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Here Comes The Hotstepper: With Mira And Kartik

Discussion in 'Stories (Fiction)' started by Novalis, Feb 7, 2019.

  1. Amulet

    Amulet IL Hall of Fame

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    "When you hunt, go to where they come to drink" -- Jim Corbett.
    Corbett was a famous hunter of India. Even has a national park, a Tiger reserve, named after him.

    Going into a mustard field with a cowbell may have been the ishtyle way back then, but now people have to go where they serve cocktails, or at the very least some tea. Jim C. had the right advice.
     
  2. Novalis

    Novalis Gold IL'ite

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    Just when I have started to feel trifle conditioned that I probably have heard every doled-out advice on dating, you pull out the Jim C trick on me. Mustard fields and cowbells are iconic and eternal! They might have escaped your attention but they are forever to stay. Couples might later bicker on the mustard-borne pollen fever or brassy bells after being swept away initially. Tinga tinga!

    Your cocktail spin too has scope just that the love anthem for those cupid aspirants would supersede from "Tujhe Dekha Toh" to an intoxicating "Main Rang Sharbaton Ka, Tu Meethe Ghaat Ka Pani". Jim C contrived a wholesome plan! Go to the pond, plenty of fish, if no fish, then at least you may enjoy the drink angling for a fish.
     
  3. Amulet

    Amulet IL Hall of Fame

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    Doris Day passed on a couple of days ago. I was filled with thoughts of "perhaps..perhaps..perhaps.." PPP- song was used in the titles of the Brit-TV show "Coupling", where people hunt at the water-hole. If you hadn't seen that show, here is a link to the first episode:

    In this show, they exchange fishes and loaves -- (loaves = people who loaf at the water hole)-- and behave biblical.

    I hadn't heard of DDLJ till it had already run 5+ years at the Vic.Terminal movie theater.
     
  4. Novalis

    Novalis Gold IL'ite

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    Yo! Bookmarked.

    You know why I like you? You breathe such imagination into a spontaneous metaphor — fishes and loaves! You dream a little dream in my random and erratic ‘fish’ metaphor turning into feast of inventive play.

     
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  5. Amulet

    Amulet IL Hall of Fame

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    RFLOL ! That is cue for Aunty @Rihana to shoo us off to our room.
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2019
  6. Novalis

    Novalis Gold IL'ite

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    Dear Kartik,

    Do you recall this dialogue from "Me Before You" novel?

    “You know, you would never have let those breasts so close to me if I weren’t in a wheelchair,’ he murmured.
    I looked back at him steadily. ‘You would never have looked at my breasts if you hadn’t been in a wheelchair.’
    ‘What? Of course I would.’
    ‘Nope. You would have been far too busy looking at the tall blonde girls with the endless legs and the big hair, the ones who can smell an expense account at forty paces. And anyway, I wouldn’t have been here. I would have been serving the drinks over there. One of the invisibles.’
    He blinked.
    ‘Well? I’m right, aren’t I?’
    Will glanced over at the bar, then back at me. ‘Yes. But in my defense, Clark, I was an arse.”

    Though Will and Lou exchange a knowing smile after that dialogue ..I began to wonder ...is it true of circumstantial love?

    A patient falls in love with an attentive nurse, a struggling immigrant falls in love with a fellow immigrant, a person who finds themselves in unfortunate circumstances falls in love with the nearest affection. Will smirked off Lou's observation of the handsome wizz in him not resting his eyes on the unremarkable if not for his ongoing debilitation.

    How circumstantially biased are we in love?

    Your,
    Nudge

    upload_2019-5-20_13-32-16.png

    Dear Mira,

    I steeled myself for another bollywood interrogation from you but your inquiry has upped the ante of your feisty undertakings. By the way, I exchanged the gifted shirt you bought for me last week as it was too pale in colour. Bee, buy me tasteful shirts or condescendingly gift me an Amazon coupon.

    So, circumstantial love, eh?

    Will and Lou both sensed the situational guile in their blossoming romance. Will would not have noticed Lou had he not been incapacitated in the accident, and Lou would not persisted to befriend Lou had she not been appointed as her care taker. Many committed partners are befuddled in the transitional loves on fleet of circumstances. What did I earlier fancy in him/her? The partner has not drastically changed yet our mutual love diminishes with circumstantial shift. When the patient gets out of the hospital the nurse is no longer in spotlighted affection, when the breakthrough immigrant finds work and socializes upward he is not readily besotted by the holding-up immigrant. The love dissipates with change of circumstances.

    I find another variant of 'circumstantial love" , i.e, "relative love" also interesting.

    Dan Ariely writes about the relative measure in our choices in his book "Predictably Irrational".

    The orange circle in both the images is same, yet it appears smaller or larger depending on the adjacent circles.

    In that manner, in companionship , we don't reckon the absolute correspondence with our partner but tend to ascertain them relatively, lesser of feared evils or greater of known virtues. A man is appealing in comparison to some other man. A spouse could typify the selection as fallaciously desirous: better than the rest.

    upload_2019-5-20_13-32-58.png


    What happens when the grey circles vanish? Would the orange standalone circle hold its worth?

    In 'circumstantial love', partners oversight the motivation for falling in love; in 'relative love' partners sustain only through comparable misery, within earshot of competing bad choice to assert that other available choices would have been worse. But are such locked-in circumstances and look-out relativity sustainable. Never.

    Knowing your continuity brain, I could sense your follow-up inquiry on the kind of love to risk.

    Do you recall that quote: 'People who have been single for too long are the hardest to love, because they have become so used to being single, independent and self-sufficient that it takes something extraordinary to convince them that they need you in their life.'

    Let no circumstance or relativity nudge you from your unmotivated position but for the compelling prospect you observe in the man that you could love him despite your independence and self-sufficiency. Forbear for that love.

    Your,
    Thinking, Slow and Steady
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2019
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  7. Novalis

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    Kartik often mocks my request to the flight attendant: "could you please give me orange juice." Why such great lengths. Could you not be concise: "orange juice, please."

    Arey, I warn him I can speak only fulsome length. You insist to pick on me in this manner, I won't travel with you anymore. You go on your own and explore all the Greek and Cretan islands. He winks at me. His wink is a catch-all truce between us. Curling his arm around mine, he flipped a book. I glimpse at the title, "Central problems in Social Theory : Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis" by Anthony Giddens. Baap Re! I turn my head the other side. I still feel his arm around mine. Would he have slipped his arm mindfully or only so carelessly. Always nice to be held in the flight. I recall telling him in our earlier days of his gesture between couples. Would he have remembered and deliberately fulfilled it. Nah, what with all the Giddens and Keegans, he reads, slim chance of him remembering my vague fancies. Does he?

    The problem with Kartik is - he gets excited about travel. He studies and organises for a tour like an archaeologist chasing some breakthrough finding. I let him ride on this uneven excitement between us.

    Evening he planned a visit to an obscure hilltop. Hilltops and I don't sit well. He insisted. Chal na!

    After a sore trek, finally reached the summit. I moaned with pitiful eyes, "which Greek philosopher was beheaded or served hemlock here? whose resting place is this isolation. Kyun, no one fancied you on the ground level."

    Puzzled, he pointed at a food van, good souvlaki there, affirms TripAdvisor, you might relish.

    "You skewered me up a trek, for some skewered meat."

    "But you enjoy food. No? I researched so much on the best and authentic ..."

    Don't know what I am supposed to do with this man. A hum erupts in my music-less chords of the bygones. Purana wala film! There are days, love in the natural sway, then, days when that love grows into a realization. He is cute that way when he's not Giddens and Keegans intimidating me.

    I toothy smile at him.

     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2020
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  8. Novalis

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    Kartik and Mira love subject gazing. They get desultory in bedtime conversations building up explainers. He says binomial theorem, she says microphages.

    They probe each other in elementary topics, whose understanding is neat. Mira often finds that Kartik demonstrates sturdy understanding of the build blocks of learning.

    She is impressed each time on his eloquence in demystifying fundamental theorems. "Tere school mein kuch alag sikhaya kya? why do you have a better grasp of these topics". She is baffled.

    Kartik could minutely explain the basic models of knowledge, whereas Mira stumbles and despairs at her facile acquisition of the very topics. She is fascinated with that charm in Kartik to invoke and connect different domains of knowledge which are seemingly disconnected.

    He teases her on the nostalgia of being blindsided to explain sine curve in one of their earlier dates. Sine curve on a date? Mira would not have it any other way uninterested in customary prying into each other's choices and ideologies - 'you don't expect me to be an eye-flutter of "apka favourite colour kya kai" damsel?'. Those things bore her to the bone. She fancies playfulness in a man.

    They laugh out loud at that recollection of their unusual dating and strangeness of each other which drew them closer.

    Mira has always found Kartik endearing but it was the lockdown which intensified that feeling in her. She would observe Kartik on unending calls, meetings, flying emails, the busyness he endures, still smiling at her passingly assuring her of just one more minute baby. The visibility of his work engagement during the lockdown made her realise the man is woefully busy yet he would always attend to her presence, later if not sooner.

    Their kindled intimacy is that bedtime conversations discussing propulsion systems to shoot themselves to Mars or how to survive an ice age. The warmth of their wacky ideas and distorted notions keeps them together. Mira wonders about the elongated neck of barosaurus, the heart that pumps to such distant head. Kaise?! Imagine the workload on that heart. She abruptly theorises on the couple impression they would make on Facebook. No holiday albums, no mushy assertions, no gift display, but status update: "Aaj humne barosaurus ke neck ke baare mein jagda ki. We argued fiercely. We tore into each other's fun explanations savagely. Finally, we agreed to RIP the barosaurus." We won't attract even a single charitable like at our daily update. We will come across as an idiotic couple clueless on the savoir-faire of FB. Kartik, as usual, flippantly escapes from her imagination by claiming, had you been any conventional, any less worded, any more predictable, I would have walked out of your sine curve interrogation. I just knew the moment you started talking, you and I, something in the making.

     
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  9. Novalis

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    Kartik and Mira challenge each other in word games, a hobby picked up during the lockdown.

    Mira gets very competitive with Kartik, who is a cool-head.

    "But how do you know the meaning of this word, it's so arcane and entombed." He just shrugs off her amusement at his calibre.

    She swears to beat him in the next challenge incarnating as Theia and he as Asurbanipal in the word contest. Mira has always enjoyed his flair and aplomb, the way he inattentively selects the word choices in the game. She sometimes shoulder surfs off his smartphone. "I just want to know how you do it, this word is at difficult level". He knowingly selects the right meaning. There! She scowls at him, you have cheated. "Arey, where did I cheat, baby, you and your hawk eyes were right on me, did I even flash any dictionary."

    Mira tilts her chin in contemplation.

    "You obtained that word list prior to the game. You still cheated."

    "Baap re! Kya ladki hain", he throws up his hands.

    "One more game", she insists.

    "You will accuse me of bribing the app developer, you will bring in some Russian accomplice, you will convict me of such horrible crimes on vocabulary trafficking, no more games for today."

    "But ..I ..will ..I should ..let's try one more."

    He playfully refuses.

    Mira pledges , whenever the next game, the next moment of reckoning, gonna beat you to a verbal pulp.

    Life astonishes in bringing people in our life who are the sunshine of bright ideas and colorful capers. Sometimes they emerge with a word game, sometimes they arrive with a sine curve, mostly they invoke a song in us. This is the evocative song Mira associates with Kartik.


     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2020
  10. Novalis

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    Kartik is quite a piece of work. Mira often analyses his ability to sound erudite and his gusto to play up her shenanigans alike.

    Tomorrow, another day, I will read up that damn Vasco da Gama book he’s been toying with ... haan will surprise him with my delusional aspiration. He’s such a feeling.

     

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