Thursday, September 15, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
MY LOST LOVE - FALLING IN AND OUT OF LOVE
THIRD INSTALLMENT TO ABOVE CAPTION :-
About five months after commencing my new job, I thought I should have a serious talk with Sue, about fixing a date for our wedding, and also speaking to the Parish Priest of the Church we attended, regarding the arrangements for the wedding.
One evening having accompanied her home, after a cup of tea and a little small talk with her parents, I sat with her and mentioned to her that it is high time we made serious arrangements for our wedding and fixing a date for the event, about six months hence, as it would be possible for us to finalize things by then.
Her reply shook my whole being, and things began to explode in my head and I began to feel small streaks of lightning passing through my head, or at least, that is what I thought at the time
Quite casually she told me,” Lionel, I have still not thought about the wedding yet, as I am not very sure that I want to go ahead with the wedding, as I am not sure that I want to marry you”. Can you imagine the shock I felt? Gosh, I was dumbstruck. My throat went dry. I just wanted to puke and I broke in to a cold sweat, I felt as if I am about to go crazy, but managed to hold on to my sanity with the greatest difficulty.
How could she do this to me, after all the things we had gone through together?
MY LOST LOVE - FALLING IN AND OUT OF LOVE
This is the second installment to above heading:-
We began visiting each other’s homes often, and in the evenings she met me after office, and I accompanied her to her home, spent a couple of hours there, had dinner and returned home. Very often she came with her father, who had an old car to drop me back at home.
A couple of months later I was able to find a job, not up to expectation, but nevertheless decided to accept it as I strongly believed in, something is better than nothing. My GF also had no objections to my accepting the job, so the matter was settled. We decided to wait for at least a year or so, pending my confirmation in the post, having had a bitter experience in my previous employment with the Bank.
In less than a year, luck came my way at the most unexpected time and I was able to secure a good job in a State Corporation, and I was so happy that every thing was turning out to be in my favor, and thought that, all my problems were over. At the time I little knew that, my problems were just beginning to surface. Well, there is a saying ‘ignorance is bliss’, so little knowing what was in store for me, I began making plans for our marriage, and she too went ahead with the preparations quite enthusiastically, and I had no reason to think or notice that anything was amiss. Well, may be even if I had I felt little tremors of an impending catastrophe, I was too naive, even to imagine that she would let me down, as I was under the mistaken belief that she was madly if not crazily and inseparably in love with me. (To be continued)
Thursday, February 10, 2011
MY LOST LOVE - FALLING IN AND OUT OF LOVE MY LOST LOVE – FALLING IN AND OUT OF LOVE
MY LOST LOVE – FALLING IN AND OUT OF LOVE
Falling in love – well, falling in love can be anything, but nothing original, novel, extraordinary or unusual. Millions and millions of girls and boys fall in love daily or maybe every hour or every minute. I suppose, falling in love began at the very beginning of the world. The first man and woman to fall in love, I believe, were Adam and Eve. Thank God for that, because had they not fallen in love with each other, or was not tempted by Satan to do so and were not responsible for producing their progeny, continuity of mankind would not have been possible. Well, if Adam and Eve did not fall in love and were not responsible for the continuity of mankind they would have died simply, in their old age, unsung, without any children to remember them by, and that would have been the end of all mankind and I would not be here to write about my LOST LOVE.
Hay, hold it. This is not what I was trying to tell you about.
What I wanted to tell you about was falling out of love. That is, if it is possible, but believe me, it is possible. It happened to me, or rather, it happened to my girlfriend, or at least that is what she told me, which shattered my dreams and left me emotionally devastated.
Well, well, I am getting carried away with the whole thing. I should get to the beginning of my story, so that you would understand what I am trying to convey to you.
This is an old story, which has a history of little over a half century, to be precise 52 years. Well. It’s a fact; I am a pretty old guy. At the time I was a teenager of 16 years, attending School. My childhood friend was David, who was about a year elder to me. We were best of friends and shared almost the same hobbies, although, we attended two different Schools. We made it a habit to have Sea bath on every Sunday. Whenever we went down to the beach we walked down a particular lane, not by design, but due to its close proximity to our homes. After several weeks I began to notice a teenage girl who used to stand at the gate of a particular house, gazing at the passes by. Not that I had an interest, but somehow this fact had registered in my subconscious mind. However, I did not attach any importance to this matter and it was treated as a matter of course.
One Sunday morning when we were walking down the lane I accidentally looked at her and our eyes met. She smiled at me and my reciprocation was spontaneous. Something happened within and I was so elated and for a moment, I forgot that I was my friend and immediately fell back to savor her sweet smile for a moment longer. That may be what is called love at first sight. Well, I fell for her hook, line and sinker. Thereafter, every time I passed that way, I kept looking at her house surreptitiously to have a glimpse of her smile, unnoticed by my friend. I managed to casually point towards the sea while in conversation with my friend, which was meant as a signal to the girl. This signal was repeated for several days and her knowing smile intimated to me that she had got the message correct. That is when I quietly gave the slip to my friend and started walking down the lane all by myself, not in the morning, but in the evening. Having understood my signal, true to the word, she was down at the beach with one of her sisters; I said one of her sisters, as I came to know later that she had five younger sisters.
This is how my love story began, or rather how our love began to blossom. We only smiled at each other and passed signals to each other, fearing that the sister may catch on and convey this to her parents. So developed, our love story, and thereafter we lost the fear we had for the sisters as they were quite friendly, thanks to the chocolates and gifts given to them. We had many opportunities of meeting as Sue (that was her name), had to take her sisters to tuition and Dancing classes regularly. Having five sisters, there were ample opportunities for us to meet quite often. Meanwhile I sat for the G.C.E. (O/L) and got through the exam, and so did she.
Having got through the exam, my immediate aim was to obtain employment, so that I could marry my beloved. We met at the church, youth fellowship meetings and church outings. Also we used to visit the cinema very often in the company of her sisters. By now we had become inseparable. After fishing around for some time, I mean this literally, because for a short period I joined a friend of mine who owned a mechanized fishing boat, and helped them in various types of fishing including bottom line fishing and trawling, many nautical miles away from the shore, in the deep blue sea. Several months later, the time came for us to move on down south, due to monsoonal changes. Under pressure from my mother who was very worried about my well being, I had to opt out of the fishing crew that was to move to down south, though it was very much against my personal feelings.
It was time for me to, move on to another job, and I busied myself looking for a suitable job, in which quest I think, I was fortunate because I was able to join the service of a Bank which had international connections. I was very happy and so was she, as this ensured an early marriage for the two of us. We were overjoyed at the prospect of an early marriage and went ahead with plans to get married no sooner I was confirmed in my job at th
Alas, all our dreams were shattered in the most unexpected manner. That was the year 1963, during which period the country had to face with an economic crisis and the Sri Lankan Government (then Ceylon) had to impose stringent Import restrictions on most of the imported goods. This affected me adversely, as I was attached to the Inward Bills Department, the main business of which was processing all Inward Bills for collection. I was directly involved in this process and my position became redundant due to lack of work, and as a result the Bank gave me the golden handshake before I could complete 12months in service ( at the end of which I hoped to be confirmed in my post ) with one month’s pay in lieu of notice.
The loss of my job was a great setback to our plans for an early marriage. Our dreams were shattered, but we considered it a temporary setback, and both of us started looking in earnest for employment, in order to accomplish our dreams as soon as possible. A few months later Sue found employment in an Audit firm, while I had to await my turn patiently. By this time I had already informed my mother (my father had passed away sometime back) about my love affair to which she had no objections, but she strongly advised me not to take the plunge without obtaining employment which would enable me to enjoy a successful married life. Although I had no job, the two of us decided to inform her parents too, of our love affair, and our intention to get married no sooner I found a job. There were no serious objections on their part, except that I had no employment to shoulder the responsibilities of marriage. To our great relief they agreed to wait for a while till I was able to find suitable employment. Though we enjoyed our good fortune, we always had in the back of our minds that everything depended on my finding employment as soon as possible.(To be continued in next installment-Shortly)
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