Etched in Blood - love in Patna

 An edited version of the story is in the Open Magazine's issue this week.

Chinki Sinha

That one afternoon he left his wallet behind and pretended he was attending a call and went outside the restaurant. The girl, by way of curiosity, checked the contents and found a sheet of paper, neatly folded. It had her name, and 'I love you' written in blood. They had been sipping cola in a dimly lit restaurant. It had been a couple of years since they started talking and meeting.

When he entered, she asked him about it, and he said he never had the courage to tell her how he had loved her all these months. But he was so choked with love that he couldn't deal with the emotions welling up inside him. There had to be this little bloodshed.

The girl began to cry. She said if he loved her so much he should have just written to her in ink. Why this blood? Oh, this blood? She had kept saying this.

“I never wasted any blood,” the 30-year-old lawyer tells me on the phone. “If I cut myself while shaving by mistake, I'd be prudent enough to scribble 'I love you' and always kept two or three letters like this for an opportune moment. I even gave one to a friend who wanted. You can give a thousand gifts but unless you write in blood, a trend established many, many years ago, you can't really be called the intense lover.”

For the faint-hearted, the cutting of wrists for the blood to flow as ink was a bit too much. Not that people didn't use to do this. He says his cousin really cut his wrists to write these long letters to a girl. But one needs to be innovative, and not stupid, he adds.

There were all these tricks they had devised for success in matters of heart. In small towns, and Patna he says is indeed small as mostly people know you, and it is conservative, the girls have set high standards.

"In Patna it isn't easy to meet girls, or go on dates. We have places like Soda Fountain and Bollywood treats but someone can spot you and it can become an issue. But it is better now. Earlier, it was difficult navigating the levels of hurdles. The neighborhood boys who were like street dogs protective of their territory, and then this whole layer of family and friends, and other lovers. Sometimes, you got into fist fights, etc," he says.

But they have devised their own ways of overcoming the tests of love. For instance, if the girl threatens to leave, one should always carry powdered alum that one can use to bring instant tears in the eyes so it would seem they are really heartbroken. Token love but there is no underestimating the surge of emotions. It was about the manifestations of the same, he says.

Tanweer Kamal is a lawyer, and is a great storyteller. This, he says, is because of the fact that he has been helping many of his clients convert their love stories into matrimony. That he is sharp is an understatement. He is the love guru, and offers wise counsel in the matters of heart.

At 30, he says he has already helped 16 of his clients get married. And these were tough cases where the girl belonged to a different religion, or to a very orthodox family. Such love, he sighs, and tells me is class apart. It either happens in films, or in Patna, he says.

The facilitator says he also mistook crush for love. But then he says he doesn't even know. The intensity was the same, he says. On the conference call, his cousin intervenes.

“Oh, he is the master,” he says. “He knows better. But let me tell you this story anyways.”

So there was this girl. Pretty, and petite and that's not the only thing. Our man fell for her, and would walk two kilometers every evening to get a glimpse of her. He lived in Patna Market, and the girl lived in a different neighborhood.

“Phir bhi kabhi unki yaad bhi aa jati hi. Now I am like an uncle to her child. She is married,” he says.

This was not so many years ago. But he says this is what small town love is made of – perserverence, and no ego hassles.

The girl would come in the balcony for a few seconds, and he would look up, put his hand across his chest, and let out a sigh.

Now, in retrospect, he turns poetic.

“Humne unki gali ka itna chakkar kata ki kutte bhi hamare yaar ho gaye. Woh toh hamari ho na saki par hum kutte ke sardar ho gaye,” he says. “I should have listened to my cousin but what's a man without a few setbacks in love.”

She would come like Akbar Badshah and give darshan for one minute, he says. This was in 2003, and then he heard from a mutual friend she was getting married so I asked her if I can bid her a tearful farewell at this restaurant. She came but not after her friend made her swear on her propective groom.

“Such insult I tell you. But I was stupid. I am the small town lover. I wanted to say goodbye,” he says. “I said tum ja rahi ho. You could have married me. She said this is not possible. She said she hadn't ever considered me her lover and I was like what about those promises, and those meetings. She said let's be friends. I became quiet and handed her this sheet where I had poured my heart out in the style of Ghalib.”

I ask him if he remembers what he had written, and he recites.

“Agar izazat ho toh ek baat kahoon, dil mein chupi hai jo kabse woh raaz kahoon. Beh rahi thi narm hawa, phool khil rahe the, banane ko thi ek dastaan, do dil mil rahe the, kitni hasin woh rut thi, har taraf bahar tha, raat ki tanhaayion pe chaya naya sa khumaar tha ...,” he says. “Khumar means first love. Pehla nasha, pehla khumar. Remember that song.”

The girl read the two-page dedication, and nodded.

“She said 'bahut accha hai',” he says. “But I returted saying I am writing what my heart is going through. I am not looking for your appreciation. I am only expressing grief. This isn't come poetry class.”

He won't take her name. But says she calls him and complains about her husband. Once he had seen her at the Delhi railway station where she was with her prospective groom. They had just been engaged.

“He wore his pants on his chest, and looked like an idiot. Here I was – handsome, and intelligent – and she was grinning as if he was some Bollywood hero.”

In 2006, he met another girl. It so happened that he had borrowed her book 'You can Win' by Shiv Khera, which she had loaned him to convince him to join sales. But he wanted to be a lawyer. They were attending the same coaching then.

Six months later the girl called him to say she wanted her book back. They met near Bengal Law house near the university campus, and then they started talking to each other. What he liked about her was her devotion to him. Once he lost his mobile phone, and he was worried that someone will see her pictures. But she was worried that he was worried, and that was most endearing about her, he says.

“We will get married next year. She is studying to be a lawyer,” he says. “It has been a decade almost. We invest in our love. We are the grand lovers.”

For the longest time, he didn't tell her anything. There is this propsoal ritual. Of course there are teddy bears, and the chocolates, and the song dedications. That's ritual, but one needs to match the standards.

“I had this letter in my pocket. From an earlier shave. I left the wallet in the hotel and went out. I knew she would fiddle through the contents. She saw it and she was crying,” he says. “Mission accomplished. On one or two ocassions I have given such blood letters from my stock to my friends.”

There was this friend who was very creative with his gifts. He would gift the girl small packets of cashew nuts and almonds. He also sent glass bangles for the mother. But I would tell him the girl would become sharp if she eats too many almonds and would leave you. Eventually that happened, he says.

This young man used to live in Sitamarhi, a district in Bihar, and according to Kamal, it is one of those 'backward' places with sporadic power. He was truly, madly, deeply in love with this girl, and so that his love would be consummated in marriage, on the night of Shabe Kadr, he would go the mosque and work the handpump and help the faithful in their abulition. All night he would do this, he says.

But the girl got married somewhere else. He is now a jilted lover. Even God didn't help, he says.

But he did the wrong thing. Like a spurned lover, he wrote a letter to the girl's prospective in-laws alleging that he had an affair with her, and they were committed. But the letter was ignored. He was left heartbroken, he says.

In Patna, there are spaces where couples can get a little private time. Like Daffodils restaurant that has been raided by cops many times over, but continues to survive because love is used to such disturbances.

There is this restaurant in this strange sort of a mall type structure, which was culled out of an old haveli in Patna. Here, the curtains are drawn so couples can have their privacy. There is an hourly rate, in the dim lights of the restaurant, there are many lovers, undiscovered and isolated behind the screen, and when their time is up, they walk out quietly. For those hours that they were behind the curtains, they are not disturbed.

It is a similar concept to those cyber cafes that had these flimsy wooden cabins that were raided many times by the police. Mostly these were used to either watch porn, or spend some alone time with the lover. These were tiny holes but enough to squeeze in two people.

“At first, they had proper cabins. Then raid happened and they had these thick curtains. More raids happened, and the curtains became shorter, and so the curtains eveolved to lovers' woes. But it is there,” he says.

“ See, if it is real love, there is no difference between big cities and small towns. It is all in the intensity. But yes, small town lovers are innovative, and don't give up,” he says. l

There is also this whole thing about unrequited love. That has its own charms. You are respected for being this grand lover who has suffered the pangs of a lost love, he says.

“If the girl smiles, then love boys would escort her to her house albeit in a clandestine way. Then they would work for days to figure out her father's name, the post office, and the pin code. You see, I am saying to assert the fact that there is this dedication,” he says. “In Delhi, you'd be lost on the ring road, or in Bombay, in the unending traffic.”

Tight geography of the city matters. You can follow the beloved, he says.

“Patna is just the right size,” he says.

There used to be this man who works in his office, and he accompanied a friend to an institute to get the admission form. He saw a girl there. It was love at first sight, he says.

So the man waited for an hour in the sun at Bailey Road corner for the girl to emerge. Eventually she did and he asked her if she was applying to the institute. She said yes, and he said he was also filling out the forms. He had lied, and so they exchanged numbers and spoke about the exams. He borrowed money and took her out to restaurants, and so the love progressed. Finally, he told her he wasn't an applicant, and she was all emotional about his dedicated efforts to woo her, he says.

“No, Patna isn't so backward now. A few years ago, lovers would sit for hours at shops where they would record songs for their beloveds, and decorate cassettes and CDs, and give such gifts. Now, we send links of the songs on What's App,” Kamal says over the phone.

We are speaking about love late night. An hour goes by, and he has more stories to tell.

***

We will call him Ishaqzaade for annonymity's sake.

This is the story of a man who spent seven years drinking numerous cups of tea at a chai stall for hours every day so he could get a glimpse of the girl who would come out in the balcony to either hang clothes, or take them back into the house. Now, this played out in this small space between a huge garbage bin, and the tea stall. Next to the Patna University, Kamal says.

This client had earlier been dumped by the girl's elder sister, who started seeing someone else. Now, this client looks much younger but is at least 38. He can easily pass off for a 22-year-old. In any case, he didn't have much education by way of credentials. He had somehow managed to pass Class 10 but he was a compulsive lover. He was heartbroken, and then he fell in love with the girl's younger sister. She wasn't pretty at all.

“Par dil lage diwar se toh pari kya cheez hai,” Kamal says.

The girl belonged to the Jain community, and Ishaqzaade is Muslim. To add to the woes, the girl didn't have a mobile phone.

Ishaqzaade would leave his house in the morning at 8 am. He would take a rickshaw, and sit at the tea stall for an hour until 9 am, and then go and open his shop, spend a couple of hours working, and return to the tea stall in the afternoon. Again, he would come in the evening, and then late at night. This went on for seven years, Kamal says.

“We would tell him he is wasting time but he was committed to the idea of love,” he says. “Finally the girl said she was ready to marry him. One other thing is we love to marry. Or at least try to get married. Not like these open relationships or whatever the trend is these days.”

Ishaqzaade's friends had started calling him 'Kure baba'.

“We were surprised the girl said yes to him. She was educated, and used to treat our friend badly,” Kamal says. “He would do these strange shifts at the chai stall. It was a model love.”

Once the girl had gone to Ranchi for a wedding. Ishaqzaade followed her there. He stayed in a hotel for two days, borrowed money to cover his expenses, and the second evening the girl came outside the venue dressed in her finery, and he saw her from across the road, and boarded the train. True love, he says.

“Now they are married, and the girl is pregnant. I always used to apply this Himesh Reshammiya song to the situation 'jhalak dikhla ja' because it all started with the gilr in the balcony,” Kamal says.

The couple hardly met except for a couple of times. But for years, the love was sustained through this chai stall shifts, he says.

“But it ended well. I got them married in court, and then they went back to their homes, and spent six months, which is the window for the family to object. After that, they can't do a thing. So, he eloped to Delhi, and returned to Patna and now they have rented this small place and are trying to make the best out of love. He paid me Rs. 5,000 but more than the money, it is the satisfaction that I united the lovers. They got married two years ago.”

***

This one, we shall call Diljale.

Kamal tells me this client of his was an unemployed young man, who spent countless hours at his father's little workshop in Alamganj, a muslim neighborhood in Patna, which is very conservative.

At the end of this workshop, there was window, and in the window, a beautiful girl would sometimes stand. Diljale fell in love. He sat there for hours, eyes set on the window. He wrote letters, and slided them in through the window. It was an old rusty window, but it meant everything to him. The girl smiled sometimes, and it had felt heavenly, Kamal says.

All this the client told him when he sought his help.

“All this happened four years ago. He was around 22. The girl had seven brothers. And they were all villains in this love story. Besides we had to deal with his father, who was a problem,” he says.

For months, he sat in the vision range of the window, and one night he decided to go to the window and speak with her. But there were all these street dogs, and they started barking.

“I told him it is fine if you have to get 14 injections. For love, one must be prepared for such things,” Kamal says. “He would follow her to college. She studied in Magadh Mahila and then when brothers found out, she was made to quit college. She was Malik and he was Ansari, which was lower caste. She couldn't go to beauty parlour even. Her father would sit at the gate to guard her.”

But again Kamal quotes a love song from the film Sadak to add effect to what he was trying to say.

“Jab jab pyar pe pehra hua hai, pyar aur bhi gehra hua hai ...” he sings.

She couldn't come to the window anymore. A friend of the girl would take the letters. One day, they planned on going to the court to solemnise the marriage. A plan was hatched, and the girl's friend sought permission to take the gilr to her house for wedding celebrations. She came out, and she wore a burqa. Kamal had told her to change her sandals so nobody would recognise them as they proceeded to the court. But some minister died, and a state holiday was declared. So, she cried, and cried, Kamal says, and returned home. Next time, she could come out was seven months later.

Meanwhile, Diljale had cleared the state examinations and became a sub inspector. The girl's family relented a bit but his father played a spoilsport, and threw him out of the house. They got married eventually, and returned to their respective homes, and as per his mehtod, six months later, they eloped.

“You know he had slipped in a mobile phone so they could talk and she used to hide it in her salwar pocket but she was caught, the phone was consficated, and the love became stronger in the absence of intimacy or contact. Pure love. Untarnished love,” Kamal says. “I feel happy I got them married. Now, he has a small child, and they are living in perfect bliss.”

Kamal is happy he has had to deal with only one divorce case. In small towns, and Patna, he says, has the mentality of a small town, love is forever. Only a few of them part. And love marriages are rare, but when they are celebrated, they prove that real love exists despite all the hurdles.

“We have patience. We have the guts,” he says. “We are lovers of the highest order. We can overcome all issues.”