Happy Birthday to You!!!

Imtiaz Ali has directed some very endearing love-stories. “Socha Na Tha”, “Jab We Met” and “Love Aaj Kal”… I often wondered what the common theme in all these movies was.

Yesterday, while seeing Jab We Met for the nth time… it occurred to me that the common theme of Imtiaz movies was that those who are destined to fall in love… fall in love despite all odds… be it Abhay Deol and Ayesha Takia of Socha Na Tha (where Abhay first rejects Ayesha and then engages with another girl)…. Or Shahid Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor of Jab We Met (where Shahid actually helps Kareena in patching up with her estranged lover)…. Or Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone of Love Aaj Kal (where Deepika actually gets married with another guy)…

In all the three movies, the leading pairs were cruising for a life sans each other… and yet ended up meeting together… no melodrama… no disjoints… it was a plain narrative that brought them together, as if the entire universe had been conspiring to bring them together.

After seeing the movie… I closed my eyes and slept… only to be engulfed by sweet dreams of the life gone by… it was a sweetest and most relaxing sleeps of my life… where I dreamt of my smiling wife… two little kids… and a wilderness to walk.

I remembered so many small instances… of how we were cruising for lives sans each other… of how she was all, but gone… from my life… forever… and how things changed thereafter…. As if the Universe conspired.

I was married in 2004… to this woman of extra-ordinary strength, resolve and honesty… but never did in my 9 years of knowing her… I considered her anything but a friend... who was always there for me, a phone call away… whose letters brought me immense peace… and while writing a letter to whom… I enacted my refuge, emancipation and growing up.

I remember… how in my hours of extreme solitude… I called her from Jamnagar… her voice whispered… everything is fine with the world around… the embryonic darkness would soon perish and ray of lights would wake me from the slumber of dejection….

I remember... how I used to write pages after pages… endlessly… of letter to her… voicing my hopes and disgusts, cravings and dreams, pains and mirth… I knew that on the other end… there is a patient ear to hear me… and give me a shoulder to lean…

I remember… the vacuum I felt inside me… so huge that I could have imploded… when I heard that she is going to get married off… I remember… the tremble and shivers… when I confessed to myself… that yes I love her… and that I may always remain incomplete without her in my life…

I remember those soothing words… when I broke down at Al-Kharga Oasis… when I said I don’t want to complete the Desert Circuit… and she told me that she is proud of me and would like to see me complete the exhausting desert circuit…

I remember those words of courage… when I was about to go to Cyprus to participate in one of most defining moments of my life… when I saved more than 3000 lives… and she hugged me to say good-bye… when she was suffering from an excruciating pains of Gall Bladder Stone and had an infant to take care of…

I remember those words of encouragement… when I was about to embark a momentous journey in the Levant… which changed my world view… to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Palestine… and how she said that I know you would grow…

I also remember the day when I was about to leave for Spiti… and she came to meet me… with a first aid and medicine box… I knew thereon that I am in safe hands… and that I have found my guardian angel…

I remember returning from a movie on 6th February 2009… at around 2 am and I packing my bag finally… to leave for the most dangerous place in the world… and she clasping my hand and telling me… trust me… nothing bad would happen…

I don’t know why people change… why I changed after marriage… why I stopped listening… why I became blunt… when life is so simple… I feel a shiver running down my spine… whenever I remember those harsh words I have said to her… on and off… if at all… I seek redemption from that shiver… and yet I find some solace on the beautiful times I have spent with her… while playing Sanctuary with her and my kids… building our own world underneath a camp made of bed sheet. I feel a hand playing with my little wee bits of hairs… when I imagine dancing together on the New Year Eve in 2006. I remember that smile…

I know redemption is not sought… it comes on its own… its not a moment… it’s a narrative… it’s when you rise up and accept your faults… it’s when you start discovering the love, empathy and resolve inside you…

The last 5 and half years have been beautiful with you and I know when you close your eyes and think about me you would say the same… despite a few blemishes… I accept my faults… and seek forgiveness not from you… but from the person who I had known for 14 years… and forget yours.

Today is your birthday… and I would like to say just a few things…

I would not have been half of what I am… sans you… without you… for what I am today… you have been steadfast with me… for me

A very happy birthday… thanks for all the beautiful memories… for two lovely kids… for moments of serenity… for courage… for love… for emancipation… for refuge… for a rendezvous called LIFE.