Not Love, Romance

By Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei *

In front of the life-size looking mirror between shelves bearing her cosmetic bottles and tubes she sat on a stool, her head inclined toward the left shoulder, her long curly hair cascading all over concealing the shoulder.

The left hand placed against the end of the curly hair while the another bearing a chestnut hairbrush she brushed the yellowish curly hair from , the chestnut brushed started from the middle of the head, where the hair partitioned, ran down smoothly and when it got to the end its smoothness arrested, making her face contort.

When she was done she rose and her bare feet pattered over the carpeted floor and all of sudden her steps ceased, as though abruptly glued to the floor. Her eyes were cast at the man in black beanbag, his legs curled up, knees pressed against the thin chest, those eyes, which could be quite flirtatious, fixated on a book, which he held in his left hand, the index finger between the pages and the other hand holding a red-ink pen.

His ruffled brown hair over the rough forehead, the end slightly touching the upper part of his eyeglasses, when his head bent with the right hand, holding the red-ink pen, lowering at the same time to underline few sentences, his stern face was revealed, and when he was done he returned to his previous position, placed the book against his thin chest, beneath a black shirt, then his left hand ran over the goatee beard for a while and his eyes were now hooked on something distant.

This was unbearable to her, she resumed her steps and disappeared in the adjacent room, from where only her voice was heard. She emerged with some steaming coffee in a dark blue mug and walked up to him, she stooped down and put the steaming coffee on a tea table painted black. He raised his head and the book changed hands and the hand which was holding the book extended to reach out for the coffee.

Soon he grabbed it she broke the silence ' Why does it have to be pure black? I don't understand how you enjoy something so bitter. Still unable to find the reason why I've been with you.'

'The world has sweetened everything, everything is too sweet and now they don't know the taste of sweet anymore.' He replied and brought the mug containing the steaming coffee close to his lips, he blew at the coffee and the edge of the mug against the lower lip and the upper lip over the edge ,he sipped the coffee.

When he smacked his lips and turned his head to find her, she was seen sitting on the same stool staring at hhim, with her hair scattered all over her chest and spoke ' you always have been a cynic and age, advancing age, hasn't done anything to you. You could be like those men sometimes, which will do some good to yourself.'

' I know , you know that I don't belong to those flocking folks and I'll never be one. Oh..Jane's America-returned fiancé was seen swarmed by her friends bombarding him with questions. Poor fellow, poor fellow, he had so much to blabber about the tomato farms, KFC restaurant and train rides from one state to another.'

He finished with a mocking smile and sipped the coffee. ' What do you have, though? No roof over your ruffled head, so saving to take me to those places you have described to me. Nothing! Nothing! Oh yeah! Those stacked up books and notebooks, and the most valuable possession of yours must be that Waterman pen. Look at yourself first!' she retaliated with her hands flying all over her eyes.

'If it were not for you I would have been long gone, being a happy vagrant all over the world and to perish in some unknown place without troubling anyone. May be your tantrum is holding me back. And I think of you with your innocent tantrum all alone in this world.'

Said he and this was followed by a smile that ran across his face and lingered around the lips for sometime. She knew he was right. Without her he would be some crippled cynic and without him she would have nothing to brag about to compensate what she had not yet accumulated. She wanted him to be the same cynic or the critic with the same commercial accomplishments like her closed ones.

And this incomplete form in him made her wonder why he had not been striving. The other day he explained in his drunk state ' You ask them what they really want. They will say they want what others want. Do they have anything in particular? What is particular is what is particular to others? How do you want the world to remember, if they deserve? Yes, the man in the white Benz.'

She couldn't agree with him. What about food, a decent car, a beautiful house? He replied ' We are not that lazy! We make enough to get three meals a days. Three! I don't know what decency means to you. Are you trying to say that those in the slums in cardboard shacks, and those with one meal per day are indecent kind? We have a clean and well-adorned place; of course it's not enormous. We wake up to breakfasts with coffee and tea. What else do you want?'

Today would be the day, probably the day for her to pack up and leave him. She asked herself whether he would be able to survive of his own. Well he came alone, he had no closed ones, no one he could call friend. He would survive, he would definitely get on. She thought whether she should leave him without a word or tell him to his face.

But she knew he would wear that calm expression and his eyes would be full of pity when he had heard. Why should she bother, they had been together for sometimes and he hadn't uttered ' I love you.' She perceived that as something so impersonal about him. When she mentioned politics and about art he would be full of passion.

Out of curiosity she put that question to him, he replied ' please don't mix up love with romance.' What he meant by that? She didn't ask further. Now, seeing him absorbed in the same book the anger in her seemed to rise. She hastened to put on some fresh clothes, and when she was dressed-up she came out stood with her back to the mirror staring at him.

She expected him to acknowledge her stare, he didn't, she walked up and down on the carpeted floor to draw his attention, but the noise from the steps was muffled by the carpet.

It was too much, it was simply unbearable, there was nothing left in her to reconcile with her anger. Only when her hand was on the doorknob and it clicked his head moved and his exhausted face met hers and he spoke ' Last night I brought you some red roses, just wanted to surprise you.'