Why Air & Water Loved Each Other?

They were like Air and Water. One viewed the world through his black & white glares while working up a no-nonsense tongue. The other dawdled in a picturesque world, branding it with her thoughts and unconvincing monologues of social injustice. They were fiercely independent feeling little need for friendships or relationships. They secretly desired the world built in their heads, though it often lead to frustration none knew how to handle. They attributed it to a world that didn’t understand them. So when Air first spotted Water, he thought her lovely in an impersonal way. Then she wrote a poem about the peregrines and freedom at a friend’s birthday party over marijuana smoke and splashed whisky. He made her show it and that was his downfall. It wasn’t the best poem he had ever read, but suddenly, he realized another of his kind of child-like ego and self-absorption. Despite himself and her rejection, he persevered to bring their worlds together. And together it did come, with a passion so intense that the first time they kissed it really did blow their minds. That was how they started. With passion, rejection, hurt, love and confusion.

Naina preferred the sea, its languorous clime appealing to the insipid wanderer in her. She liked to dawdle and drag her feet over anything and everything, tasting and discarding fruits of experience, often believing it meant nothing to her. It was a strange, confusing world that she inhabited, as if a kaleidoscope had taken flight and defined its own rules. Strangely, she looked like her confused, LSDish world. Deeply kholed eyes stared at anything that caught its fancy. People were often disconcerted by her intense interest, her rapt attention that seemed to register and understand everything they said or not. In truth, however, she rarely registered anything her audience wanted her to understand. Her dusky skin too changed chameleon like, answering to her constantly mutating moods. On happy days, her skin glowed with some sort of an inward glee while the slightly stubby nose disappeared into a generous grin. On less perfect days, her skin became opaque and the only discerning feature on her face were listless eyes. It seemed, she felt and lived a life of such fervour, that even a whiff of someone’s curdled breath could be the reason of catatonic gloom or joy.

Rob, on the other hand, was everything that Naina was not; which is a rather dopey description. He was like the Air, slightly luminous, somewhat omniscient and infinitely arrogant believing his love had the right to chastise everyone to achieve perfection. When he spoke, it seemed surreal but staccato like to others, as if a black & white world threatened to take over their technicolour hues. He secretly gloated over their unease and discomfited laughter, enjoying how his binary world rubbished their complicated theorems. This intimidation came naturally, his tall back and broad shoulders occupying both mental and physical spaces. Yet, what gave away Air were his full, sensual lips, as if every harsh truth uttered, came with a promise of an all-consuming passion, of a lyricism that is both shy and generous, and of a loving which was tolerant and patient despite the restlessness of his words. A description of Rob wouldn't be complete without an ode to his smell. He smelt divine most times, an earthy, stirring whiff that was redolent of spices, camphor and worship.