Crooner 1.39 : Sand clock - UPDATED - Page 3

trees are sanctuaries. whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. they do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life... a longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. if one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home."

...hermann hesse...

his first sanctuary is his room, their room. and when she tells him that she will slip through his fingers like grains of sand and run so fast that he'll never find her again, all the mirth and frolic of just a moment before disappear from his visage, his heart. he tells her never to say such a thing... "promise." in a moment arnav spirals into his deepest fear. loss of the loved one, the most loved one.

we think we know what happens to someone who loses a mother and then a father on the same day and that too killed by their own hands. the more i look at the exploration of asr, the more i am reminded i don't know, i can never know. i know someone whose father was killed. 33 years, she says she can never explain to anyone what it feels like inside. there are split worlds within, there's a permanent cutting of ties with the three dimensional, something changes forever. she had her mother. he had lost his.

i have loved plants since i was little, so when i found this young man, brusque and obnoxious, with his little garden, poring over plants with gentle love (except twice i think, and i was mad at him), i identified with him. today when he drove into his secret place, and he looked up at the tree that he had planted with his mother, and i saw his rose shrub from which a flower had been plucked for his beautiful new love, i was astounded at the depth of thinking on this character.

you need something to hold on to when all is going to hell. something that is concrete, real, feels alive, beautiful. otherwise how would you hope again. that's why his hobby of pottering with plants, something his mother enjoyed. and this, his place of regeneration, of "thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears," where he came to sense his mother, sense perhaps even his existence. he brought no one here, but he had held her hand and invited her to step into his world with him.

a beautiful man, who shut out love and emotions, yet both were intrinsically his essence and he had to find them again. which is why perhaps the stars had conspired to bring her to him, for only she had the key to that lock on his heart and mind. sounds like a fairy tale, but is it?

when he is here, he said, he felt closer to his mother. he felt her warmth, her love. this was his secret, nay sacred space, sanctified by the purest memory of all. and as he sat there, holding the hand of the woman who had led him back to love, he made a covenant.

sab rasmein apni jagah, par mere liye aaj se hum ek hai, tum meri patni ho... meri maa ki bahu.

(quoting from memory as yt and dailymotion both denied to the wicked 😭)

he had always believed that she was his wife. but this was a reiteration, a rededication if you will to his love, in the presence of his mother. this was honour, respect, giving, at a level deep in his core, high in his spiritual self.

when he put sindoor and mangalsutra before god and fire, he knew they would have deep significance for her. interesting that that was so important even at that point when he was convinced he hated her. he had possibly drawn up some papers legalising their nuptials. now that we no longer speak of the contract, guess we'll never know, but i really would have liked to. then she voiced her need for rituals, and though they meant nothing to him, he went along with all of it, just for her. because he loved her so. made no real difference to him, the rituals. watching her enjoying each one of them did.

but as things went on and emotions got thicker as they tend to do in these wedding periods, he must have thought of his mother several times. we thought of her kangans crooner after crooner, so why not he 😆. then she spoke of disappearing from his life and he just couldn't bear it.

maybe that's when he decided, it was important to let her even further in. he wanted her close, closer than anyone else ever. and he wanted to take her to his most sacred place and introduce her to his mum. now. this is his ritual.

arnav singh raizada took a huge decision in the most right moment, when he felt his love the strongest. the night of their wedding he was consumed by the other side of love. today, he coloured their union with happiness, auspiciousness, blessing. his way. his ritual.

we all have ours. arnav singh raizada's are unique and forceful, just like the man himself.

he was right about their marriage all along in my eyes. today he was right in a way only one character in the whole of televisiondom can be.

khushi looked like she understood, felt, and agreed with every word he said. she sensed a blessing and being elevated to another level in her man's heart and soul. i would be very proud of her if she understood the depth of his commitment and submitted to it, knowing it's far more precious and right than any human made convention.

two other thoughts:

~ interesting how their first convulsive awakening of desire was triggered by another sacred memory. her mother's, and the only thing she had that belonged to her: the payal. today as they seal the the covenant on a timeless emotion sparked by that inexplixcable yearning on a lamplit night, it is before his mother.

~ sanctum sanctorum, has she reached his innermost being? or are there a few more steps left? i feel it's the latter. their journey toward each other continues. he took many steps when he agreed to the rituals and threw himself into doing them just so. some day, they will reach their destination, and when they arrive, they would have gone even beyond their most cherished memories. all the way to each other.

gardens are a form of autobiography.

...sydney eddison...

stray thought: mothers are really gardeners aren't they? the best part, they love you, thorny cactus, beautiful rose, wise banyan, or weed.