The Voice of Love Seemed to Call to Me, But it Was A Wrong Number

 “The one who has not attached himself to any desire or people, never shall his heart be broken but then has he truly lived ^{(Jackie Chan in movie- The Forbidden Kingdom)}

Before starting I want to declare that the events depicted below although did not necessarily happen to me, nonetheless it doesn’t make them any less true. They happened to real people at some point of time (those whom I may or may not know) who had strength enough to endure the crisis and survived to tell the tale.

         So let’s start with falling in love (sometimes I wonder why people fall in love why don’t they rise up or something like that).Everybody falls in love( though I am not sure about inanimate objects, aliens, cats or James Bond ) some of them early, some late, some of them just once and some quite more often. So yours truly also not being an exception, succumbed to it on one fateful day. It was early in the morning (It was so early that even sun was not up yet) when I first saw her. She looked like the kind of girl I could fall in love with .Her looks were almost the way I always imagined in my dreams, and her glance had something mystical, something magical, the kind that bore deep in to your heart and yet very innocent and childlike. I was dumbfounded, stunned, speechless, thunderstruck, tongue-tied,   amazed, flabbergasted and completely blown away, I felt butterflies in my stomach, my heart was beating faster than usual, and I started feeling weak on my knees. In short all the signs of love at first sight about those I knew till then were manifesting themselves with varying intensity (give or take a few).And as I was planning my next move, the unthinkable happened. Unaware of my constant gaze upon her and possibly unaware of presence of anybody around her she raised her beautiful right hand towards her face, extended her index finger and shoved that inside her nose and started picking it with such ferocity and passion that had any armadillo been there to witness the spectacle, it definitely would have considered to be her disciple in order to hone it’s skills at digging. Now that digging stuff was too much for me, I could not take it anymore. The butterflies disappeared from the stomach (flew away in search of some flower perhaps), pulse returned to normal as soon as it could and all the signs described above disappeared quickly one by one in no particular order. So that was the story of my first love and how it ended even before getting started. And now recollection of those memories are making tears roll down my cheeks (after all she was my first love).Having said so  I am putting an end to this story of first love only imagining what it could have been, if only(you know what, I don’t want to repeat the stuff).

      They say you never forget your first love, but guys like me who are hopelessly romantic (Yes I am, and this time I am not joking), full of passion and are gifted by god with extraordinarily big heart (not cardiomegaly, only metaphorically speaking and yes there are only four chambers but they are quite roomy and have capacity to accommodate people more than the usual number at any given point of time) will find their love even at the farthest corner of universe. Though the heart gets bruised sometimes, but guys like me being inspired by a higher sense of purpose never deter from the eternal quest of finding our true love. As  Paulo Coelho said “when you want something, the entire universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”, and yes I wanted my true love and that I knew for sure. So universe conspired in a very twisted manner, perhaps universe was in a bad mood or was tired with scheming conspiracies since it’s inception or was just bored so it decided to play a joke upon me. Anyways this all happened in a diner where I was sitting alone when I saw her walking towards me and yet again I was thunderstruck, completely mesmerized by her beauty,  overwhelming storm of emotions gripped me and my heart was ready to leap out of my chest(It happens quite frequently with me). She walked past me and joined the menacing looking guy (the kind of you never want to mess up with) wearing dark eye shades (and believe me those dark shades were making him look even more formidable) sitting diagonally opposite me. She sat down with her back facing me, which highly disappointed me. But you possibly don’t know one thing about me, I am a shrewd guy and I know how to turn things to my advantage. So this time I started beholding her beauty through the shades of the guy. I got absorbed in the spectacle completely oblivious to the fact that she was not able to see me but the guy was. After sometime as they started to leave the unthinkable happened. The girl again walked past without noticing me but the guy stopped and then I realized what happened. The guy probably knew that I was eyeballing his girl the whole time and I expected myself to be at the receiving end of one or two stiff punches, but here comes the twisted part. Nothing of that sort happened, the guy removed his shades smiled, then winked at me and wrote his phone number on a tissue paper (most probably it was his number but there is no way of knowing it for sure) and walked away completely destroying me inside out and turning all my dreams of being with her into rack and ruins (Don’t laugh it can happen to anyone and believe me it’s not funny at all). Now I had two choices given the current state of affairs. First that she most probably was not his girl after all so I could still pursue her and second was to leave the place sprinting never to come back. And as I told you earlier I am a shrewd guy so I went for the second option ran as fast as I could never to look back. Concluding this episode I want to request you guys ,if you ever come across this ‘universe’ thing or if you are aware of the whereabouts of it’s office where these conspiracies are plotted, kindly let me know because I have to sort out some personal issues in a very peaceful manner(or should I).Damn you ‘universe’ and your conspiracies.

      With time everybody grows older and perhaps wiser. I am not so sure about other people but as I grew older I definitely became wiser and a little bolder. I refuse to live by set standard rules; I’d rather make my own. I refuse to walk on the track created by others; I’d rather create my own path and I refuse to dance on somebody else’s tune; I’d rather create my own melody (good one isn’t it).Above mentioned lines has nothing to do with story I just wanted you people to realize that I am wiser and can come up with clever stuff and now I have stopped trusting this ‘universe conspires’ thing completely. Proceeding further I also want you to know that I am not that kind of guy who can be discouraged from performing the task in hand, and when it comes to eternal quest for love there is nothing that can deter me. This time it was college library and I was of course there to study (not really). I was with my pals (who were also inspired by the same sense of higher purpose or lower I can’t say for sure) and we were trying to absorb the beauty (you know of what kind) present there. Now this time again I was observing this girl sitting in front of me with her friend deeply absorbed in her book. I was gazing at her silently in a hope that she at some point of time will notice my appreciation for her. I was suffering from bad conjunctivitis my eyes were aching but I told myself that one’s cause must not suffer whatever obstacles might come in one’s path, so this time I was wearing dark shades to hide red, swollen eyes and was doing my job as usual despite all the pain and discomfort I was enduring. This time ‘universe’ conspired again (only this time I was the guy wearing dark shades) and I came to notice that the girl sitting next to the first girl is smiling at me. I averted my gaze and left (wrong number again it was, perhaps there was some constitutional malfunction in my inbuilt circuit).This continued for several days and as you know I am a very compassionate man, I could not hurt the feelings of somebody so I let it continue furthermore. And then it turned from library to coffee and then to dinner (in a very usual fashion) until one day she proposed me. Now to be honest I was shocked as I did not expect this coming from her (I had to keep a serious face and all but inside I was at cloud nine and I finally thought that  this ‘universe conspires’ thing is not that bad after all). In spite of everything even if I didn’t like her (though that was not the case), I am a gentleman how could I have rejected her and let her heart be broken, so I said yes. This being my first experience of life with a woman and it led me to some insight into what women really are ( a completely different species from us).Then we parted our ways after some time ( because with time I was growing more and more wise ). My eternal quest for love continued as I experienced adventures of love and happiness.

       There is not enough space in here to describe other exploits. Perhaps someday I’ll write a book that will include all of them (in hard cover and several volumes), and will title it as “The Quest for Eternal Love: The Adventures of a  Gutsy Bachelor” or “The Chronicles of  An Eternal Bachelor” and it will be distributed free under the “National Programme for the Welfare of Exploited Men”. For now I’ll end up with a quote from Henry Louis Mencken “Bachelors know more about women than married men, if they didn’t they’d married too”.

                                       

                                   

                                          The Eternal Bachelor

Before leading you in to this treatise(yeah I am serious),I want to make it  abundantly clear that I m not sexist, chauvinist, anti- feminist, misogynist, woman hater or lacking in affection for opposite sex(definitely not the last one)at least not in the strictest of literal sense, though I am dedicated to the cause of bachelorhood inspired by the plight of the miserable species dwelling on mother earth often mislabeled  as happily married men(come on guys it’s a myth). And before proceeding further I want to add that it’s neither my wish nor my intention to deter any guy from entering the sacred bond of matrimony. My only hope is, that a bachelor before entertaining the idea of falling into this trap (I am sorry guys but that is the case) perhaps inspired by hopelessly romantic ideas and surge of male hormones (u know what I am talking about) should at least contemplate once rationally and look back upon his blissful bachelor life before taking a step forward in this direction and ending up saying “I do” at the altar because there is no coming back from there.

       There is no way of knowing who first came up with the crazy notion of such an arrangement between a man and woman known as matrimony. But perhaps it was a woman because it is hardly imaginable that one  of our  ancient ancestor(it’s a guy  I am talking about) sharing beverage with his bros in a bar(of ancient kind),watching exotic dancers(optional),after a hard day’s labor , being responsible for committing such an atrocity which will not just torment himself  throughout his life(forget sharing rounds of beer with bros, and exotic dancers-  are you kidding me)but will also haunt the generations of men to come.

      A bachelor according to Oxford dictionary is “a man who is not and has never been married” although a more accurate definition was given by American comedian Phyllis Diller who described that “a bachelor is a guy who never made the same mistake once” (absolutely true) and now I give you eternal bachelor “a guy who wants to and does maintain his status of bachelor hood till eternity or until terminated finally by death” (subject to extensions and amendments unless the spirit of idea is changed). Some great men have dedicated their success to effort and support of their wives but seriously guys in all fairness what choice did poor bloke has, he probably was just saving himself from the impending domestic strife (can’t blame the guy, everybody is entitled to self-defense) and who knows what other great things the chap could have further accomplished if only there was no distraction in his life (you know of what kind).

      Moving further let’s have a look upon the lives of some great eternal bachelors in history who maintained their state of blessedness and kept their “single” status forever. The list is very long but here we will deal with some examples. First and foremost, the divine founder of one of the largest followed religions (Christianity) in the world stayed bachelor forever (Dan Brown may not agree).Lord Buddha attained supreme wisdom only after he was free from the distractions of married life. Then comes Leonardo da Vinci, the bachelor who is considered to be one of the most brilliant men that ever walked upon the face of earth leaving his imprints on everything from science to religion and from philosophy to fiction. Just imagine could it have been possible for him to dedicate so much time and attention to more important things in life if he was ever married. He might have been  changing diapers or running domestic chores instead of painting Mona Lisa (that too only if his wife would have permitted him to do so, I mean leaving her husband alone in a room with a beautiful girl- quite unthinkable).And then comes Sir Isaac Newton  who revolutionized the world with his groundbreaking discoveries. It’s hard to believe that Newton, had he been married would have been sitting idly, all by himself under that tree on that fateful day when the apple fell stimulating the train of thoughts that led to discovery of gravity. Seriously man, the guy could have been at grocery store buying monthly supplies or taking his wife keeping her beauty parlor appointment(women were not that independent those days) but all in all there was no way he could have been there where he ought to be. The list of such remarkable and great bachelors is endless (will continue perhaps some other day) but I will end up with Beethoven, the German composer who mesmerized the world with his musical masterpieces and influenced the generations.

      In conclusion the concept of   “they lived happily ever after” is a myth and a happily married man is a rare entity (if there is one).The life of eternal bachelor is life of eternal bliss (I m not making this up, there is enough proof out there). In words of Oscar Wilde“ bachelors should be heavily taxed. it is not fair that some men should be happier than others”. And to sum up I am paraphrasing a women herself on the matter so that I can’t be labeled as being  biased  “a man in love is incomplete until he has married, and  then he is finished” came from famous Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor. I am not here to convince anybody of anything, these are just my views and beliefs on the subject. And for those who still think that they can find happiness in married life “by all means marry, if you get a good wife you will become happy and if you get a bad one you will become a philosopher”(Socrates).Being philosopher is not that bad eh.