Sentiments and Smiles Long Overdue . . .

… So went the dedication on the book, scribbled hurriedly during the long, but thankfully air-conditioned taxi ride to Faridabad; assorted pastries, books and (concerned) grimace in tow. Meeting people on their return home after a most unexpected hospital tryst (severe cigarette-induced-asthma-induced uneasiness) can be as unnerving as it may initially seem relieving (seeing people AT the hospital instead calls for feigning a braver façade). The patient being an old flame/flicker makes extra demands on composure and dignity; you have to make sure you seem neither too distant nor too vested, concerned and not paranoid; friendly, but not too familiar. For the long months that Atlas Shrugged sat pretty on my bookshelf, waiting to be added to the Ayn Rand-obsessed ex’s collection; I wondered if I indulged him too much. An off-the-cuff mention of his fascination for the Fountainhead, and off I went picking the next in the Rand collection, determined to pass it on to him as testimony of (the times of) my pure joy at his presence in my life, even as he changed status from (ambiguously) potential/prospective/current to (unequivocally) “ex”. It was our first planned meeting since the telephone breakup two years ago, and the opportunity to finally pass on the fondly picked-up book didn’t in any way lessen the concern at this latest deterioration in health.

Fortunately, he was in much better condition than I had imagined (he’d shaved earlier in the day, and I certainly had as well), leaving little to inquire about medicine courses, the recovery regimen and so on. Small talk ensued . . . some salvation something party, haircuts in Delhi salons, facebook photographs, Istanbul, the Delhi – Faridabad commute . . . The high-maintenance pet forced digressions from time to time. With a dog like that who needs a cat, I muttered under my breath, surprisingly to no offence taken. Between the half-smiles and generous servings of cut fruit and jeera-sprinkled nimbu-pani, I made myself at home. Is a knee on the bed too familiar, or should I sit straight and very “I-have-only-come-to-inquire-about-your-health”? Knee is ok, I decide, suddenly feeling less uptight. Am tempted to help myself to the get-well-soon chocolate I brought him, but desist.

Short visit it had to be, and when his friends who called were told that he was “busy with people who have come over to see me only” and therefore couldn’t “meet before late in the night dude”, I sensed it was time to leave. Exchanging pleasantries and half hugs (fearful that my Punjabi hug-instinct doesn’t get the better of a recovering, feeble body), I made a dash for the taxi.

The long drive back home was spent in sombre contemplation of the months spent waiting and hoping for a full-circle moment, when walls would break and faith be reposed. Is the archetype of the respected and “good friends now” ex a self-indulgent fabrication? Are the causes that brought about the end of a bond once shared and cherished ever sandpapered away, enough to establish a new sense of normality? Does caution linger on after heartbreak and an unfed ego, much like antibodies do after a draining viral attack?

I thought about the long month of recovery following my road accident outside Jaipur this time last year, much of which was spent wondering if the ex’s perfunctory-seeming (seeming = give him benefit of doubt) chat-window enquiry of my health would be followed with a more personal phone call? Was this my moment of benevolent retribution? Of demonstrable magnanimity?

Truth be told, my lasting impression of this meeting remains the first sight of him walking to receive me at his gate, reassuring that he is well, and shall recover soon. The relief I felt then, and the detached anger later at seeing him scramble for cigarettes in his bag confirms that my intentions, in a very convoluted way, were pure. Was I overboard with attention/affection/get-well-soon mementos when their absence wouldn’t arguably being noticed? After all, magnanimity can go full circle, and sometimes lead you to question if it is prompted by pettiness. I don’t know if my gesture was too strong or unnecessary, but anything less would seem too contrived and curbed. Restraint has been a problem area for me, I’ve been told; but I wonder why to make exceptions in behavior for those relationships that leave me more high-strung than others? Perhaps for a rational self-preservation self-interest; or simply because I am capable of it; or even because tweaking one’s natural behaviour for someone else is sometimes less about ceding ground as it is about accommodating? But that, for another day.

Regardless of what he may have made of the “with smiles and sentiments long overdue” dedication in the book (to stroke his ego with impressions of my lingering and unexplained fondness for him), unlike the Atlas on the cover, I surely felt a great burden off my shoulders. It wasn’t the book, so much as the power ceded to him to affirm or reject, which is the bigger burden I have found to have let gone of. When that attachment is chiseled away, the disappointments don’t matter; and neither do the strands of vindication. Good sense and pure instinct prevail, and to the extent that they are not strained by over-examining, life goes on.