, you are defeated.” Rohan stared into his eyes. The director stood smiling. Rohan could not stare into his eyes for long. “In fact, we are living constricted lives…I feel that we all are defeated. You, me and Neelima.”
“Why?”
“Why! Is anyone of us happy?”
“Happiness is not so cheap.” The director asked.
“What do you mean?”
He came back to his place. “I am the director of this film. If a film does well, I must feel happy. Isn’t?”
Rohan nodded.
The director chuckled and shook his head. “No. A director makes a movie. He keeps carving the story till he is satisfied. If the movie is not loved by the audience, does the happiness disappear? – Does that beautifully carved movie suddenly become a rubbish piece of art? No. Does that happiness, which director had felt earlier after seeing the final version of the movie, becomes useless? No.”
“Why not?” Rohan said.
“No. It just gets shaded. The movie will appeal to those who understand the viewpoint of the director and when those few people will appreciate that work of the director that shaded happiness will come into light again.”
Rohan wondered, why was the man discussing this with him. He asked, “But what does this…”
The director cut him in between, “I had always been happy because my love for Neelima was pure. It was true. I knew it. But my happiness was shaded because she was not with me. Today, you have come to remove that shade from my happiness. I feel happy because she loves me. I don’t want anything else from her.”
“But we are not happy.” Rohan said.
“No, it’s just an illusion. You must be happy.”
“Give me one reason for that.”
The director looked at him again. Very serenely, he said, “the reason you came here.”
“What reason?”
“You should be happy Mr. Rohan that your wife is so honest to you. You should be thankful to her for her veracity. She isn’t cheating on you. She has expressed the true feelings of her heart to you. It was neither your fault nor hers. You guys got married because your families wanted you to. Try to put yourself into her place.”
Rohan was surprised at the young director’s complacency. He wondered if the man was being realistic. Whatever he said, though appealing, but had a skeptical nature too, if seen pragmatically. He remained silent for a long time, pondering on what was right and what was wrong. “It’s too abstruse. What should I do now?”
“Do your duty. Do what your heart tells you to do. Don’t be impulsive. When present is insecure, do not think of future. Try to fill happiness in your present. Go find that intoxicated happiness. Lighten that ardor in yourself. If she can asseverate her true feelings to you, it means she is trying to accept you but her past love is coming in between. Step into her relationship with her past love. Intervene between them, if you want that happiness.”
Rohan got the answer. He realized the missing essence of his relationship with his wife. He realized that he had never tried to bring her to himself; he just kept waiting, expecting that she would come on her own.
The director’s exhorting words had engendered an urge to struggle in him. He understood that sometimes happiness doesn’t come on its own. We have to fight for it. He stood up, thanked the great man, wished him luck and ran towards the gate, across the field. The director called him from the stands, “Mr. Rohan, if you get that intoxicated happiness, do let me know.”
Rohan shouted from below, “No. I won’t shade your happiness again.”