Krish is sitting on a bench watching the waves at a beach wearing calmness on his face.
“Hi, Krish, how are you?” Dev, his college friend, arrives there and sits beside him.
“Hello… Good.” He replies.
“Did I disturb your loneliness?”
“No…”
“You didn’t either mind asking my how-abouts or shocked at my sudden arrival here.”
“These days shocks have been consistent in my life. So, I am used to them. So, you don’t find a different reaction from me.”
“Krish, what’s happening with you? It’s been more than one year; you are not in touch with anyone. When I visited your home, aunt and uncle are complaining about you, saying that you always stay alone, in deep thoughts, walking alone on beaches, terrace or on roads as someone who have lost everything in life. Why?”
“They are wrong. I am not alone. I am with my own company.”
“Since, one year?” Dev questions to which Krish doesn’t give any reply.
“I do respect others’ me time. But don’t you think this is too much?” Dev questions again.
“No, I don’t.”
“You are not making any sense to me, Krish.”
“Why should I ever make any sense to others?” Krish bursts.
“Krish, I am concerned about you.”
“Dev, this is not called concern. This is called projection. You are projecting your opinions and expectations on me.”
“Okay, I am sorry. If it is not concern, how does concern sound like? Tell me.” Dev asks with frustration.
Krish turns towards him and speaks with a gentle voice,
“Krish, you changed. I wanna interact with your changed version. Besides what I have heard from aunt and uncle, I would like to listen to your side of story. I would like to know you even better, even deeper. May I? Are you comfortable enough to share your things with me?…… This is called concern…. Concern is not questioning someone for not following the mob outside, Okay?”
“Sounds really good, why did you stop? Continue… I would like to listen to you…” Dev asks with a stable voice.
Krish stands up, takes a pause and continues…
“Saanvi, my best friend… not just my best friend, my heaven, everything that I would like to have in my life. But, why didn’t I choose her over my fears? Why did I fail to express myself to her?
Why because I am not used to express myself since childhood. I was always asked to follow what all others are doing, I was asked to meet others expectations over me, I was taught to be obedient towards my family, elders, teachers and all. Everyone around me is deciding what I should do, how I should look like, how I should sound like, how my life must be…
In this process, I have forgotten who I am. I have forgotten voicing my own views and opinions without any calculations in mind. I can’t explain you how many battles I have survived between my heart and mind. Every time, I have chosen my mind over my heart and did the same in case of Sanvi. Till then my heart has tolerated me being cruel with myself, but after that my heart was dead, it has become unresponsive, Dev.
I was living like a dead body with a beating heart. My life has become shallow like there is no meaning in being alive. I have lost the desire to live on— ”
“Krish, if you are missing her so much, you should have met her by now. Why are you still staying away from her?”
“Why because I should know the answers to my questions, before answering her questions. I should learn to be happy with myself, before assuring her that she can live happily with me.”
“Krish, I didn’t get you.”
“Dev, all these months I was in deep self-introspection figuring out the same. Our friendship was a soothing element to my heart. With her, I feel at home, where I could be myself, away from judgements, expectations… There is freedom in her love, that kind of love where you are not required to follow any rules and regulations or obey any societal norms.
Kahi suna tha, true love motivates you and pushes you towards becoming a better person. That’s true. When I got to know that I am falling in love with her, when I realized that I have already fallen very hard for her, numerous insecurities started popping up in my mind. Those insecurities have finally resulted in this distance between us.”
“What kind of insecurities, you are speaking about?”
“Choosing Saanvi is choosing heart for me. Which is very new to me and has resulted in a long-lasting battle between my heart and mind. Being friends is cool. But to get into love, our mind needs validation from family, from friends, from society and whatnot.
You know, in the final year, she has chosen to do MS in Psychology, after finishing engineering. I asked her, ‘Don’t you think that you are wasting four years of your graduation?’
She replied, ‘I don’t choose to compromise my forty years of professional life for the sake of those four years. Infact, I was happy for making this decision earlier than lamenting after getting into a corporate job. I don’t wanna work with machines, I love to heal souls.’
Dev, she is entirely opposite to me. She chooses her heart over her mind. She never bothers about what others think. Indeed, her mind and heart are in sync. Her thoughts, words, actions and her life are in sync.
But, when it comes to me, I feel like, do I have any multiple personality disorder? I found a person inside me, another person outside me, another person before my family and relatives, another person before my friends, another person in front of my HR, and another person in front of Saanvi. Why can’t I be the same everywhere? I questioned myself.
I am struggling to live my authentic self because others are deciding how my life should be. I am not the decision maker. Why because I was not given a choice to make any important decisions in my life since childhood. Just as we program a system to act in a specific way; we, human beings (especially our minds) are also getting programmed and conditioned to act in a particular manner irrespective of our hearts and souls.
I was unable to live my life happily, why because I was trying to fit into the matrix around me which is not meant for me. It is not in alignment with my heart’s truest desires and wishes. It’s not in alignment with my soul.” Krish explains.
“Are you blaming the entire society for the way it is?”
“Yes, why not? Society expects everyone to be a replica of some ideal person according to its norms. But we are not machines, Dev! We are souls. We all are unique. I am unique.”
“So… what next?”
“Next, I came to know that there is no problem in our relationship, in our friendship or our love. The problem is with the belief system that I was brought up with.
And again, if this is not the right belief system, what’s the right belief system? I questioned myself. I started exploring it.”
“What did you find?”
“I found that I am a soul first, human being next. Love, bliss, peace, purity, faith, compassion, abundance, respect, confidence, freedom, stability, positivity are all original qualities of a soul.
Doubts, lack of faith, worry, pain, hatred, hurt, attachment, ego, low self-esteem, jealousy, low self-confidence, hustle and bustle, scarcity, negativity are all fear-based qualities that are polluting the soul.
People try to validate love. But in reality, no one knows the true definition of love. We face problems in the society why because society doesn’t know what love is. If it knows it is not called society, it’s called heaven.
We humans take birth in this society to know the definition of love, to reach the divine, ultimate destination of a human incarnation. The bridge between humans and divine is love. That’s the reason why Sanvi used to say that Love is divine.
We, being humans are not eligible to validate love. We, being souls own the love as divine. Of course, it takes much efforts to reach that stage.” Krish explains in detail.
“Krish, after listening to you, I feel like I too need to go through self-introspection. There are many things that I need to correct within myself to which I was blindfolded up to now.”
“That’s called enlightenment. The cause behind my enlightenment is again Sanvi.”
“How?”
“Very few people know LOVE in its purest form. All others have attached many other incompatible things like standards, status, family background, caste, religion, marriage, possessiveness, fear, ego, anger and all to love.
Love in its original form, in its little moments, in spending a little time is enough for us. Love is always very simple. We are complicating it by linking it to all those things that our mind carries.
You know, especially materialistic world has nothing to do with love. Love is the language of hearts; connection between souls. There is nothing like true love or fake love;
Love itself is true, if it is not true it’s not love,
Love itself is pure, if it is not pure, it’s not love,
Love itself is unconditional, if it is conditional, it’s not love,
Love is not an emotion, it’s beyond all the emotions,
Love is not attachment/addiction, it is an authentic connection,
Love is not the pain associated with hurt and hatred, it is the pain associated with healing,
Love is not about two people staying at the same place, physically; it is about two souls being connected with each other even when their bodies are miles apart.” Krish states.
“Krish, think practical, who understands all this?”
“Everyone! Everyone understands all this on the arrival of their time. I have nothing to do with that. But I am crystal clear that this is my time; to live my authentic self. Now my heart, my mind and my soul are in sync. The time has come to sync my words and actions with my thoughts.”
“Krish, I am glad for myself for meeting you today, I… I… got to know that I know very little about love. It feels like you have studied the entire universe in the past few months. To reach this level of maturity, authenticity, even if you take years more time, nothing wrong in that.
Krish, I would like to appreciate from the core of my heart, for your efforts, consistent efforts in doing all this work in order to heal yourself, to find the lost version of yourself and to understand what love is.
Let me tell you if Sanvi might have kept herself pure and unaffected by the outside world like a lotus blooms in mud water untouched by the mud, you too have fought with the darkness, faced death multiple times and have been reborn with a cutting-edge personality like a diamond. If she looks at this version of you, she never says no to you.
May I know what’s your next move?”
“This time I am not going to ask for permission from anyone or wait for validation outside of me. This is my turn to shock the world with my actions.”
“Are you going to meet Saanvi?” Dev asks with curiosity.
“No.” Krish gives an unexpected reply.
“Then, what are you going to do?” Dev asks out of bewilderment.
“Wait and watch.” Krish concludes.
