Brown eyes

Brown eyes

(This article has been read 158 times)

Posted by browneyes on March 09, 2003 (Sunday)

Have you ever felt that you could identify with the characters in the story, and it was your story put in words by someone else and that there are larger than life events happening in day to day life, thats Brown eyes for you

They did not first meet at any party. They did not first meet on any beach. Nor did they first meet on the train or on a flight. In fact they never met at all, in the proper sense of word meeting, well atleast the first time. They just saw each other. And certainly not with great delight if I may add.

He was attending the annual conference of his company while she was there to be at a party thrown by her uncle on his 25th Wedding Anniversary. As she stood there with her friends in the lift, waiting for the doors to close, this average height, slightly plumpish guy came running down the lobby. With a rather big looking spectacle on his eyes, and with that hurried, �My God, I�ll get killed today� look, he rushed towards the lift as the doors began to close. None of her three friends or herself, who were the only people in the lift, even tried to make an effort to keep the door open. But he just made it, or atleast his arm did and the doors reopened. �Oops�, he said and jumped in pressing the button for fifth floor just under the sixth, which was already highlighted. The lift was a rather small lift, meant for 6 persons it said on the wall. Her friends, who had been chattering all this while quietened, as if demonstrating that their million dollar gossip was not worthy of this ephemeral creature that had so boldly intruded. She had a similar thought and couldn�t help noticing that though he was in a clean ironed green shirt, and light brown trousers with polished leather shoes, he still smelt of what one may say, man�s sweat. He stood just in front of the door facing it and thus had his back to the ladies. However, something told her that he wanted to look back. The bell chimed and the doors began to open on the fifth floor. He got out and then turned right, giving a little glance to the girls in the lift. She noticed he had brown eyes. He noticed she had brown eyes.

The meeting didn�t go well altogether. The head of the division was an ambitious middle aged guy. He was six feet, well built and liked to dominate people. There could be only two ways to convince him, either to submit to his ideas or contend with equal determination. The latter ofcourse was rare. He however belonged to the latter group and thus had faced many batterings already. However, with growing experience in work, one tends to realize the insignificance of what others believe. Indeed, what matters in work and in life is what one believes in and whether one can stand up for it. With his 25 years old eyes, he thought that he had seen a significant portion of what life could be already. He had a rather small forehead and round face. A face which looked rounder, without the French beard, which he had kept till sometimes back. Sometimes he missed the beard and searched for it as his fingers traced his chin. As an accountant, he had to keep long hours and had to forget about everything else, which he didn�t. He cherished every thought he had to be as valuable as having them fulfilled. With a rather large nose, small eyes and rather large cornea for a small eye, he was surely not a picture to behold. But hold it, it was the smile, which was infectious, which is whenever it came and it had become quite rare recently. He was five feet six, had black hair and thick eyebrows, which used to shape up like something sinister, every time he was angry or disturbed. You could say that he would have looked cute as a kid, but he certainly didn�t make a great mark as a young man on the girls. He hardly had any friends and never had a girlfriend in his life. Sometimes, he missed the experience, sometimes he didn�t. Around five PM, when the meeting was adjourned and all colleagues decided to go out for the more livelier spots at night and enjoy it, he wasn�t too sure about it. A sense of fatigue and tiredness was approaching him. He declined the idea and went downstairs to take a cab to the hotel. Morning, he had to fly back to his city of work.

The party was a great party. Her uncle was a modest businessman but in his long standing modesty, he had built up substantial wealth for himself and his family. She was his niece and knew most guests there. With her five feet five inches plus another two and a half inches of heel, a long blue coloured gown with typical persian embroidery and a dazzling diamond necklace accompanied by complimenting diamond earrings enhanced her beautiful figure. She had a broad forehead, small eyebrows, large eyes, small nose and a mouth, which broke into a smile at the slightest of provocation. She had deep black hair, which swept down to her shoulders in one mighty sweep. She could be every photographer�s dream come true if she had chosen to be in the business, and that was quite evident by the zeal of the party photographer who must have spent an extra reel than promised, probably for himself. But what was most attractive about her was that she wore no makeup � no lipstick or nail polish or creams � Her oval face seemed to be able to give every sentiment a new paradigm by the way it reacted. People who didn�t know her were mesmerized by her and guys ofcourse went crazy. At the age of 23, she had just finished her masters in physics and was trying to get through a managerial post in a few companies, however, her father, who was an accomplished businessman wanted her to take care of his business. The guys and girls were buzzing around her and she was having a whale of a time. She had had boyfriends, and she always got the best of them but she never had to make any effort. One glance, one look was sufficed to heed them to her feet. The affairs lasted two months, five months, a year at stretch and the relationship died out. The longest relationship she ever had was with her classmate in college. They went around for last two of the three years they spent there and then when they parted, as he had to go abroad to study further, they had promised each other that it would be kept alive, but it hardly did. The phone calls and emails became rarer and rarer. She sometimes thought of him whenever any guy was attempting to woo her. The guy around that table at the end of the room looked really handsome. She had met him an hour back, he was a friend of her cousin and she knew it from that moment, that he was going to ask her out for �a dinner or a movie or a cup of coffee�, or so they said. The party was a lunch party and thus after the tea, as the party came to close, this guy came around her and asked her out, as predicted, and she said �fine�. Her friends and cousins were going out to enjoy the nightlife in the city but she wasn�t too sure about it. She declined the idea and went downstairs to take a cab to home. Morning, she had to fly back on an errand for her father.

As she stepped out on the street, the handsome guy followed and offered to drop her at home, which she politely declined. She hailed for a cab and got inside the first one, which stopped in front of her. She closed the door but she didn�t notice a part of her dress, which was sticking out of the door. As the cab speeded out to the main road, she caught an apparition through the rear view mirror. Strange, she said, the green brown clothing of that man looked familiar and then she forgot all about it. As he approached the cab, there seemed to one already standing there, he couldn�t help noticing a part of a blue dress hanging out of the door of the cab which just sped past. Strange, he said to himself, the dress looked familiar and then he forgot all about it.

Next morning, he took the flight to his city of work and she took another flight to another city on the errand. None of them saw each other at the airport ofcourse.

A couple of months later, he entered the local coffee shop. He looked around for a table and saw one free on the corner. As he walked towards the table, he noticed the beautiful girl on the table next to it. He made way to the chair on the other end, so as to be able to look at this girl. As he looked at his watch, he smiled to himself. He was supposed to meet a friend in the coffee shop and was ten minutes late, however from what it looked like, his friend was delayed further than that. He ordered for a cup of coffee for himself - cappuccino, extra hot, no sugar � and settled down to wait. As he glanced around the guy with his back towards him to the girl sitting with him, he felt that he had seen her before. She was talking non stop and was smiling and laughing all the time and then she glanced at him for a less than a second. He felt her looks and then the next moment she was talking with this friend of hers again. She of course had taken no cognizance of his presence there, he noticed, but he was surely zapped by those brown eyes. But this had happened often enough for him to feel anything about, and then his friend arrived. This friend of his worked in another multinational firm as HR manager and both of them were from the same institute where they did managerial studies. Usually, he never ventured out on any Friday evening such as this, but he felt very strongly about his alma mater and thus met friends from his institute quite often. As this friend of his walked in, he waved and his friend came towards him. He sat down opposite him and they had a conversation over coffee and sandwiches. Some fifteen minutes later when they began to get up, the couple sitting on the next table also got up.

The last two months had been quite eventful for her. She got a job but not in her hometown. Fortunately, she had her elder sister who was married and staying with her husband and in laws here. Fifteen days back she had shifted and she had taken the position as a trainee manager in a multinational firm. She was not quite satisfied with the job, but accepted it as a first job, and one to learn through. She had made a large group of friends pretty early in this city. And this young guy at office had asked her out on dinner. So here she was in the coffee shop when she noticed someone sitting behind this guy. She gave a little glance and saw this average guy sitting, trying to open a sugar sachet, to pour into his cup. He glanced up and she felt her looks and immediately turned to the guy on her table, but not before she noticed that he had brown eyes. Not handsome, she thought, but the face looked familiar. Someone joined him a little later, she noticed and when they were about to get up to go for dinner, the brown-eyed guy and the guy who had joined him also stood up. She recognized the guy who had come in later.

The friend gave a big exclamation and shook hands with her. Both belonged to the same school and were good friends then. Both were meeting after a considerably long time. She introduced her colleague and his friend introduced him. They smiled when they shook hands. The two schoolmates exchanged numbers and then the two couples bade farewell. She went out that night to a lovely dinner at the finest restaurants in the city and he went back home and cooked himself some egg and toast.

That night just before he slept, he thought about the wonderful girl he had met and then tried to forget her. That night just before she slept, she thought about her classmate she had met and forgot about the classmate�s friend.

Life went on the next day. The memory of the meeting of the previous day lost and forgotten somewhere amongst the huge rack of information there is in mind. Sometimes, one wonders on how mind can store all the memories. It is like a 3D camera with sound, light, touch, feel and emotions of each moment that are recorded in one�s brain. Nature had made the brain the best Recorder ever made. However, as one says, sometimes the head of the recorder gets dirty or corrupted or sometimes like a digital device it jumps directly from one scene to other missing the scenes in between or loosing the clarity of the recording. And so it happened. But when one attempts to consciously clear that spot and probably use some of the latest technology, all the details can be recaptured or relayed.

On a bright Sunday afternoon, he was invited at the party of this friend of his. He didn�t feel like going, but there was nothing better to do and then he didn�t feel like cooking that day. Good food, good music and probably good dancing didn�t seem all that bad an idea. So, there he was at the flat of this friend of his and he was shaking a leg or two on the rhythm of the numbers being played at the top volume on the music system. He didn�t notice the door of the house open and another couple of girls admitted into the party. The music was good, it was just the combination of rock, pop and metal that he liked. Often people would swear by one type of music against others, however surprisingly, he noticed most of the English music was made with the same instruments. The drums, guitar and base could concoct any kind of music. He shifted from dancer to dancer. Some of the pretty girls had already got their partners but there were some not so pretty kinds who were still dancing. Through his experience, he had found that it was these girls, who would be generally involved in the music and dance and would be fun to dance with. But when he turned to his right in the apparent swing variation of a Michael Jackson step, he found brown eyes looking at him. He stopped. She was there, dancing with great zeal and was completely enjoying herself. Surprisingly, there was no partner with her as yet. He thought for a moment and decided to withdraw from the dance. It was highly improbable that he would enjoy the dance, as he generally liked to do. He would become too conscious about himself, he thought. And so he took a glass of vodka with limejuice and placed himself comfortably at the corner of the large empty soda in the room. His eyes were focussed on those brown eyes.

She liked to go to parties and when her friend invited her along to this party she was invited to, she was glad to break this monotony of work life and revert back to the delights of the teen life. The party was small, she thought, as she entered, and they are playing ancient music. She saw a guy dancing in between the crowd with a peculiar kind of abundance as soon as she looked towards the dance floor. The guy from the coffee shop, she remembered. After downing a glass of coke, the two friends headed for the dance floor. She was just about getting the groove when she was faced with this brown-eyed guy doing some sort of a stupid dancing step. He seemed to have got struck by her and halted almost too abruptly. She smiled to herself, and liked when she could effect someone like this. A minute later, when she tried to find him in the crowd, but he was no where to be seen. Half an hour later, she was exhausted. She and her friend decided to have food.

As she walked with the plate in her hand trying to search for a place to sit, she noticed him sitting on the large sofa. He had a glass in his hands, and it was surely empty. Drunk probably she thought, but then her friend headed towards the sofa to sit. After a mild hi, the two sat on the same sofa. A small conversation was initiated by her friend, where are you from, ohhh so what do you do etc. She though that if he was drunk, atleast his voice did not betray that fact the slightest. The conversation then moved to the lack of nightlife of the city and the need to get some cool places to hangout. There was no two way about that and every guy or girl in the city would agree that it had lack of places one could go to and do what is called �hang out�. A couple of times, their eyes met, there seemed to be recognition and an attempt to place the other person in relation to some memory stored somewhere. But it was surely not working.

As they got up after finishing food, he too got up and said goodbye. He had decided to leave the party and head home. He had some chores to do that day. As he walked towards the door, he said to himself, not to let his heart go away from him. It�s the safest place in the world for it. But surely for a girl like her, it would be worth it���..I guess. As she placed her plates and looked back at him as he walked out, she said to herself, weird character, hope no one falls in love with him. It wouldn�t be worth it.

Now it is most crucial for us as readers to understand as to what happened between now and their next meeting, which incidentally would be their third meeting according to my definition. Life went on. Each morning he would wake up just in time to grab a quick shower and then eat on the way to office. He would reach office and completely forget about everything else in the myriad of telephone calls and meetings and emails. Post lunch was the only time, when as usual he thought about things on the short walk to the beach close to the office. It gave him great calm to watch the sea.

The sea, as it has epitomized every extreme of human nature or emotion conceived. From anger to patience, from determination to trickery. It represents to mankind what mankind can be. Everything it chooses to be from time to time. The relentless waves which move towards the shore and break into each other as if trying to finish a task given to them at the bottom of the sea. And the expanse right upto the horizon, mocking the land, saying, you are born from my womb and to my womb, you shall perish. Till then, I would take care of you my child. And to every soul, man or woman, it seems to say the same things. And so he felt the sea, as if one feels the presence of an elderly relative, such as a grandparent, kind and loving and helping out in one�s life. In such moments of quiet, one�s thoughts can often betray one and imagine things, which the mind would never let it, do otherwise. Day dreaming. An art. A science.

He dreamt about her. He had seen her only twice but he created scenes where she would laugh at a joke or smile at him. Where she would take his hand and trace his palm with her forefinger telling any kind of thought which came to her mind and laughing on her jokes. Always, during and at the end of such dreams he would smile and finally come out of it with a shrug. He believed that as long he is just playing with an image in his mind, it could do no harm. After all, it�s all a figment of his imagination.

She was however never impressed by sea. All, she wanted to do when she saw a beach was to crash in the waves and swim. The sea appeared to her as a challenge and she wanted to conquer it. Once as she was missing the excitement in her life and thought about the party she attended, she couldn�t remember any other person�s face except that creepy brown eyed guy. Those eyes seem to have become alive to her ever since and now seemed in retrospect to be saying something much more. She yearned to see those eyes again.

And she did, a week later when she went to this bookshop store with her friend to buy a couple of CDs. And there he was in a white T-Shirt and brown khaki�s going through a paper back edition of the �The Road less travelled�. He turned around and smiled and she smiled back. She felt nice to meet him again. His brown eyes glazed at her face with a mellowed feel, that made her smile automatically. He was clean shaven, just had a bath from the way his hair was neatly in place and smelt of Axe or Brute or that latest in the body perfumes. He smiled as he said, that he was not able to recall their names. She felt bad. She always felt bad when someone didn't remember her name. Especially, when it is a guy. And then he turned to her friend. They talked about a lot of stuff. Her friend was also a major fan of philosophy, and though had taken Maths as her majors during college, she always wanted to read philosophy, and so they got engrossed With all the discussion, which lasted till they walked out after payment, she felt not involved. She never liked to discuss about philosophy. Somehow it felt as if one would get influenced and the sequence of thoughts through which each individual has to grow intellectually, alone, by himself, would subside and need to take concepts and take up examples from life to get best fits would begin. But most of all she was irked by the rudeness of this guy to have completely shunned her, especially after the way he smiled at her when she met. In irritation, she began to get angry with her friend also and started to visibly try and be aloof. The two however, didn�t seem to take any notice. After the till, the two decided to meet again that night for dinner. He invited them to dinner at their place, which she was about to refuse, but her friend said that they would come and she didn�t say a word thereafter. He shook her hands and gave her a smile. She found herself smiling back at him effortlessly.

That evening, when they entered his house, they found almost bare rooms. With little or no furnishing, however there were a number of mattresses and vases around. A lot of curios were there in the shelf. Most amusingly, he had a collection of toys of horses. All of some six inches tall in brown, black, white and other skin types. The lighting was also a shade yellowish white and the cream curtains on the french windows seemed to be putting in the special effect. The kitchen however, was well stocked, with lots of boxes and jars with all kind of spices and stuff. There was a large showcase with a lot of books. All sorts of books. From the kids world of Noddy and Famous five to the Fountainhead, the so called epitome of societal description of 20th century American life. A lot of non-fiction, mostly to do with Philosophy was lying there. A couple of books on Astrology, Palmistry and Chinese Horoscope were also there. And so were the usual Robert Ludlums and Frederick Forsyths, and Robin Cooks. �Does he read all this stuff�, she thought. There was no television, but there was this impressive music system. And in the cabinet was a collection of CDs and cassettes � Bon Jovi, Michael Jackson, Rod Stewart, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Van Halen, Don Williams, the latest movie songs, the movie oldies, Ghazals, Indian classical instrumental and vocal, Western Classical and Scottish windpipes. �Wow�, she thought, � That�s quite a motley of collection in here. How can one listen to all this and like it all.

He saw her from the corner of his eyes going through his music collection. He walked up behind her and asked her whether she would like to hear some music. She turned almost startled and then said yes. He ran his eyes through his collection and decided upon Kenny G. Appropriate he thought to himself.

She saw him put on the music and then move to kitchen. There was already a pan on the fire and there was pasta in there. Her friend seemed to be in a deep conversation with him. And everytime he smiled at her friend, she couldn�t help noticing her friend giving a bigger smile back. He glanced up at her and then back to her friend. Almost as if he was afraid to look at her.

He was afraid to look at her, he realized. Afraid, not because of anything else, but simply because it was his dreams against reality now and he didn�t want his dreams to be lost. They had become almost an intimate part of he lately. The food was ready and was then served on the table. Pasta with Arrabiata sauce, some warm bread and a can of fruit juice. The herbs and the spices had really done their job well and the pasta was truly delicious. He sat diagonally opposite her, while her friend directly faced him. And all the while, while he was talking to her friend and briefly nodding to her, he felt agitated and nervous. That�s quite silly, he thought to himself.

Both of them were having a conversation about hobbies. She looked at him as he told them about his stamp collection and then match box collection and then the latest � coin collection. And her friend was almost putting me too on everything he said. The likes and dislikes of her friend didn�t seem to surprise her much, but when she told him that she loved cooking too. Well, that was not really accurate. Her friend avoided cooking as much as possible. Strange, she thought of her friend telling about herself as a cook. It does happen though she thought.

You see, as people meet people, they try and find similarities with each other. When two individuals meet, we can almost talk about two alien entities meeting each other. Ofcourse, the first thing we take for granted is that the other person is a human being on Earth. Well that narrows it down very significantly from a possibility of one in one followed by twenty-two zeroes, almost but it�s not enough. There are six billion of us on this planet. If one is from the same subcontinent, it�s better because it narrows down to maybe a billion. If it is the same state or country, it�s even better because now we are down to a couple of hundred million, maybe. If it�s the same hometown, that�s cool because now it�s probably just a million of us. If it is the same locality or the same colony, so much better because we are now down to a hundred thousand. However, if one is from the same school or college, then it brings down to maybe a thousand or so. And if it is the same batch or the same time, then you are down to a hundred or so. Any lower and the two should be knowing each other already. Our level of comfort with another person in the first few times we meet are dependent on the physical proximity we can derive from either of our pasts. Even an incident such as being on the same show or in the same convention is sometimes enough. So by now if you are nodding your head and probably have a take out that one cannot get comfortable immediately with people without physical proximity in past, then you are incorrect. Indeed really incorrect.

What one tries to do to narrow down from six billion to maybe a thousand is to find out the common likes and dislikes. Hey you don�t like bananas. I hate bananas too, and the two might get along as the best chums ever. So it happens everytime, everyplace. So what do you like to do when you are free, you ask. And then you try and say, Oh you read Isaac Asimov. I�ve read him too, but I am a greater fan of Arthur C Clarke and then the person facing you might say, Yeah, I�ve read it too and he�s real good, especially the book called, �Childhood�s end�. Didn�t you feel that the main character was a feminist? Yeah, I thought the same���..and so on and so forth.

Music, books, cooking, hiking, sleeping etc etc. The host of activities in attempt to bring down the person from a crowd of entities to a memorable person. Most often we get into this routine without knowing it, without feeling and without realizing the much larger needs as elaborated by this and it consequences. If you are again nodding your head and thinking that there�s no other way to become friendly. Think again.

I�ll give you a couple of seconds to look away from the paper and then think about any other way in which recognition can be derived from a stranger. If you have given up, well you can go on. There is no other explanation for the way one can feel friendly towards a stranger except that it happens. And sometimes, we call it fate, and sometimes we call it love at sight.

And so as her friend talked to him and he talked to her friend about the common hobbies, he did not need to talk to her or vice versa. After the dinner and a quitter coffee, he dropped them to the nearest cab and said goodbye. She looked back at him, he was smiling, and this time somehow she was sure that he was smiling at her, and for her.

His heart began to beat a bit slower after she had left. He went back home, and slept easily and not fitfully for the first time since he met her (as per my definition) and then the next day the grind began differently. She went back home and couldn�t sleep properly. The next day the grind began again differently.

Now it�s again very critical for us to know what they were thinking between their third meeting and their fourth meeting (again as per my definition). You see the biggest step a man or a woman can take in their emotional life is to accept the fact that the specific person they like is the person they love. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of imagination, mind you. Often the person we end up loving is not perfect. He or she may not be the most beautiful girl or the most handsome guy. He or she may have a lot of irritating habits. He or she may not even show you respect or even emotions. It is therefore that I add that to accept, that one loves someone, needs a lot of imagination. And some times it is hard on oneself. Because as soon as we accept our love for someone, we are accepting a kind of slavery to the concept, and all the paradigms which hold with it. For instance, one may start feeling guilty of going around with someone else. Or one may feel it necessary to tell the person everything. It happens, and ofcourse it�s natural. For if you think that you are in love, then surely you are in love. Now this battle can wage between each person. How long does this battle last and how bad does it get depends on person to person. Some people can completely eliminate the idea from their minds when they work, but can�t sleep later at night. And some people can�t even focus on their work or what they do. Most certainly, one starts to get reminded about every little thing one knows or had noticed about the one you are not sure you are in love with�����..as yet.

And that�s what would clearly describe both of them. He fought with himself, not wanting to loose the loneliness and solitude which he had produced and inculcated in his lifestyle. She fought with herself, not wanting to loose sight of her ambitions is both personal and professional life. Both were afraid of the compromise they would be getting in with themselves over the kind of partner they wanted. And eventually both of them were wondering, who would be the first to call up the other.

She hoped he would call. The guy is supposed to take the lead she said to herself. Let her call, he thought. If I call, maybe she would take it otherwise. And then he overcame his anxiety a week later and called her. She received his call and he asked her out for a movie. She had already seen the movie but agreed to go. On enquiring about her friend, he told her that he had called her friend but she was tied up at work. And they went for the movie, which was surely not romantic from any angle. But they were. Eventually he told her that he had never called her friend for the movie.

He had to lift his legs by hands to uncross them. They tend to become numb so often now a days, he said to the young man sitting opposite him. It happens son, he said, when you become old. But not too old to love me, came her voice from behind. Yes, yes he said and gave her a smile. She asked the young man, So what stories has he been telling you son. Nothing grandma, he replied, just how the two of you met and fell in love. It�s very romantic. Oh no, she said to him, you�ve begun story telling again dear. Don�t let him fool you son. All we did was meet each other in a hotel where he was having a convention and I was attending my uncle�s anniversary party, and he proposed me the next day. And what happened after that is a bit hazy to me too, she said.

He turned around, looked at her. Her five feet five, slightly roundish face, small hair, slightly plumpish looks very apart from the suave description, he just gave his grandson, was looking at him with earnest eyes. I know you wished it was as romantic as the movies, she said to him, but you ain�t getting anything else in this life, my love, she told him with a twinkle in her eyes.

He looked at her. She looked at him. What matters is that we love each other, he said.

He looked into her brown eyes. She looked into his brown eyes.