Brewing up some romance! - Episode 1

Preface:

It has been over 2 years since I started to write. From aimless amateurish writing to making it a serious hobby, it has been an interesting metamorphosis. One important pit stop in this journey is this attempt to write a story in a series of episodes. I had this thought as a distant plan once upon a time; I now believe I am all set for it with ample time in hand before I start my management masters later this year.

‘Brewing up some romance’ is intended to be a simple light-hearted love story; I wish to communicate the way I see love and romance; the way I would want to feel love in my life. I thought for a first attempt at writing stories this genre would be the ideal start given that all life I have been inspired by love in some form or the other. I know translating the feeling of love to words would not be a child’s play. I only have the honesty of thought to accomplish this precarious task. Let us see how it goes. Hope all of you like it.  

Episode 1: ‘The four-letter word’

 It was 8 in the evening. The family was in full attendance for dinner on the dinner table. It was a practice for the family to have food together. Cook Palani had everything ready in order to start.

‘Prayers first’, Balan said as he sat, before anyone could start.

‘Needless to say, dad! It has become a habit. I have done my prayers. God wants me to eat now’, 19 year old Vijayalakshmi (Viji), Balan’s only daughter replied.

‘So...Idlys and chapattis for today!’, cook Palani opened the dishes.

Ten minutes went by concentrating on food without a word uttered. Balan’s wife Geetha peeked at every plate other than hers’ to see to that Viji didn’t under eat and her husband didn’t over eat. Balan was irked with the attention his plate was getting. He decided to break the silence around the table so that he could get some respite from his over-caring wife.

‘Palani, how is your wife doing now?’, Balan floated a question. Knowing Palani and his chatty nature, his job to divert attention was done hands down.

‘She should be fine. She is not with me now. She has fled with her new found love, Nair. I wish she is happy now’, Palani replied with a touch of regret and lots of warmth for his wife.

‘That is nothing I should be disheartened about. She left me not because she didn’t like me; she left because she liked somebody else’, Palani was calm and collected.

Viji, just at the end of her teens, was all ears to Palani. She couldn’t miss noticing the sincerity of love in Palani’s eyes for his wife given what had happened.

‘Nair is a good man. He must be taking care of my wife very well’, Palani went on, his tone far from lamenting.

‘They were working together in a company. I think they should have fallen in love then’, Palani’s monologue seemed it had no end.

The thing about the characteristics of people who occupy a low profile in the society, who generally are without an audience, is that they speak their hearts and souls out in a hint of a chance offered to them. They search for affection in everyone. They move with no egos.

Palani was one such. His descriptive nature comes from his loneliness and the want for affection. Each of us has been a Palani at times. How often have we felt lonely even with so many relatives and friends around?

Viji was confused with the fact that Palani showed no hate for his wife after the incident. Balan couldn’t accept the fact either while Geetha was already in admiration for Palani’s resilience and purity of love.

‘Love can be blind sometimes. But not this time; Nair looks very smart; way better than I do. I have seen him once. It must be for his beauty that my wife fell for’, Palani even managed to smile when saying this.

Viji couldn’t find even an iota of frustration or anger in Palani, very much to her surprise. She rather found him to be happy for his wife.

‘Don’t you feel angry for what she did anna?’, Viji couldn’t refrain from asking.

‘Why should I? She chose the one she liked. How could that make me angry?’, Palani said as he moved to serve a chapatti to Balan.

‘This beauty thing is a trap. When you go behind it, you would end up bored of it one day. She will then come back one day’, he sounded a touch philosophical.

Geetha chipped in with the most obvious question, ‘Would you, in that case, take her back?’

‘Why not! What wrong has she done?’, Palani said dismissing the question as if it was a stupid one.

Viji was getting a lesson what the four-letter word actually meant. She, the teenager, influenced by movies and fictional stories couldn’t have understood love the right way. For movies, serials and drama do nothing more than exaggerate or trivialize love in equal measure.

She understood cinematic absurdities like cutting one’s veins or tattooing the name of the lover on the body can’t be the epitome of showing one’s love. She now knew love was not what she actually thought it was; or for that matter what most of us think it is.  

Balan could strike a chord with Palani now and was happy Viji was hearing all this right at the brink of her prospective love life.

Dinner was done. It was time for bed. Viji’s thoughts couldn’t move any further from Palani anna for that night.          

4 weeks later:

Viji had just joined college in her hometown Coimbatore. She was hoping college to be a dream time of 4 years for her. She was anxious and all set for her first day at college. Her home was 50 minutes away from college and preferred to use the college bus to commute between home and college. 

One fine morning on the college bus, Viji met Karthick.

-          End of Episode 1  -

  

 Credits- Episode1 : An Inspiration from K. Balachander’s Kai Alavu Manasu.  

Cheers,

nagappstheblogger!!!