Definitive Gaze, Men, Women And All The Related Rubbish!

Rush in the lift alley. The lift comes up from the basement. Stops. There is place for one. The lady refuses to get in - but with a smile, because there were all men inside. Everyone notices this. Those looks were indeed very decent and thoughtful. As opposed to the usual molest-ful stares. They found her interesting - though she was not all that dashing with her looks. Minimal make-up. Bright eyes. Modest dressing. Destination 6th floor. Two men get out. One runs to the loo. One runs down. To the ground floor that is. But no, she is already gone.

His pocket diary, the most secretive one that he maintains. He takes that out, writes a poem that he has known. This time not his own, but of Wordsworth's.

She was a phantom of delight

When first she gleamed upon my sight;

A lovely Apparition, sent

To be a moment's ornament;

Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;

Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;

But all things else about her drawn

From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;

A dancing Shape, an Image gay,

To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.

You could call that impeccable memory. How did he remember all these lines! Of truth, the tranquility of his soul was disturbed. Yes, but in a sweet way. The sanity of his mind, fortunately, remained intact. So to note from the poem: the month of this occurrence - May - was duly underlined after he writes this down.

He goes to his scheduled trainings. Answers questions. Asks questions. Solves classroom exercises with a lot of energy. Also scribbling of love in his A4 papers. Takes a break. Coffee. Finishes all sessions. Comes up to the floor again. There she is. On the same floor. In the same department. With the same team. Total shock. Any further forwards in this direction, he knows, would be disastrous and almost unethical. So he comforts his heart, says a mature no, and moves on with his life. Or so he thought.

Here comes the bad guy into the story - that is me. When he, by mistake, leaves his draw unlocked - I open to grab a marker for a casual business discussion. And I find the pocket diary. I pick that and read. No names anywhere. There were poems and dates. I search for names but wouldn't find. But there were cues he had left. The underlines. May - from the Wordsworth poem. Team, from another one. Green Tea. Glasses. Handbag. Yellow. Smile. Saree. Feet. Sev puri. Macroons. Apples. And so many other underlined words from so many other poems. Such spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. He must be one hell of a poet. But this one talent so conveniently hidden to the outside world. I could somehow get the picture. And now, could vaguely figure who the central character in these poems would be.

I could now - also connect so many other dots. His disappearance for a week. The rash riding. His love for pets. The accidents. The fracture. One broken teeth. Fierce fights. The police. The money launderers. The drug dealers. The many midnight escapades. The jumping from the moving train. Spending weekends alone in the Sathyamangalam forests. The Mangalore trips. All of these made sense. Finally.

The Gandhian in him must have called all of these - Experiments With Truth! But I call all of these - rubbish. This is not the only one guy, there are so many others roaming like mad men out in the streets - behind women they know they cannot win. Or even if they win, they know it would be more trouble and no peace. Or they know not. Or I am totally wrong. And they're all right. Whatever that is, please keep in mind that you live your life free of unnecessarily overwhelming thoughts about other people that could harm your inner peace. May be after all of these experiments, he might - one day - come back to square one. Back to where it all began. To know that he had been a fool all along. To laugh all of these away. To understand that the look that stole his heart was no more than a stray gaze. And that there was no definitive element that added much romance to this whole scene and fascinatingly electrocuted all these days of his life.