Most of my life I have given of myself, and in return I have received love in abundance. Life hasn't been a bed of roses. And yet, quite often, I've had roses out of season.
We must love someone.
We must keep loving, all our days,
Someone, anyone, anywhere
Outside our selves;
For even the sarus crane
Will grieve over its lost companion,
And the seal its mate.
Somewhere in life
There must be someone
To take your hand
And share the torrid day.
Without the touch of love
There is no life, and we must fade away.
***
There's a suitcase under my bed where I store old manuscripts and photographs, magazines and greeting cards from years ago that I couldn't throw away. It is a treasure I go to when I'm in need of diversion or comfort— the comfort of old friends, for memories can be friends. As, indeed, is the suitcase—still with me, sixty years after I bought it cheap as a homesick teenager in Jersey. It travelled back to India with me, and it has served me well. Like me, it's a bit battered but still functioning. It isn't by throwing things away—and, invariably, replacing them—that we avoid cluttering up our life. It is by holding on to things that have been good and faithful to us. A trusted familiar knows how to live with us, finding its own space, giving us ours, and saves us from the need to hoard and possess that comes from feeling incomplete.
'Always tell the truth,' wrote Mark Twain, 'then you don't have to remember anything.' I haven't always done that. So there's a truth. Most of us fail, and we always pay the price—with every lie we surrender a little of our peace of mind, because we never lie only once; a single lie births ten others. The trick, I suppose, is to make the effort to be truthful, for nothing liberates us like the truth. A life of simplicity is impossible without it.
And it is the same with forgiveness and letting go. We clutter up our life with grievances, hurts and regrets when we cannot forgive.
***
A memory from long ago. Ulla.
She woke fresh and frolicsome. The sun streamed in through the window, and she stood naked in its warmth, performing calisthenics. I busied myself with the breakfast. Ulla ate three eggs and a lot of bacon, and drank two cups of coffee.
'And what shall we do today?' she asked, her blue eyes shining.
They were the bright blue eyes of a Siamese kitten.
'I'm supposed to visit the Employment Exchange,' I said.
'But that is bad. Can't you go tomorrow—after I have left?'
'If you like.' 'I like.'
And she gave me a swift, unsettling kiss on the lips.
We climbed Primrose Hill and watched boys flying kites. We lay in the sun and chewed blades of grass, and then we visited the Zoo, where Ulla fed the monkeys. She consumed innumerable ices. We lunched at a small Greek restaurant, and in the evening we walked all the way home through scruffy Camden Town, drank beer, ate a fine, greasy dinner of fish and chips, and went to bed early—Ulla had to catch a boat-train next morning.
'It has been a good day,' she said.
'I'd like to do it again tomorrow.'
'But I must go tomorrow.'
'But you must go.'
She turned her head on the pillow and looked wonderingly into my eyes, as though she were searching for something. I don't know if she found what she was looking for; but she smiled, and kissed me softly on the lips.
'Thanks for everything,' she said.
She was fresh and clean, like the earth after spring rain. I took her fingers and kissed them, one by one. I kissed her breasts, her throat, her forehead; and, making her close her eyes, I kissed her eyelids. We lay in each other's arms for a long time, savouring the warmth and texture of each other's bodies. Though we were both very young and inexperienced, we found ourselves imbued with a tender patience, as though there lay before us not just this one passing night, but all the nights of a lifetime, all eternity. There was a great joy in our loving, and afterwards we fell asleep like two children who have been playing in the open all day.
The sun woke me next morning. I opened my eyes to see Ulla's slim, bare leg dangling over the side of the bed. I smiled at her painted toes. Her hair pressed against my face, and the sunshine fell on it, making each hair a strand of burnished gold. The station and the train were crowded, and we held hands and grinned at each other, too shy to kiss.
'Goodbye,' she said. 'Give my love to Phuong.' 'I will.'
We made no promises—of writing, or of meeting again.
Somehow our relationship seemed complete and whole, as though it had been destined to blossom for just those two days. A courting and a marriage and a living together had been compressed, perfectly, into one summer night… I passed the day in a glow of happiness; I thought Ulla was still with me; and it was only at night, when I put my hand out for hers, and did not find it, that I knew she had gone. But I kept the window open all through the summer, and the scent of the honeysuckle was with me every night.
***
Love is as mysterious as happiness—no telling when it may visit us; when it will look in at the door and walk on, or come in and decide to stay. I won't even hazard to say that love is always fleeting, a bird on the wing. I have known couples who grew old together and seemed reasonably happy.
There are few comforts greater than the touch of a loving hand when your hopes have been dashed. Of course things don't turn out that way for all of us. When I was young, I fell in love with someone, someone fell in love with me, and both loves were unrequited. But life carried on.
Nothing really ends happily ever after, but if you come to terms with your own isolation, then, paradoxically, it becomes immediately possible to find a friend. And friendship is also love.
***
A bat flies in through the open window. He flies very low, skimming the floor, zooming in and out under the single chair and table, seeming lost, as if his radar is wrong. I've grown quite used to him. And when sometimes he settles upside down at the foot of my bed, I let him be. On lonely nights, even a crazy bat is company.
***
One summer long ago, S___ came to stay with me in the cottage on the wooded hill. I would sometimes take the little path to the stream at the bottom of the hill, and now I did that with S___. I took her down to the stream and we walked some way downstream, holding hands to help each other over the rough rocks and slippery boulders. We discovered a little cavern, with little jets of water cascading down from above. There was an opening at the top, and a shaft of sunlight came through, mingling with the spray of water and creating a tiny rainbow. Yes, a rainbow! We had never seen anything like it.
Later, on our way back, we collected ferns. The shady places around Mussoorie harbour a variety of ferns, and we soon had more than we could handle. So we made a bed of ferns, and lay down upon them, and talked and touched each other and made promises which we wouldn't keep. Love is inconstant; but it was good to love. And it gave me memories that make me smile on gloomy days.
I see us now, S___ and I, younger, living in that moment and untroubled by the future, walking home like children, still excited about the little rainbow we had seen.
***
Another memory: On the road outside the cottage, someone came up to me in the dark and kissed me and ran away. Who could it have been? So soft and warm and all-encompassing…The moment stayed with me all night. Who could it have been? I must find out. No, I must never find out. There was light snowfall by morning. Just enough to cloak the deodars for an hour or two, before it all melted away.
***
Sometimes we are easily depressed by our surroundings, and it is rarely the case that we can change our surroundings. But we only need to look around us. The pebble at our feet, the wild flower growing out of rubble, dappled sunlight on an old wall—they have as much beauty as any work of art.
If a tiny room without a view is our fate, we can either resign ourselves to life in the cell, or do something to make it less dreary. I discovered that bare walls do nothing for the spirit, so I learnt to put pictures on them— photographs of friends or scenic places; even pictures of my favourite movie stars cut out from magazines. Plants in old cans or bottles on the window sill. An oddly shaped stone as a paperweight. A comfortable chair, and a comfortable bed.
And then there's always the world outside. In my youth I stayed in cramped lodgings in the hot and dusty small towns of the Indian plains—perhaps the least inspiring places on earth—barely making a living by my writing. But long rambles in these towns surprised me with small miracles: moonlight on quiet alleys past midnight, for instance. Or the scent of quenched earth and fallen neem leaves after the first rains. Or the happy riot of the weekly bazaar. Or the brush of a stranger's hand that sometimes led to friendship and love.
Romance lurks in the most unlikely places.
***
Young couples, usually honeymooners, crowd the Mussoorie Mall. It is good to see new love in full bloom. Not all of them will remain in love with each other, but today they are and it makes them all beautiful, and fearless.
I have fallen in love many times. I still keep falling in love! As a youth, loneliness always went hand in hand with a powerful pull or attraction towards another person, be it boy or girl—and very often without that individual being aware of it. I think I expressed this feeling in a short poem, 'Passing By', which I wrote many years ago:
Enough for me that you are beautiful:
Beauty possessed diminishes.
Better a dream of love
Than love's dream broken;
Better a look exchanged
Than love's word spoken.
Enough for me that you walk past,
A firefly flashing in the dark.
It was probably written as a result of unrequited love. For whenever I pursued a loved one, that person proved elusive. On the other hand, the most lasting relationships have been those that have grown slowly, without fret or frenzy.
Declarations of passionate love or undying friendship are fine in their own way, and perhaps necessary; but the important thing is to feel comfortable with someone, and not have to keep proving yourself in one way or another.
In moments of rare intimacy two people are of one mind and one body, speaking only in thoughts, brilliantly aware of each other. I have known such moments—and who knows, I may know them again!
***
When things aren't going too well for me, I consult the I Ching, and usually get the right sort of wisdom and advice. Not so long ago, when I was suffering all the pangs of a rejected lover, I consulted the Book of Change and under the appropriate hexagram found the following lines:
'If you lose your horse, do not run after it, It will come back of its own accord.'
In this case, it did not. But I made my peace with it. There's little point yearning after something that has been irredeemably lost. Of course, this is easier said than done. It is as hard to let go as it is to accept that something we long for intensely will never be ours. Some of us do it more successfully than others. I'm one of them. Lucky? I don't know. But I suppose I should be grateful.
***
Quarrelled with R___, and later felt foolish and made up. When will I learn that life is not a novel? Life does not have the organization of a novel. People are not characters in a play; they refuse to conform to the exigencies of a plot, or our desires, or even our needs. We have to accept people as they are if we want to live with them. We can't really change people. Only a chameleon can change colour, and then only in order to deceive us.
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You cannot take the love but spurn the lover.
***
Spring is the time of life renewed, the mynah said. The time of a green and reviving earth, of nesting and mating and birth. Of hope.
Hope! Yes, it is the season of hope—the season when, like the unfurling leaf, we are reaching for something beyond ourselves.
It is spring and the sap is rising.
I feel it too, old as I am. I would like nothing better than to hold someone warm and beautiful in my arms, once again. Am I asking for too much? Well, one can always dream… No one can take our dreams away!
And until death comes, all is life.
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Excerpted with Permission from Speaking Tiger Books
