A Story About Love

By Priyanka Mohan

If fortunate people are those who find love, then I’m the luckiest person in the world. Because I discovered what it means to love another from the very depths of my heart, of my soul.

I will always remember the first glimpse I had of you. I was a young girl, a mere child really, when my eyes landed on you. I felt a welling of emotion I had never experienced before. Was it affection? Adoration? Adulation? Your eyes, black, twinkling, gentle, seemed to look into my soul. Your lips, dreamy, lotus-like, full, seemed to curve into a smile just for me. Even though the first time I ever saw you was when I chanced upon a figurine of you, you became real to me. You weren’t just an empty object molded by loving hands. You were alive. And the emotion I felt, I realized when I was older, was love. A deep, unconditional love, free of expectations and disappointments. Even though many moons have passed since then, I feel the same way for you even today.

I would often dream and daydream about you. I didn’t hide my feelings. I spoke of my love for you, sang of it, sometimes even danced in its ecstasy. But people’s faces darkened when they turned my way. They labelled my love an obsession, an infatuation, a fixation. I may have had blue blood flowing in my veins but I wasn’t impervious to judgement. I was sent to a dark part of the palace, my home, to ‘cure’ me of what they called a sacrilege simply because I was devoted to you and paid society and its expectations no heed.

But even locked in a darkened room devoid of windows I could see your face clearly. I could remember everything I had heard about you. Your wisdom, your compassion, your mischief, your loyalty, your principles. So many wonderful things to hold on to when they tried to wrench me away from you. Your love is impossible, people cried, we beseech you to stop with your shenanigans! I would smile back at them. I couldn’t take back my feelings any more than the sun could take back its rays.

I was born into a royal family where there was no dearth of resources or comfort. However, what gave my life depth, what gave it meaning, was the devotion I had for you. Words came unbidden to my mind and spilled out of my mouth in verse. One day, long after I was gone, these would be immortalized because of their purity and profundity. But I didn’t know that when I sang about you, about us.

Sometimes a shadow would cross my mind. I knew you had your own beloved. Your own companion, someone you loved so deeply that your love story resounded through the ages. Perhaps you’d never love me as you loved her and though that fleetingly hurt me, it never shook my faith.

I would wake up with the sunrise every morning, watching glittering stars fade into oblivion under the light of the sun. Birds would burst into song as the blanket of night was peeled back, happy for a new day. Normally I’d feel a thrill to be part of this transformation, but one day my heart troubled me. I’d been told that I was to be married. They didn’t understand that there was no space in my heart for another. I’d pledged my life and myself to you even if they didn’t accept it.

I wailed and argued, they turned away. I cried and begged, they ignored me. Preparations for my wedding went ahead speedily. With no option in sight, I got married. But I turned away from this man. I couldn’t shift my loyalty. He lived unhappily but I didn’t, I lost myself in you. Marriage couldn’t change anything. Even though I was now a wife and expected to maintain a certain decorum, I danced and laughed while expressing my love and sang songs of your beauty and compassion.

After some monsoons, far away, the sounds of war echoed. Thundering hooves, clashing swords, screams of pain. I heard news that my husband, heir apparent to his kingdom, had passed away. His body was placed on a funeral pyre and set aflame. But my heart didn’t burn.

Boiling, bubbling, seething anger followed me for continuing to behave like a besotted bride to you. My poetry didn’t stop, my feet didn’t quit dancing, my smiles didn’t disappear. The more society glared at me, the more I turned to you. Recognizing the light in me, flowers bloomed, the wind sang and even poison turned to nectar.

But now as I reach the twilight of my life, I renounce everything I have, and simply want to dissolve myself in you. I decide to take my final journey before I can unite with you at last. Before I meet you in the flesh, beyond dreams, songs, images and thoughts. I turn from the palace and walk in your footsteps to your homes. I travel to Vrindavan and Dwarka and I revel in these journeys for I feel closest to you. I now sit in peace for death to visit me.

I accept you to be my beloved, not just in this lifetime, but in all seven lives. I will only want you, my

Giridhar,

Govinda,

Keshava,

Muralimanohar,

Mohan,

Shyam,

Krishna, O Krishna, my everything, my all

And in every life, I will always be your Meera.

By Priyanka Mohan