Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

He stood far away from just a whisper. He was frantically searching through the neatly arranged shelves of shirts and that meant he would probably not notice if I gestured to him, even if I waved out high. I could have walked up a few steps, caught him by the arm and walked him down to what I had just discovered. But if I did, I would lose what I wanted to show him, ‘coz the place was packed with arrays of shirts that were hardly different from one another. I didn’t know how I could solely catch his attention without catching others’.

Ok. Now the root cause of this problem is that I don’t call him by his name. Firstly, to make it simple and straight, I feel too shy to call him by his name. Don’t ask me why. I can’t explain. But that’s how it is. Some things are beyond what words can say. Secondly, I have always wanted to intrinsically express respect in words whenever I talk to my ‘special someone’. In that sense, am happy the Indian language has an inherent way of giving respect to the listener, without having to modify your tone or use special ‘respectful’ words. I guess it’s a mannerism that I secretly admired in my mother and wanted to strictly follow. Though he says he would like it either way, am sure he feels special when I talk to him with that innate respect in my words. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you disrespect someone by calling them by their name. But it’s a very traditional and orthodox Indian concept. Am not delving into that. It’s like my tiny dream and I am happy he gives me the liberty to exploit it with him.

So, what’s the alternative? Simple. I always call him by his nickname or some random cheesy-mushy name that looks like it’s just out of fairy tale books. Only people in love can relate and relish those things. For others, it’s too gay to be true. Calling him such chirpy-chocolate-coated names makes me feel close to him and I very well know it makes him feel like a kid in front of me. He loves it. I love it. We love it. End of story.

Hence ultimately (and fortunately), in the past 11 months, I have never encountered a really serious situation which ‘demanded’ me to call him by his name except when I have to refer to him while talking to others. Of course there is one occasion when I do refer to ‘him’ by his name and that is a secret we wish to keep to ourselves. So otherwise, everything is just fine.

Now back to the problem. Well, it might not seem like one in the first place, but it’s too hard for me to come to terms with.

I was standing in the middle of the stack of shirts and he was at one end. I had to reach out to him, without calling his name. I didn’t want to embarrass either of us by calling him any of those cheesy names that flash our love-struck brain. It’s too insane to pick up the mobile, speed dial his number when he is just a name’s call away. What now? No choice. I had to call him by his name or I would have to wait until he turns to me and we were already running out of time.

Finally, even before my heart could accept stepping beyond its own principles in love, my hopelessly-practical brain and ever-sincere mouth reacted and I called out to him by his name. He turned and we looked into each other’s eyes with that tickling sensation spreading like wild-fire within us. With a was-it-really-you kind of smile slowly spreading across his lips, he walked up to me while I held a purple striped shirt in my hand, too shocked by my own unplanned surprise. He was looking straight into my eyes and I held out the shirt and asked him if he likes it. It was clear that we were both struggling to get ourselves out this earth-shattering moment of our life without letting a single soul notice. The shop wasn’t the best of places for even the hard-core romantics to exchange a few moments of intimate glance at one another. We pretended to quickly recover ourselves. However, both of us didn’t.

Neither of us attempted to talk about it ‘coz we didn’t want to. Talking about it would ruin its charm. We wanted to feel that heart-in-the-throat thing and the goose pimples rise on our skin. Neither of us expressed what we felt and yet, we exactly knew what the other was feeling.

Its amazing how sometimes, something as common or insignificant as your own name, causes excitement and makes you feel unique when it preciously drops out of the lips of the person you love more than yourself.

-Ms.Iyer in love