The Affair

Today, the small state of Kerala reels under the pressure of the worst floods in a century. As I sit, far away in Bangalore, the pictures I see and all I hear about it weighs heavy on my heart. Kerala has always stood up to adversity and we see it again today when the magnanimity of the state and its people will win over adversity.
I remembered when I put my thoughts in words when I left Kochi after living there for two years.
In tribute…………
It’s been 9 months since we broke up. And like any other torrid affair, it’s been a messy breakup. Everyone gives their advice of how it should be a clean break up, and no one follows it!
I was a reluctant lover! At least I was in the beginning. Something held me back from admiring her beauty and her composure. With zero experience, and with only one long term love I had had, that I still perhaps held on to, I could not even bring myself to admire her at the start. With some time (or maybe a lot) I let her in. She was a friend that I slowly discovered to be a true gem! A friend that brought out a different side in me, a fun side. She made the teardrops on my head feel like little drops of happiness and the harsh beam of sunlight felt like a warm ray of hope. She made me feel like life could be anything I wanted it to be!
We grew closer, and I soon realised that she was an exception to the rule — distance would not make us fonder. I loved her when I was with her, and I missed her when I wasn’t. Even with all my family, I couldn’t wait to be with her, and I had no qualms of leaving home for her.
With time, a relationship blossomed. She held my hand and walked in the rains and she held her hands up to protect me from the sun. When I looked deep into her heart, I knew I was a lost cause. She was a diamond in the sea. Hard to find and precious once found! A beauty that only became more welcoming and enveloping, almost like the waves beckon you into the sea. Yes, a little dangerous too! I put one foot into the sands, and I knew I had been changed — the Sand seeped between my toes and the water flowed from beneath my feet. The earth was literally giving way; and I knew I was done for. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to let go easily. I decided to take it one moment at a time.
I opened my heart and let her in. My life as I knew it, had changed. My life had always been pretty amazing and I had been perfectly happy. Was it because I didn’t know what I was missing? The horizon had begun to change. Even what seemed perfect previously, was less acceptable than the flawed love I had now. The things that had seemed essential was feeling less and less like it really was. The things I didn’t know I wanted, they were seeming essential now. What was happening?! There was a fear in my heart, but boy, was it beautiful!
I had never questioned my present in the past. I was now questioning everything I knew. I felt like a changed person, and I believed for the better.
There was an excitement as she touched me, lapped at my feet and kissed my cheeks. Her effect on my dry lips was like salt spray on a warm summer afternoon. Her warm touch made it seem like a piece of the sun was with me. I stood and gazed at the horizon up ahead and I knew, I knew I had fallen and fallen hard. She was not a lone entity, she was a part of a whole that was so alluring.
The friends I had made because of her were so important to me now. It almost seemed like they were making a headway on my oldest, closest friends. And they were, in no means the least, perhaps one of the reasons I never wanted to let her go. Without her, perhaps they would also ebb away. On the surface, there were many things wrong with her. But, she had no black spots in her heart — she loved all embracingly. Loving me for what I was and letting me love her for everything she was.
I saw the end coming, before it came. It was almost inevitable. There wasn’t a single impure thought in her, but we were just growing apart. Worldly influences started knocking on the door. It seems ‘they’ wouldn’t let us be. We were growing apart. We couldn’t agree on many things. Parents got involved and families became relevant. With a heavy heart, I let her go. I remember the kiss on my cheek before I left, and I remember an embrace that still haunts me — right before I left!
I wish I could say I never looked back. But I did, many times.
In the meantime, I went back to my perfectly beautiful life from before. But something was tangibly different. I told myself that it was that things were really different, but I knew I was looking at everything differently. Perhaps my perspective had also changed, but my previously perfectly perfect life had also changed. My friends who were always around in the past, had also changed. I’ve always believed that the fastest way to change loyalties and priorities, is marriage. Now Married, their mothers in law were made the all-pervasive villains and their husband’s father’s brothers’ son’s weddings were all to be attended to. Almost as if one family was not enough, there are two families that need pacifying and loving and a lot of their time.
It seemed like a less than perfect existence, not least because of what I knew I had and had let go of.
Perhaps that is what made me talk to her again, I’ve visited her at least 4 times in the past 9 months. Like the long-lost lover that I was, she seduced me and taunted me. I never wanted the morning to come. The glorious nights with her, are precious hours I will never forget. We forgot the world and the differences that had knocked us apart. We let families be but a byline in the plot. We were all that mattered. In this alternate existence, each time, she gave me immense joy. Each time, I never wanted to let her go. She made me feel complete. And each time, I never felt like getting out of her bed. Strange bedfellows we were not, and we were making memories!
I know those memories will always bring tears to my eyes. She was a part of me growing up, and an ingrained part of me now. The waves may dull the etch, but the imprint will always be there.
Things will change perhaps, when my friends of that age also move on. Perhaps they are what makes her feel so perfect in my heart. But I hope I will be able to put Kochi behind me.
But that is what Kochi is — a little drop of heaven in God’s own land. Realistically, what is two years in the tapestry of a lifetime? It is but a drop in an ocean. Against all odds, it made a little mark in my life. Like any first love, it has a special place in my heart.
But, the allure of “home” is altogether a different pull. While these are the roots that keep me standing, that adventure I had, was what gave me wings! While you have everything you ever want in a ‘home’, you learn to handle everything you may ever need when you take those baby steps outside home. This second home has made a special place in my heart not least because of how she helped me grow. A home that I will always count on as my home away from home.
Like, a good child, I did go back to loving Bangalore. And for good reason — because, well, who can not love Bangalore?! But someday, if perhaps, I am on the verge of another journey in another place, I hope that leaving my imperfectly perfect Bangalore is as worth my while. I wish for the same beautiful relationship with another place. Perhaps, we shall start off with her on a back foot, simply because I am in love with another home and I have another home. This new journey will have considerable ground to make up.
I can only hope, like in any other torrid romance, once the flame dies and the embers start settling down, what is beyond will be visible.
I can only hope the memories of what was, will take me forward. Rather than have the fire of those memories burn the bridge to a brighter future, I can only fervently pray that the memories of what was, will lay down the bridge over a rocky present to a bright and beautiful future.
But then, the world only revolves on faith, and I have that — I believe I can make place in my heart for two homes, apart from where my heart resides, in what home actually means.
- Manisha J Kumar