L-O-V-E ..so simple..still can;t spell it right!!

It just dawned upon me that I must write. I should, would, can, better write. Reasons are various. Serious, logical, casual, futuristic, professional, linguistic, cathartic [the one that Aristotle spoke about] and many more. I have been calling myself a writer; a few more say it too [the sympathetic and encouraging lot around me]. I have been paid tits bits for this jugglery of words and thoughts quite often. So I have carried this feeling that, ‘yes! I can write’ but do I write? Only when there is a KOT? Well….the harsh answer jumped out. ‘Yes! I write only when asked for’
Well….let me be little fair to myself. I do write proactively…err…correction, I do START writing proactively but very rarely reach the ‘and they lived happily ever after’ [does anyone know how to spell de—ter—mi—na----tion here?]
SO….what happened on August 18 2006 that Archimedes yelled ‘EUREKA” all over again? I started digging deep [see how writers drift? More than writing I want to know WHY I want to write!!]
There is no interesting KOT at the moment.
Reading in the afternoon makes me sleep. I anyways spend a lot of time sleeping. So want to avoid Mid-day slumbers.
It feels kind of happening to write on the computer. [I mostly write with pen and paper because I mostly write in Marathi and I – LEAP SO doesn’t work for me.
Why not try my hand on English? Better career prospects if I master it. [ Shekhchilli is my first cousin]
Good enough reasons? No? I dig deeper. To my utter surprise I see it. Deeper down than I thought. It was just a couple of days back. I was almost asleep after spending hours putting my little devil to bed.[Err….My daughter…no being naughty here…I am in my age old self introspection session] Every night I wonder who is putting whom to bed. I had managed not to hit the sack though I was almost there. My husband who I thought was asleep suddenly jerked and sat upright. Yippee!! He loves me, I thought. He managed to stay awake to talk, to share, to connect. [Ha ha ha!! Cliché cliché] He suddenly said, ‘you know what? I feel you have a great potential of a writer. I think you should write a novel, that too in English. Something like Arundhati Roy? She never thought she would win the Booker! Think about it. I am sure you will do a great job’ He said all this like one says the national anthem. With a straight face. One has learnt it way back in school, no ambiguity, no confusion, almost mechanical at times. And he slept. He was snoring in minutes. He left me speechless. He did not give me the chance to laugh at his statement. Leave apart countering his overestimation of my capacities. [If there may be any] I had to tell him he is wrong. I had to tell him I can’t write. I can’t write even a short story. And I have to strive hard to write in English and I do it only when there is a job, KOT. I wanted to tell him he is getting carried away even by thinking of Arundhati Roy. I had to ask him where my practical, skeptical, realistic, rational man with his feet on the ground has gone. But I did not ask him. I did not say anything. I did not wake him up as I would have normally done in my ‘tell me NOW’ kicks. He slept next to our baby, just like she slept. Peaceful and serene. I kept looking at them. She has his face, ditto. And they look identical when asleep. She with his face and he with her expression. I kept looking at them and I wept to myself. I did not realize why I was crying. This happens often, he calls me the ‘tear tap.’ In a moment I knew why I was crying. I met L-O-V- E there. Right there in his square face and bland statement ‘Something like Arundhati Roy? She never thought she would win the Booker! Think about it. I am sure you will do a great job’
I have often wondered what it is that I call love. What it is that is so painful and I still strive for. What it is that has become such an eternal cliché? What it is that the world craves for?. Most of us accept and rests don’t. At 18, I thought it would never come my way. Come on! At 18 it means someone giving you red roses, greeting cards asking you out for a date. And sure enough it never happened. I thought I would never meet the man of my dreams. [I am glad I did not mistake anyone for him then, life would have been a bigger roller coaster than it is now] When he came my way, I never saw him until I was slapped, drugged, and induced with the conviction ‘stupid girl, you love him, we know it, you don’t’ Thanks to the souls who enlightened me and got me my man.
I thought I spelled it right. L-O-V-E! Simple!! La-di-da!! Love is being with the man who knows you best. Door to door pick up and drop home on a happening bike. Eating out, movies, occasional ‘sweet nothings’ [they weren’t so occasional then though] the brief sneak kisses. The long awaited, prayed for solitudes.
Time makes all the difference. Then love was spending every single free moment together. Love was dreading separation. Love was belonging, love was possessing. Love was ensuring the right on each other. Love was spending every night in each others arms. Love was convincing oneself and each other that ‘you are end of life’

Then slowly love was letting go, love was the goddaammnnn ‘giving space’, Love was ‘living and letting live’ Love was smiling and lovingly entertaining his ‘old flame’ Love was ‘leaving each other alone’ and yet…living together. [?????.....whatever…] Love was telling each other ‘no matter what, we love each other.’ Rudimentary my dear Watson! Isn’t that why we have married each other? Hmmmm….true true.

Now love is the little bundle of our flesh and blood that calls us mummy and daddy. The living proof of our love. Love is making a good human, an honest citizen out of this infant, who now is a toddler. Seeing each other in her eyes, lips, hair, voice. Dreaming of what she would do that we did not do. Fearing that one day she will leave our old, weak fingers and walk by herself. Love is telling each other that then we would catch the finger she has left.
I write lines after lines…yet another jugglery of words. But I don’t know what this word means. I have tried to put it in different shapes, forms and moulds, each time thinking I have spelled it right. But each new day proves me wrong.
After being married for five years, my mother still calls me late in the night and if she realizes I am out and not in bed, she yells at me. Once I blamed her for ignoring me after my daughter was born. [She is obsessed by her, I tell you] She smiled with a tear in her eye and said,’ silly, it’s you I am bringing up all over again’ I met love there. I meet love in my grandmothers 87 years old palm. The palm that has hit me several times for a little important reasons. I am sure it will still be as strong if given a choice to set my wrongs right. I meet love when my brother calls me ‘his most prized gift’ I meet love when my father sulks with my ‘where is mom?’ question which comes even before I greet him. I meet love when my in laws embarrass me by flaunting their ‘actress daughter in law’ as if I am Julia Roberts or Madhuri Dixit. I meet love when my drop dead sleepy daughter literally climbs on me and hurts every nook and corner of my abdominal muscles. I meet love when my lyricist friend calls me up at 3 in the morning, dead drunk and sings his latest song as he wants me to hear it before the world does. I meet love when another Socrates of mine presents me a great logic behind this word. If one plus one can AFFORD to be two, great! Enjoy it….but if not then might as well scrap the whole equation off. I meet love in this mathematics of love, and I wish to make life such a simple equation. I met love when my mentor avoided me because I unknowingly struggled to move out of his wings, not knowing where I might land up. I met love when a friend called me a black forest pastry and told me that he hates any other pastries. I meet love when my two friends from school seek my shoulder to cry upon. And I meet love when my man, that too half asleep mutters something which sounds practically crazy.
I meet love all over, all the time. Yet what is it that I seek? What is it that all of us seek. I am not being sexist but I really don’t know what men look for, if at all they do. But the second sex I know seeks for that feeling of being loved, being wanted. Why do I need the ‘I love u s?’ Why do I need the assurances? Why do I crave for the confirmations? I think often. A friend of mine calls it ‘psyching myself’ why do I psych myself?
A person who loves me works like a mirror for me. I see myself in his eyes [or her of course..:)] ; I am convinced about myself from what I see in his eyes. It’s my ‘self’ that I seek under the disguise of seeking the love I can’t live without. I am Arundhati Roy, because he sees me that. I am beautiful because once in a year his eyes say that. I am sensuous; I am sexy because his touch says that. I am intelligent because he agrees with me when I explain everything in details. And he says he can’t cross me on that. I am creative because he feels I can write well. I love myself when he says the three little words. No matter how much I have to strive to get them out of him.

It is simple. Very simple. L-O-V-E. Yet I can’t spell it right. I don’t think I ever will. I don’t want to. Because when I spell it right, I won’t write any longer…….