We fought a silent and sometimes violent war with each other for ten years. Finally we got tired of it all and fell in love. It has been peaceful ever since.
I am Madhulika, a law consultant but my real love story is much more interesting than a juicy courtroom drama. On V Day I would like to declare that I hated my love for a major portion my life. He was my nemesis and I was his and after a decade we both realised that love and hate are just two sides of a coin, two extremes of the same emotion.
Our real love (hate) actually began in school when we were forced to sit together. We had always been in the same school for ten years and still never spoken a word to each other. It is as if we did not exist for each other. It was only after the basket ball team intruded on our dance rehearsals one afternoon in the beginning of standard 11th session did we speak for the first time. I had booked the gymnasium for our annual day practice because no other area was available and here comes the proud brat Arvind with a snicker, 'celestial dancers please clear this earthly court so that we can play ball!' The boys howled with laughter.
'We have booked this place' I retorted.
'This in not a place to dance.' he replied and it just went on from there on.
Cut to English class; Mrs. Pinto is teaching Shakespeare's Tempest and the arrogant creep goes again.
'The ship is as leaky as an unstaunched wench (a girl whose bleeding is not stopped)..' I was reading.
'Ma'am what does unstaunched wench mean'
'The meaning is quite clearly stated in the glossary' I retort.
'Do you like own this class' he barks.
These kind of tiny anti climactic incidences of conflicts in our relationship occurred though out the next two years of our school life. We parted staunch enemies at the end of the year and your unusual love story continued at a different geographical location.
Cut to Bangalore, Law School Festival. I can't believe I saw him again there where I has escaped him forever. With that thought came another, why did I have to escape him if I hate him so much; he shouldn't be that important.
'I cannot imagine my bad luck that I had to see you again' I said aloud.
'I totally reciprocate your feelings' he replied but we both knew it was only the half truth and at that moment this special V Day real love story took a different turn.
Imagine my rotten luck when he started dating one of my own classmates after that Fest and I was dragged along like a chaperone to everywhere. In those 4 years we spent more time with each other than we ever had for the last 12 years in school. Their affair fizzled out but now we started meeting through other common friends. This uncomfortable alliance went on till the day my parents broached the subject of my marriage.
A suitable match was found which I had no reason to reject for this love hate relations that was going nowhere. When I casually mentioned it he reacted unexpectedly. For the first time in years I saw a flicker of emotion in his eyes, for me. But he still didn't come around, he had to wait till the wedding cards were printed to get drunk and spit it out.
'Don't marry that moron. I can't live without you.'
This V Day we finish one whole year of being together and mind you this unusual love story is still just as much a love hate relationship. We quarrel about everything and laugh at it afterwords. That was my real love story of war and I would have it no other way.
Madhulika Shukre
