Cyber love and long-distance relationship melted the 2000 Km distance between them. In the second part of the novella, by Prof. Nandini, love deepens. What happened to these love birds? An exclusive for Different Truths.

Pathos and humour were the two qualities amalgamated in her character curiously; she became the object of my interest, research, analysis, thought, love and meditation in the coming days, weeks, months, and years. The love of my life. She would send me her creative writing and research papers for my comments. I was kind of hesitant to begin with. She was an established writer and I, after all, was a nondescript academic. There were thoughts like how she would take my suggestions or even corrections at times. I was often at a loss. But gradually I began to realise that I needed to do my part in all seriousness. She had that tremendous faith in my capability which no one had. She found me “outstanding” in my writing, speech, and critical thoughts, which, rather, put me under some kind of mental pressure. She said I had a kind of intelligence which was raw, primitive, and original. She felt her mind became more sharpened and focused after each academic interaction with me.

In return, I started parenting, protecting, and pampering her and getting possessive about her.

We had slowly stopped, being ‘she’ and ‘me’, we had become ‘we’. Every one hour, or even less than that, we exchanged messages throughout life after that. For example, I always know what she was doing at any given moment, 2000 kilometers away from me. Her telephone was a stand-in proxy for myself, as though my absence never mattered. What was she wearing on any day, what had she cooked or which nights she did Reiki, I always knew. I read every poem and story she wrote after that, I read and commented about every interview and lecture she delivered in the last twenty-five years. I was on the phone all the while during her son’s twelfth board results, college admission, housewarming, her every illness and her son’s wedding. I took personal care of every small detail of her life, but from 2000 kilometers away. 

A long-distance-relationship, which was soul-to-soul. She had lived all her life with secrets. An apathetic life, looking at her existence on the rearview mirror. She was a fundamentally solitary being with an abysmal hole about her soul. Slowly, I became the vessel into which she poured all her loneliness. 

She had tried to meet me only once, after three months of our last meeting. I committed a blunder by telling her, “You need not promote me by inviting me to the places where you are the chief speaker or chief guest.” She decided never to meet me after that. NEVER. NOT EVER.

Her character was multi-dimensional. Every day, each message, each email, every phone call revealed a new shade of her personality before me. One week, two weeks, months, years rolled on. Long twenty-five years, but the lady decided never to meet me.

Once I told her, “I love your name, but I would prefer to call you Meeta. My Meeta, mora Meeta, my friend for life.”

She was very happy, my Meeta, my Jasmine, my mmm. That was how she would respond over the phone when she would be in her elements. Her simplicity, innocence, childlike qualities amazed me every time. She would be overwhelmed with the smallest expression of my love, like Robert Browning’s Last Duchess. She would blush with my modest appreciation of her. But her success hardly exited her; she accepted her achievements most nonchalantly, dispassionately.

Meeta’s senses were active. “I am very smell conscious. Smells decide for me.”

“But I am like a piggy at the end of the day! I travel by public transport for 50 kms a day dear, and you only travel by car. You are Jasmine and I am Piggy.”

“Piggies are cuties too. I love a cute piggy.”

I made her laugh, a lot, by laughing at myself.

“You know what the four essential qualities of my man are? He must be sensitive and honest to the core. He should appreciate art, literature, culture, and music. He has to smell good. And he MUST make me laugh.”

Ahh! What simplicity! She was rich, successful, and beautiful. But her needs were far from that.

Once I sent a few smileys to her in a light mood while teasing her, and she messaged back, “Why are you laughing at me?” And when I wrote a few words in capital letters, she wrote, “Are you shouting at me?” What sensitivity! It seems she came from a family where it was initiated into her that a girl must not shout, her speech should not be loud enough to be heard in the other room. She couldn’t bear noise, violence of any kind and ruggedness.

That was my Meeta – hypersensitive.

That day I sent her a message, “Somebody I didn’t know much, told me some time back that she came across as a spirited person.”

“And that spirited person transmitted his spirits to a ‘spiritless’ person. Now she badly needs his counsel and help.”

“Spiritless? Help? Fie on those words. You are broad shouldered; how dare you think like a weakling? Buck up. It’s equality after all, Meeta.”

At her slightest wish, I was willing to move up to the end of the world. But Meeta dreaded any kind of change. Her phone number was the same for decades. Her favorite colour was white, always. Favorite singer — Lata-ji; her best friend and lover, me. Forever. She didn’t want her family to suffer because of any of her decisions.

“I want to be a part of you, but I can’t shift my responsibilities to anyone. If you want me to leave everything and run to you, I can’t fight that. I can’t say ‘no’ to you for anything sweetheart! I need you so selfishly. But please don’t distract me from my responsibilities. If I do that, you will never get the woman whom you love, I’ll be a lump of remorse, hurt, regret, and that will transform me.”

But I never wanted her to be anything other than what she was. The itinerant, vintage, classic, modern woman, who was innocuously unselfish. That was the paradox. If it had not been for her, I am not sure if I would have been what I am today. In her letters and messages, she gave me a universe, and made me a comprehensive unit, which had been scattered into pieces. And she said, I made her an organic whole, adding the bits and pieces of her. Even when we were not in our conscious minds, we could feel each other. We had always been there for each other. We spent our youth together and grew old together, completing each other. She touched my core, without touching this body, ever.

She had a family with her, and she was sad that I had no one with me. But she was my constant companion, in my sleep and wakeful hours, in my heart and soul. She made me understand the real meaning of love – through her I got to know that love exists!

But we never made this love a public affair. Never told anyone about our heartaches. Never met, never parted. But still, all the while we were broken hearted. We had decided never to underestimate the telecommunicated flash of trivial news in our academic circles. Prof. J B Parit could write fifty research papers a year; DU would introduce a four years BA Honors course ignoring the students’ protests; there would be ten new central universities in the country and fifteen new IITs; and that would not cause a bump in our consciousness. But Prof. Madhvi Srivastava, the celebrity writer, seen with Mr. A, B or C – well, that was national news material. Breaking news! News to be talked of in seminars, university corridors, news to be cooked with spices and made tastier with every news reporter. So, we made it a point that no one on earth knew, for last twenty-five years, that Prof. Madhvi Srivastava, the arrogant, full-of-attitude (sometimes I teased her as Ms. Atti!), the writer, was my love, whom I called ‘Pugli Meeta’, the simplest and the most sensuously elemental woman.

Meeta had this classic, unalterable habit of jumping into conclusions – “you don’t love me. You have no time for me” – at the drop of a hat. There would be days when I was sandwiched between two fatty aunties in a local train, and then the girlie would call up. With a lot of difficulty, I reach into my pocket, take out the mobile and say, “hello!”

“God, you are always on the roads?”

“Hello… can’t hear you baby!”

“Oh pleeeese! Why are you shouting? Are you addressing an audience?”

Then there’s no network.

By the next two minutes, she would have sent me a message, “You don’t love me. Don’t ever call me. I am not your Meeta…”

The sulky-silly-girlie reminded me of the Bangla song, “O go meeta, moro sudurer meeta…”, or an Odia song, “Mo priya tharu kie adhika sundara…” which I remembered since my Bhubaneswar days where I spent my early youth.

And then, the next five hours I would spend sending her messages from meetings, academic councils, school boards, bathrooms, and ‘pataofy’ her, flatter her, flirt with her. But the silence between us during her katti (not-talking) hours seemed like a perpetuation of our relationship.

“Meeta…when on talking terms, my words hurt you. When not, you are sulky. It’s not about who is right and who is wrong but about what’s the best way. I do not want to be your nemesis. You are a good human being, an accomplished person, and already have enough troubles in life. Please talk to me”.

Then, at last, the lady would be pleased to take my call.

My days and nights were beautiful. She made them beautiful. I was in love – deeply, madly, badly in love.  

Once she took my calls, she would open-up, petal by petal. She had this tremendous capacity to express all her feelings in words. She was my Muse. I turned more respectful to her poetry with each poem she wrote, with such ease and eloquence. She was the one who thought that she would die with a book on her chest. I would sometimes appreciate her poetry in high-sounding words to elevate her moods. She wrote, “No… don’t talk of poetry. Well, I read a lot of classics, but modern poetry? Half of it goes above my heads — I mean not the words, but what makes people ruminate with an armada of adjectives, I don’t understand. I wish the scorpion of some rationality would bite the back of these poets. You modern poets, you just sniffle. Take my handkerchief laden with chili powder.”

Funny indeed. Funny Meeta. A funny girl with a runny nose.

We shared every small detail of our days. Once she wrote, “Just now I took a lecture on Dover Beach with our M.A. English students. Remembering someone who swears his love for me with this lovely poem!”

“That’s one of my favorite poems, Meeta! It talks of love as inclusivity and thereby a panacea. Lovely last lines. I see life as literature. Truth is that literature gives me courage to stand up after every lost battle. Most are self-defeats.”

Unlike me, Meeta was very much a self-motivated person. She said, if she had the mood, she could fly miles with just the blow of wind. If not, a thousand horses couldn’t drag her even by an inch. But during her creative hours, she was impenetrably serious, quietly contemptuous. Once I sent her a poem to interpret for one of our courses; she did that in a few minutes and mailed me the critical interpretation. That was lovely! “Oh…Meeta at her best, as always. Powerful. My interpretation is no match.”

She was restless if she forgot anything, say, the name of an old friend or the lyrics of a Lata Mangeshkar song. To her, it seemed awful to lose a memory. She had the face of a young girl, untouched by motherhood. Meeta was a poem herself, deep, fragrant, melting with the words of love I whispered into her ears.

Her husband was never interested in sex, and her only child was from the first marriage. Thus, she shared her bed with her son throughout, till he went to a hostel to study fine arts. Even before that, her son would be put to sleep at 9 pm. Meeta had sleep-disorder, insomnia. She would hardly get any sleep for two hours continuously. Her husband was more of a companion than a lover, he was engrossed with his career. She had adapted herself to his habits of having an early dinner, watching T.V. while eating, and then closing their doors by 9.30 pm. with a quick good night kiss. He would snore within no time, and she would sing a Sanskrit sloka for her son to sleep or tell him a bedtime story. She was an exceptionally good mother. Being a strong moralist herself, she would teach positive values to her son in the most creative way. She would cook his choicest dishes, teach him with patience, and be his friend, philosopher, and guide. After her son slept, she was left alone, with her books, study table, bed light, mobile, laptop for company. She would struggle to get some sleep, but rustling inside her was another person who wanted to be smelt in her neck, caressed, coddled, felt under her skin and loved, be carried away. Night after night she would lay there on her lonely bed, in her lovely night suits, hair blowing in the wind, watching the birds, clouds, stars through her bedroom window, thinking of me. One night she sent me a haiku:

“My sleep and sleeplessness

play hide-and-seek.

Is someone awake in me?” 

This is when we started talking during the midnights. The background music would be the buzzing of the A.C. or the snoring of her husband.

First few days we talked about our days, work, creative writing, children, our fights, and patch-ups. Once I requested her to sing over the phone, and she went on in her melodious, sensuous voice. Till I was teary eyed.

What is she getting in life? She is so full of love; her heart is like an ocean of love, and she can drown a thousand ships in it. And she is not even getting a lonely ferry to explore her!

What is the barrier to freedom that has been shaped up to block her feelings? Why are the walls of culture blocking open and natural relationships between men and women? Why is there no intimacy and eroticism in relationships? Why sexual preferences aren’t talked of before marriages?

One night she wrote, “Not getting sleep. Listening to Raag Handol and Raag Doot; working on the computer.”

“You have worked enough. Rest now.”

“How to get some sleep? Tips please.”

“Isn’t it hypocritical for one to whom sleep comes as a rest from thought and heartache to advise ways to fall asleep? Maybe take a book of your choice and tuck into bed nosey girl! Do you mind someone playing with your fingers when you are reading yourself to sleep?”

Silence…

Next morning, she wrote, “Slept in fragments. Thanks for playing with my fingers and putting me to sleep. There is a drowsy numbness in the body.”

Meeta had accepted, eroticism had no place in her clean, disciplined life. There were books, designer furniture, extensive wardrobes, and big cars in the household. There were maids to take care of, campus kids to party every weekend, husbands to invite friends over a drink on Friday evenings. T.V. programmes to follow, cricket to debate over, relatives to make phone calls or come over without notice.

But there was no eroticism. There was no talk of sex. It was a forbidden topic to discuss or ponder over. A woman who needs sex and asks for it, is definitely a slut. “Woman…dare to call yourself a slut!” – she was told. It was dribbled into her ears by her husband, loud and clear. He had passed an ordinance, unwritten, that my name was a big No at home. Her husband had too utilitarian a mind, he was extreme in everything. He was, indeed, a prisoner of extreme narcissistic self-love, self-righteousness. He said he loathed the senseless viciousness in the lives of many families around. As if there could be sensible, thoughtful ones! Perhaps there were, he had discovered a way to be sensibly irrational towards his wife. That’s how she was deprived of the basic rights of a woman. He ridiculed the idea that a woman needs to be pampered, celebrated. 

On the contrary, I admired her during our late-night calls; precisely, I celebrated with her. I convinced her that it’s no sin to be erotic. That is the root and the instinct of this creation, after all. My admiration was genuine, she knew. She basked in it, immersed in my desire, let my whispers sway, and swindle her, and in the catch of those moments she fell in love with me over and over again every time I sent an erotic text message, an e-mail, or whispered a word of love. After a night of virtual lovemaking, she would wake up in the morning, refreshed, relaxed, smiling, awash, her face flushed, skin pores open, eyes glowing with desire.

Those days, she told me once that she was pleased with the way she looked and felt. She felt light, warm, and feminine in my hands. For her, I was a virtual reality. And those days, she always smiled; I was hanging like a silver smile on her lips. She wanted to swim naked in the pool of desire that I had designed for her. She wrote, “Your eruditions convey such tenderness, generating a world that comprises only the two of us, that I get oscillated. The passionate ache that touches me through your words makes me ascertain things about me that I hadn’t recognised till this time.”

Once she told me, she remembered the smell that she had felt sitting beside me in the car, on that day, I went to drop her in the airport. It was the clean, soapy, warm, fundamental, civilised smell of a man, who was erotic. God!! She knew how to juggle with words. Her words, only words, kept our love alive for more than two decades! Just three hours of togetherness and she could keep the flame burning forever – only with her words!

A river of words flowing between two cities, two lives, and a river of soft kisses, smiles, tears, letters, messages, e-mails, vibrations, heartaches…

But the love was far beyond physical. Loving me was, for her, pure devotion, like Mira Bai’s.

For me, she was extremely graceful whom I never wanted to dominate, yet she loved to be completely conquered, in the exact way she wanted me to make love to her. With my whispers, breathing, soft kisses in quiet nights from 2000 kms, she told, she got orgasms. It was such a pity! A beautiful, aesthetically sensuous woman, who had committed no sin, had never experienced an orgasm in life! Though she had a child, she had never had a thing called ‘making love’. Perhaps her body responded to one of those marital rapes from the first marriage, which resulted in the pregnancy. All the time she pondered about me, and asked me once if the orgasms of the mind were any different from the physical, real orgasms? All I could respond to her innocent query were, two drops of tears.

(To be continued)

Visuals by Different Truths

Prof. Nandini Sahu

Prof. Nandini Sahu, Amazon’s best-selling author in 2022, professor of English and Former Director the School of Foreign Languages, IGNOU, New Delhi, is an established poet, creative writer, and folklorist. She is the author/editor of 17 books. She is the recipient of the Literary Award/Gold Medal from the Vice President of India for her contribution to English Studies. Her areas of research cover New Literatures, Critical Theory, Folklore and Culture Studies, Children’s Literature and American Literature.

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