Sunday, March 2, 2003		Life Ties

Enervating energy vampires
Taru Bahl

WHAT struck you about Shruti the moment you set eyes on her was her zest for life. Her eyes had a dancing quality to them, which was piercing and mercurial at the same time. A hundred different expressions flitted across them, making her establish a deep and immediate connection with everyone she met. Her cascading hair, gazelle-like body, husky voice, sensitive choice of words and a genuine interest in the person left a lasting impression. She loved meeting people, finding out what they were doing, asking questions and expanding her understanding. Her freshness could to some extent be attributed to her youth but one could see that she was the kind of person who could retain it for as long as she was alive. Meeting her was like being touched by a livewire. She brought you face to face with so many emotions, feelings and expressions, some of which you had only read about in fairy tales books. After meeting her one was gripped with an urgency to meet her again and get to know her better.

Rahul met her at a party and was completely taken in by her. He engineered a few more ‘chance’ meetings only to discover that she was already engaged to a colleague of hers and was due to tie the knot soon. Nursing his broken heart, he moved on though he never forgot her. Though their interaction had been formal, he always carried her sense of being passionately alive with him. It was like a benchmark of what a really intelligently beautiful girl ought to be. Life may take us in completely opposite directions and then throw us intimately together again when we least expect it to. Rahul didn’t expect to run into Shruti twenty years later at an Indian wedding in New York. While he did not recognise her, she did. All this while he had thought that if he were to see her anywhere, there was no way he would miss her. And here she was standing right in front of him, a completely different person. The image he had carried with him was nowhere to be glimpsed, not even in parts. She was still beautiful. Her athletic girlish body and petite frame did not belie her 40 odd years, yet there was a look in her eyes which gave her away. She was not the same Shruti he had met and been so besotted with. It was difficult to comprehend what she was saying. For one her speech was no longer as animated as it used to be. It had a single monotone bereft of emotion and feeling. Besides, he was trying hard to pinpoint the exact thing which had changed so visibly in her demeanour. It was her eyes. They had lost their vital lively quality. Yes, it looked as if she had just seen a ghost. The Shruti he had known and held onto all these years was lost. How did it happen ? Why to her of all people ? Wasn’t she supposed to be the quintessential bubbly, little girl who could be forever untouched by the ravages of time and age?

Still searching for a suitable response to his multiple queries he was jolted out of his reverie as she introduced him to her husband Kanti. A successful entrepreneur, he had a retail chain of department stores. He was in the Indian Foreign Service but had quit after ten years of extensive travel and decided to settle down in New York. He had an air of distinguished sophistication about him. They made a handsome couple. As introductions were made and Kanti winked at Shruti, taking her permission if he could monopolise her old college friend. What followed in the next hour was enough to give Rahul a fairly good idea of what life must have been for Shruti post-marriage.

The guy suffered from what could be called verbal diarrhoea. He just took over without giving Rahul a chance to participate. Whether it was a discussion on the country’s nuclear status or the sense of alienation which most first-generation NRIs experience, he seemed to have a definite opinion on everything. Moreso, he really wasn’t interested in having an exchange or a dialogue. He left no scope for the other person to add to the discussion. After trying for a few moments to stay involved in the conversation, Rahul decided to just let be. He tried hard to concentrate on what the gentleman was saying but found his thoughts wandering. How could Shruti tolerate him ? He was pig-headed and positively insensitive. It was almost as if he suffered from permanent verbal diarrhea, only difference being that while he continued to remain healthy and fit he made the person across chronically ill. And this Rahul was feeling after barely spending a few hours with him in a cordial social set up. He could visualise Shruti wilting in his company, losing all her spunk and liveliness. He was the kind of person who liked to hold centre stage though not many people would be tolerant of his obsessive hold on their attention. He could see that he did not take kindly to Shruti’s interventions. She did try ‘rescuing’ him a number of times with the pretext of getting him a drink or trying to divert the conversation to neutral grounds or by directing a pointed question in his direction, but in all instances she was snubbed or ignored. It was quite obvious that he thought very little of her. She was an appendage to his existence, someone who could listen ad nauseum to his opinionated pronouncements. In spite of so much talking there was no real sharing between the couple.

Living with him Shruti had subjugated herself completely to his needs and allowed herself to get overshadowed by his intimidating personality and he was too immersed in his own self to notice.

By the time Rahul bid goodbye, managing to finally extricate himself from Kanti’s ‘clutches’ he felt as if he had been devoured. He could not actually figure out the feeling till much later. Bone-tired, he drove back to his guest house. The moment he got into his room, he just plonked himself on the bed, in his dinner jacket. He barely managed to kick off his shoes and sunk into a dreamless slumber. He got up in the morning feeling slightly disoriented.

Last evening’s scene replayed itself in his mind and he arrived at the conclusion that Kanti was not just suffering from verbal diarrhoea but was also an energy vampire. He sucked away all your energy, leaving you weak and terribly exhausted. God forbid, he would run a mile before he allowed himself to get caught with him again in an intimate tete-a–tete. On the flight back home, his thoughts wandered to Shruti. Did she need any help ? Could he do anything ? Wisdom prevailed and he decided that it was best to let things be. If she wanted, she could straighten things out, this was not a place for him to try and be Superman or to stir a hornet’s nest. Rest assured, he would steer clear of people who deluged you with their verbalese and sucked you of all your thoughts and energies.