I'm on my spiritual trip, allegedly.
I’m at an ashram in South Kerala which also has a college of higher studies in
its premises. To be honest, I’m there to visit my sister who’s trying to change
the world through her academic pursuits. I wander along the seashore – very
conveniently there happened to be one right there – thinking. Not about
anything in particular, not with purpose, not with reason, just thinking. Can
one be free in love? I think and I think till the mind goes into quarantine,
the spirit shrinks, and the soul wants to go to sleep. I have no answers, just
questions.
I meet my sister, my non-biological
sister, later in the day. I don’t really know why I keep stressing on the
non-biological part. We first met about five years ago in my college where she
just started teaching. As we started knowing each other, we knew that we had
some kind of strange cosmic connection. Having felt the absence of a sibling,
although I did have an elder brother, I proclaimed to the world that we would
henceforth be siblings for life. I was so excited about the whole thing that I
started celebrating festivals and doing all the regular stuff brothers and
sisters did, inclusive of nasty fights and arguments.
She’s here now. After the usual
exchange of pleasantries we're back to doing what we do best: being
argumentative. We discuss the ill effects of smoking for the sake of variety. I
begin to realise that it is a great travesty that I have a smoking problem and
the world – led by my sister – needs me to stop it. I try very hard to keep my
calm. Anyway, I proclaim, complete with the usual theatrics, that one cannot
love with detachment. We pause and we wonder, contemplating the gravity of what
I just said. At least I guess that she is equally amazed at this new discovery.
I begin the speech. Megalomania is
so in today. “The love between young lovers, old lovers, the love of the master
to his slave or his pet, the love of a mother towards her child, the love for
blueberry cheesecake, love for classical music, love for being in love, love
for making love, love for being loved and the love for love itself. There is an
alarmingly high amount of love around us and we're a race at war all the time.
Enough said. All these forms of love are perceived through the senses. We need
the senses. We need them to feel that love within us. But do we really feel all
this love? What if true love – the one that will set us free - cannot be
realized at all?” This would be a good time to pause, I realise.
My relentless sister surprises
herself. “Oh, love does exist alright. I have a whole lot of love. Maybe love
is just a feeling that exists without form,” she says fully realizing that she
has begun to amaze me. “Maybe it's all in the head, in its purest form. And
then we fill that space in our heads with all kinds of material till it gets a
little too hot in there. We probably think we need all that stuff for love to
survive, not realizing that we're becoming more and more bound to a point at
which we often feel that we're growing out of love and ‘the charm is dying out’.
Maybe we have buried the actual love so deep that we only see what's hovering
over it. In effect, we have objectified love. We have lost our independence to
love. In fact, we don't even know what it is going to take to free us.”
Finding it difficult to breathe, I
concede that it is true. Excuse me, my dear sister, but I haven’t conceded
defeat yet. However, I can make peace with the whole ‘we have objectified love’
thing. “So why did we have to become brother and sister to feel love? Couldn’t
we have remained friends? Isn’t that objectification?” I’m approaching the
tipping point. And just while I’m about to declare victory she’s at it.
“I’m guessing that you will come to this bizarre conclusion that everything in this world is random, nonsense, and without much meaning or grand purpose. Before I even go to that vacuous, asocial space of yours let me ask you if you feel love inside of you all the time whether or not you’re with people,” she says with great confidence. I can sense the mercury rising.
“What a ludicrous question?” I ask. I am
entering that vacuous space and have no real idea of what I’m talking about.
“Firstly I’m not contesting love in its various forms- or was it without
form-and secondly, I don’t really like your question.”
“Gotcha!” she almost screams with
great pride. She has already made plans of what she specifically wants me to
buy for her. A chocolate brownie, I’m guessing. Till the bitterness of running
out of words to say sinks in, I settle for some Kerala chai. I know that you’re
thinking I’m a bad loser, but I actually love the tea they make around there. I
smile at the innocent and instant objectification of love that just happened.
Holy tea!
My mind wanders aimlessly to a day four years ago. We were in college and it was a perfectly normal breezy day in the greatest city in the world and there was my sister, standing and waiting for me impatiently, with two lunchboxes. We had this ritual about having lunch together. To correct myself, it was she who generously offered to get lunch for me every day, fully aware that I could pay for my rather tasteless meal from the college canteen. But it wasn’t just the lunch that I fell in love with. We actually got along. But there were days we didn’t. Those were the days I thanked the delicious food for filling up those nonconversations. Maybe I held on to the lunches a little too strongly. Maybe we all need something to hold on to.
We walk back, in silence, from the
beach to reach the cafeteria in the ashram canteen. Just while I’m looking at
the menu, the lady at the counter asks me if I would like some freshly baked
chocolate cake. Perfect, this is just what I needed. I’m not sure if I’m angry
at the poor lady for asking that question or if I’m thrilled at some newfound
meaning of the world giving me a chance to return the favour (of all those
lunches) to my sister.
“Let them eat cake,” I say and
place two gorgeous looking slices of chocolate cake on the table. We both laugh
hysterically. Just when the laugh subsides, she turns to me and asks, “Didn’t
you just say you loved tea?”
