HISTORY OF CRUSHES - Part 2

Continued from "History of Crushes - Part 1"

As much as the train journey offered solutions to my thought, it once again raised the old question - What exactly brings two people together, to love and to marry? What really draws them together?

How could I miss the reason for falling in love? As I traveled, I remembered lots of movies about boys meeting girls in a Railway coach. I looked around. Found none. Walked around, found a couple (of girls) who didn't interest me at all. I realized, I was looking for faces I already knew or have seen before. It doesn't matter even I had not met them in person or interacted with them earlier. And as I reached home, I was wondering why did I look for a face I already knew?

Thats when it occurred to me that the girl you are after should be from your own area. How could I miss this! In all the movies, the hero and the heroine were from the same place, but meeting for the first time in the train. It was not restricted to movies alone. All the wedding I had attended at the distant place of Chennai had the bride and groom from the same place.

Likewise, even the couple of weddings I had attended at Bangalore was also the same. Even at Kumbakonam, it was same story. So, the boy and the girl should be from the ame place. So, I found the reason for two people getting close to each other. Proximity. Location. Two people should be from the same location or area to fall in love with each other.

This time, I did not have to look around. I knew my girl. I found the perfect girl coming from my residential area. She came from the same locality as mine. Her house couple of streets away from mine. We travelled by the same bus. What more! We were even in the same class. Her father was also in the Railways. Though my old man was a clerk, her old man was a manager. It can't get closer than this! She was a Golti, and I couldn't care less.

And then came the spanner. Sad day it was for me. And I knew I couldn't look at her that way. It was the day I had to bring the attendance register from the staff room to the class. I sensed an opportunity to know her date of birth which I never knew till then.

She was older than me by 6 months. And I suffered my first heart attack at the age of 12. And my eyes started pouring out. And then I recovered to check the date of birth of other girls in my class. Except three, all mokka figures, all the others were older than me. And I suffered the second attack.

Darn that age! What more. All of a sudden the girl you like and love and lust behind become your Bhabis. The scoundrel who is three days older than you starts wooing the girl one day older to you. And that idiot wants you to call her "Bhabi". Enna koduma sir idhu....

So I learn that the boys should be older than the girls. I am advised endlessly by all and sundry over this. And I am convinced of the truth. Truth that boys cannot be younger than the girls they are after. It would cause all acts of god such as Tsunami, Earth Quake, Famine, Floods, Price Rise and Power Cut at the same time!

So, I am sad and frustrated at knowing that the pretty girl I like is a day older than me. And I envy the lousy dog who is a day older than her, going behind her.

And then it happened.

My hero and icon Sachin Tendulkar got married. To a girl five years older than him. And I also hear that Mahatma Gandhi's wife, Kasturba was also older than him by couple of months. God of Cricket and Father of Nation cannot be wrong. They cannot do anything wrong. And I started liking them even more. And for the first time in my life, I celebrated Gandhi Jayanthi.

When age is no longer a barrier, you look beyond your class. When all the bitches from your class and the classes lower to you end up calling you "Anna" in public, and courteously tie a Rakhi every year, and to add insult to injury, they also collect money from you for that, there you find the other girls from the senior class darn attractive. Whats the bigger advantage! They will happily get closer to you, not sensing your true intentions.

Thank you Sachin. Thank you Gandhi. You have opened my eyes and mind. You have freed me from the darkness and ignorance that I was engulfed in. Your actions were the beacon light for the hopeless idiots like me. 

If not age, then what? I didn't have this doubt. I didn't want to research any further fearing further disappointments. It was posed to me by a friend of mine. Yeah... Yeah... the same lousy bugger who made me call a girl I liked as "Bhabi". The same rat scoundrel who was three days older than me and couple of days older than my "Bhabi". The bugger motivated me to find the answer for the same and satisfy my non-existent thirst for greater knowledge and enlightenment.

Contrary to my earlier pursuits in search of knowledge, where I literally went around asking people and gathering information across various sources, this time I was hell bent on doing the research / thinking process all within myself. I studied all the girls I was after, irrespective of the criterion I had. I realized that there was only one common thing across all. They were all fair. Not judicious kind of fair. None of them were that kind of fair, I realized that sad truth later. All of them had fair complexion. And subconsciously, I had been falling for the fairest among the alternatives available.

But why so? I never realized the answers to that and my further exploration would lay bare the ignominy of human frailties and carnal desires.

(To be Continued? To be decided later.)