A Moment of Poignancy!

This here is a moment of poignancy… as I stand at the threshold of a new life.  
Tonight is a sleepless night for me. As I toss and turn in my bed, thoughts flooding  me… tumbling about in my head, am trying to catch hold on some semblance of order in the chaos. So, here I am… trying to put the thoughts in writing.

The decision to leave Kuwait was made the year I came down to Kuwait. I never liked the place. As free as I have always been at least in my heart… this country chained my spirits. It was a constant struggle for me… me banging my head against the golden bars that held me caged.

I am pampered, beyond anything I could have imagined, by my folks with whom I am put up… a life that I could not expect even at home.  Back home, I would have to do little daily chores to prevent mom from thinking that I am completely useless. Here, I had no such restraints… I didn’t even have to do my own laundry! Breakfast would be ready before the princess in me opened her eyes… yes… everything was available even before I asked for it. A lovely apartment (I love large spaces… and this one has one of the biggest rooms ever)… the sweetest, nicest uncle and aunt who love me as their own daughter and a job that paid me enough money that I did not have to spend on anything else but me (or save for a future which I think is overrated). 
Yes… it is a dream life.

But, it all came at a price… something about the place made me feel lonely (past tense… it would soon be clear why).

Like they say, life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans… something happened that turned my life upside down.

Cupid struck! 
Since, cupid is a chubby little naked boy who doesn’t really think his actions through… I fell in love with my schoolmate of yore who is doing his doctoral research in the top management institute of India. Between his thesis and me… we had a lovely one year of online courtship with an occasional meet-up when I went down to India. I was like the little kid who has been given a wonderful toy, a toy which he never knew he wanted… but now that he has it he cannot let go… and losing it would break his heart. Kuwait and my work here kept me away from a happiness I never realized I didn't have. The second year of our courtship started a downhill slide… the physical distance destroying any chance for proper communication and slowly I (not we… 'coz he still holds steadfast) drifted apart. I don’t really know when I fell ‘out’ of love… but it was a heartbreaking time for the two of us. That’s something that the two of us can never forget.

I hated Kuwait even more for dashing my dreams and plunging me in to a lonely abyss with all the material comforts one could ever want… but a heart that was a complete void.

Then… I met Nawaab sahib.

Well, I didn’t actually meet him at that time… I already knew him before… it is just that I re-discovered him in a way.  It was again online on a forum for NRIs (you see a trend here… the online part… wait till you hear the rest), that we chanced upon each other.  We had chatted up each other on the forum before… and once, for some unknown reason I even shared an extremely personal moment of my life which I wished to forget with the Nawaab, and felt vindicated by the support he gave me that day. But, this time it was different… something stronger clicked… some gears locked in place and the wheels started turning really smoothly, liked a well-oiled machine. The guy drove me crazy (still does by the way and always will)… and I had to meet the face behind the mystery, the intrigue, the intellect… the man behind those words that held me enthralled every time I read them.

With prior experience of this ‘falling in love’ phenomenon… I already knew what was happening to me. And over our very first phone conversation – which went on for the better part of a lovely night – I told him as much. The conversation was the most fun I had ever had in a long time… and his voice… ooh la la… it is pure magic. We decided to meet up and the rest is history. 
No… Not really!

We met… and the story carried forward… somewhere in all this, I realized that I hadn't really let go of my past. Things between the Nawaab and me could have really gone sour because of that. But, for some reason it didn’t. Soon, the past stopped mattering to me and the present took a delicious hold over me. Life looked ready to bloom and there was always this smile on my face. And the best part… this country that I hated so much, took on a different color… the color of love… seen through a lover’s eyes.

But, all good things have to come to an end… and well, if you have to end up in the annals of historical lovers, you cannot be together with the person you love.

In true Romeo and Juliet / Laila and Majnu style (don’t get it wrong… no one is ‘really’ dying in this story)… I am packing my bags to leave the love of my life and go back to the city of my dreams.

I, once again, am  putting distance between me, love and my love and have decided to choose a single life over the happiness, trauma and the emotional roller coaster that are a couple’s forte!

Love, why do thee hate me so much? :I