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“ We are Wiser Men without doubt”!, and, If in the most opportune sense, I was not wise, I would have melted in you by this time instead of chit chatting with the most happening lady around”! “You really don’t call it heroic! Do you!, rather the more time you spend with me meaninglessly, the more you curse tomorrow morning that the moment was there, the vodka was there, the conversation was there, but still my heroics made me antic to her”! I looked at her, “Really”!!, She smiled, “ Now, that you have the most definitive expression of the decade, some more vodka please, ½ a Lemon, three ice cubes this time, and some Soda to topple it up”! “I-I Ma’am”, I said in spontaneity. A big terrace, some stars in the sky and some intoxication, we two are lying together, light music around, it’s a real mystic surrounding and she made it remarkable with her fransic yet righteous conversations, the music player said….
“ Kar chalna suru tu, mur ke na dekh tu,
Jaise hain sahi hain, EK mein aur Ek tu”!!!
“Have you seen any “Coming-of –Age “ Movie”? She suddenly said! I looking at her, drilling in vodka, asked, “ And exactly, what’s that”? “Aww, my kinder garden baby, Coming-of-Age is a vague but a broad term”! She, smilingly replied! “ It’s the actual realization after considerable experience of what one really wants. Let’s be practical, life really sucks, at this age, you don’t know what you are really doing, what you really want, you ‘Come-Of-Age’ when you really come across your real true sense”. “Ah, sounds quite serious and tricky”, I replied! She got up, stopped me in between and said, “come with me, let’s go for a drive, it will be super fun”! “ I resisted to an extent, but well, when the lady is so tempting, you sometimes, go with the flow”.
“ So tell me Neo, what are your famous real romantic movies”?, she asked, while driving! I was too drunk to bother, “ well before Sunrise and After Sunset”. “ Hmm, Richard Linklater huh, you know in one of his most famous interviews, he confirmed that he consider these two continuity movies as the best example of ‘Coming-Of-Age’ phenomenon”. “ Hmmm, now I am getting your sense, in 96, both Julie Delphy and Ethan Hawke, showed the angst and vivaciousness of their twenties, made a cheesy promise over one evening in Paris that they will meet in one year, to judge their love, that forms the premise, of Before Sunrise! “ However, they don’t meet the next year. But when they finally meet in 06, priorities has changed, life has made them more wiser, more adaptable, and more equipt to accept the fact that, in these tormenting and failed years, amidst several failed relationships, the only time when they saw true love was their one night in paris”, She Confirmed! “Ya Correct”! I said, “ Well, as they say. There is no age for” Coming-of-Age”!
She said. “ Look at both of us, you are 26, wild, single, Happy living man, and I am 32,Divorcee, strenuously single not so happy with what have i done with my life kind of a woman, can we have come together”? I looked at her slowly,and,she looked at me again and smiled, “ Oh cummon, I am just assuming a scenerio and explaining you, true isn’t it, we see the versions of love as we are shown by the celluloid and the societal norms, as a civilization, we love to believe them. Though our way of making love has been always lucrative, but its equally myopic and biased”. “Very true”, I replied, “ How many couples will we see around where the girl is considerably old than the guy, its taboo everywhere, the norms and everything, they all suck”!
We stopped near the beach in the mean while, sat near the sea-shore, when I told her, “ You know, the fact that I am today with you is not because of a mere sexual energy flowing in between us, but no matter, how much I try to lie to myself, I have never ever in my life saw a more gracious woman like you, I mean, I have had several girl friends, but the kind of soothing and understanding as well as appeal I get from you keeps me always guessing at the cross roads, what do I want?”
She, kind of objectively answered, “ That’s because you like my free minded, spirit induced company, the point you need to choose is, uptill how much do you really think, we should constraint ourselves, or should there be any boundaries to the kind of comfort we tend to share with each other”. “ There can be several versions of it, well, I don’t really want to have any constraints between us, as I really feel that will destroy the sheer novelty of our relationship.” “ Correct. And well, in this parochial society, you need to give name to each and every relationship which I strongly disapprove, the fact that we are friends is all people need to understand and know, rest is we to decide,” she almost screamed this time!
“Well, now I am sure you yourselves are pretty much, ‘ coming of age”, I smilingly said! She suddenly came close and locked lips, “ Not exactly uptill now, one should not have apprehensions and reservations in lot of things and that definitely includes lip locks’. We both smiled in unison and sat near the sea side silently. Quite a night that was!
