Diwali. Divali. Deepavali. Different variations on the same name, the same celebration. For though the languages and dialects and foods and rituals may vary, it is still the Festival of Lights that is being celebrated by Hindus all round the world, and here in Malaysia, a joy shared by everyone.
Yet when I think of light, when I think of good triumphing over the evils of the world that seem to always crash upon our paths, I think of a certain lady I met more than four years ago, on a blessed night not unlike Deepavali, filled with food, drink and great cheer… and the light in her eyes.
2007: Couldn’t Take My Eyes Off You.
It was love at first sight.
Of course, it was. There couldn’t have been any other. When my best friend and I walked into the restaurant, there were already plenty of people chatting at tables and posing for photographs. This was a food event, after all, one that is hosted by a lifestyle magazine and some brand of hard liquour. People came here looking pretty and dressed up, ready for their close-up.
But I had no eyes for anyone but you. Nisa chose to sit down at your table. Sometimes I wonder if this is why I love my best friend – it’s as though she could read my mind. I said hi. I turned on the charm, as best as I could. Thankfully you already had some drinks in you; I learned later you were always a classy lady that way. I offered to get a drink. You told me you already have one, no, two. The glasses were in front of you. I had seen that, but I said you looked like you could do with more.
You smiled at me, and said thank you, you know what, I think I could.
I headed off to the bar to get more drinks and if I could trust my best friend to do her job, Nisa ought to be telling you wonderful and untrue things about me whilst I was gone. I returned with fistfuls of shot glasses. You smiled at me, a different sort of smile this time, one that had earlier expectations confirmed. Fabulous. Girl did her job after all. I winked at Nisa. It was her cue to leave us alone now. She had already spotted a nice target at the next table and was already wondering if her lipstick was perfect or if it needed touching up.
Which left me and you. The restaurant was one of those abominable Tex-Mex places, with lots of reds on the walls and ochre tones everywhere. The food was nondescript but the alcohol helped to keep the conversations flowing. None of this mattered, of course.
I couldn’t take my eyes off you.
We would proceed to getting fantastically drunk over the course of the night, chatting bashfully and furiously like a couple of blind dates that struck that rather rare vein of gold; we would promise to meet up again (and so we did, at a 24-hour mamak stall, talking and batting our eyelashes bashfully and furiously like a pair of schoolgirls in love, our very first date).
But for all that came later, that night, that night will always be magic. I couldn’t take my eyes off you and wondered if I ever would.
2008: My Fair Lady.
Your husband is overseas, you tell me, on a business trip. I am in between lovers, I think. No, I correct myself, I am quite done with lovers and dating and the whole romance game. I am decidedly alone and am determined to be happy about it.
You are not convinced. You give me a couple of weeks, a month at most, before I fall in love again. Someone cute is going to come my way, you assure me, someone almost always do. I have a knack for attracting trouble, you say, but oh, with such nice bums they have! I smile and tell you you’ve got quite an ass on you too.
You smack me on mine, a swift punishment for me and a small treat for yourself, then pinch it as well, almost an afterthought. You can be greedy that way. It’s very alarming and very attractive.
We walk into the theatre and find our seats. Couple seats, they call these. The Lovers’ Couch. The light goes out and the curtains are pulled back. We are watching a monster movie, a new one from the guy who created “Lost”. The scary bits are great for cuddling closer, for our fingers to intertwine and your hair to fall onto mine.
It’s not as long as it used to be, I tell you. You just had it cut, you say. Do you like it, you ask. It looks good on you, I say, but then you always look good. You are my fair lady. Shaddup, you admonish. My skin is far from fair, you say, especially in this dark, in this cinema.
Oh but you are fair, my dear, you are fair, my lady. None other has kept to me so faithfully through all these days that plagued me, through all my stupidity and my little triumphs, none has cheered louder and more happily. You are happy for me in ways I don’t even know I ought to be happy about.
Idiot, you say, what rubbish. Watch the movie.
But in the dark, I can tell you are smiling and even when there aren’t any scary bits, you cling to me closer. My fair lady...
2009: An Affair To Remember
It’s the happiest day of my life, I tell you. My thirtieth birthday. I never even imagined I would get this far, and surely not with so many loved ones sharing the same table as me – my friends and now, my family. You have all made me very, very happy.
There is almost no time to be alone, amid the chatter and the paparazzi-like photographing of the food, the drinks, the guests. We know all of this will be up, in a matter of hours, as blog posts, as news, as some sort of shared diary by our small and wonderfully incestous group.
But as everyone continues, cracking lewd jokes and over-sharing on details of my formerly private life (all the more reason to never invite your ex’s to a party), we catch each other’s eyes from across the long table. We are seated at each end, like a queen and her soon-to-be-lost consort. We hold a moment of silence in our glance. We know.
All things fade, as surely as the colour from your favourite silk saree. All things fade, as the leanness of my body give way to flab. Love handles, you called them, and about time too. You are too thin, you tell me. This Devil you have met, you whisper, this Devil is good for you. Love thickens you, feeds you and fills you up.
Ah, but you were enough for me, I tell you, you were enough to keep me never wanting more. Shush, you say, that’s rubbish. We were never meant to be, not that way. Not the way the Bald Eagle complements you and the Devil completes me. I shudder from a sudden chill. I make to laugh, and say that is unbelievably cheesy of you, almost worthy of my reputation for all things mushy.
Shaddup, you say, with gentle love. You know it’s true, you tell me. I nod, I know. It’s true. We were wonderful, once, we were. But that time has passed. Now we have our own paths to follow. Our hearts are not bound, not to each other leastways. We have made promises to others. We intend to hold them, we always will.
But you will always be my lady, I say. And you, my friend, you say, will always be an affair to remember. The very best.
2010: Serendipity
Days pass. Weeks, then months. I travel often for my work, I go missing. You are kept busy yourself, drowned in paperwork and clients throwing hissy fits and various choice pieces of undergarments in the air when they don’t get their way.
Life, as the cliché guarantees us, does get in the way.
We have celebrations. Surprise birthday parties. Anniversaries. Halloween and Valentine’s Day. We meet, sometimes, and sometimes not. We catch a word here, maybe recycle a juicy bit of gossip there, then our attention is drawn away by our friends and our partners. No amount of champagne or foie gras can fix this.
The distance grows. I forget your number. I have it always on my handheld but I used to hold in my memory as well.
Then one night I decide to call you. I ask you how you are, if you have had dinner. It’s an Asian thing, this, but it’s a good habit as I discover next that you have not. You are famished. It is late. Have I had mine? Yes, I have. But I don’t mind coming out again. The Devil is busy playing Scrabble. Probably with your beloved Tangechi – they are sworn rivals on the board; each claims the other is a terror and thrashes every game. But yes, I could come out again. I want to.
We meet at Sanuki Udon, in my neighbourhood. You manage to arrive before me. Are you excited, I wonder? About what, I ask myself, and answer, nothing. I’m being an idiot. This is just a meal. In fact, only you are eating. Your late dinner. I’ll just be watching.
I’ll be holding my breath as you slurp each my strand of udon, as each long noodle passes in between your lips and disappears. You notice me looking at you, finally. What, you ask. Nothing, I say. Just that. You are beautiful. You still are. You always will be.
Rubbish. You say. Idiot. You say. But you smile. You are happy. You remind me again of the ways of happy I never knew till we met. All those years ago. I couldn’t take my eyes off you then. I can’t take my eyes off you now. You order a bottle of cold sake and we share it. It is a hot weeknight, and it has just gotten hotter still.
You used to have such long hair, I say. You remember, you say, you remember. No one else does these days. I miss your long, lustrous locks, I tell you. Lyrical Lemongrass’s Long, Lustrous Locks, I try alliteratively, as I always painfully do. Idiot, you say, in the way only an adolescent Japanese schoolgirl saying “baka” (ばか) could. You mean that I am a fool, a goddamn fool, but still, you can’t help be fond of me. Call me idiot, call me baka, for I am also terribly fond of you.
Really? I dread to find out what you might call me then, you say.
I smile. The others may call you Queen, but in my eyes, you will always be my lady. You don’t need honorifics and you don’t need titles for your grace and your beauty to stand out. You may be the Queen, you may be my fair lady, you may be my dove of hope, you are the Bald Eagle’s winsome wife, but these are just titles.
You are you, my dear, and I am me. Who knows what new names we may incur in the future? For now, you are you, I am me, and tonight, today, now? We are we. And that is good to be.