A mystery wrapped in an enigma

May 19, 2011

Poets have often described how a beauty looks into your eyes, utters a few words and your heart starts singing. But what poets often fail to narrate is the persona, the individuality of the lady and compensate it with flowery praise in her beauty. But then beauty is not just a female body, it is a personality…a complete packaging. And an element of mystery and enigmatic ways of this lady only adds spice to her aura. I could not have realised it so intense had I not met her.
 

Unlike the poetic parlance, this lady, a poetess herself, looked through my heart and soul, gave an assuring smile and my heart could not help saying, “Here comes a woman of substance”. Can the persona of a woman be so strong that even when she gets too rigid with her thoughts, you feel a special bond, something that can not be defined in words but felt from the core of the heart?
 

But then she is different, wears different caps at different times and it is often not that easy to identify which one is there before you—a thorough professional business woman, a creative artist, a loving friend, a hot headed rigid creature or a child like innocent girl. A chance meeting over social networking site Facebook led to personal interaction, initially more on a professional note than personal and later in the reverse order. This followed by spending time together as friends which led to an informal camaraderie, blossomed into a level of intimacy and started graduating into mutual trust for each other.
 

It often compels me to think whether a feminine charm can be that captivating. Masters and Johnsons in their masterpiece book on relationship, Sex and Human Loving suggest that a real woman is one who grows on you; the more you see her; the more you want to see and the more you meet her; the more you are captive of her charm and charisma.
 

However, what the relationship epic failed to narrate is that whether a woman can grow on you without even meeting frequently, without even knowing what all the other person has gone through in life. More importantly how the life has treated her and has changed her persona over the years? After all, no relationship expert has thus far met this dusky beauty to understand that there can be a true feeling beyond the boundaries of conventional relationships….where there are strong, deep and pure feelings, concerns and joys of companionship, and not the burden of relationship expectations.
 

Perhaps she is an anti-thesis of what is the prevalent norm in marketing, “packaging and not the product matters”.  But then the yardsticks of a human existence can not be measured by the parameters of marketing. Her level-headed yet strong mind always reminds that beauty is deep within, and not cosmetic. Had it not been the case she would not have been an attraction for somebody who is repeatedly finding her a mystery wrapped in an enigma. What makes it all the more important is that there are no selfish expectations either.
 

She is no doubt different and this difference is not always for the right reasons either. A person who is so lost in herself that she often does not only take more than usual time to open up but suspects to the extent of reading too much between the lines. A confused girl who is probably not sure of what she expects out of this life. It may be convenient for the world to see through it as the true characteristic of this lonely woman for whom trust might have been the first casualty as and when she tried to get out of her self-cocooned world. But it is here that one needs the wisdom of Freudian psychology to understand this beauty in her true self and spirit. This is something which clearly suggests that she is no different from other girls in her age group, yet there is a difference.
 

It is not that at the age of 29 life has come a full circle for her and she is not longing for trust, loyalty and love. After all, which woman in this world would like to see her golden years gone waste? But the scars of some old wounds, insecurities, hurt and conservative upbringing are all forcing her to get back to her own shell. Perhaps her belief in the fairy tales often reassures her that there can be a reverse process in life as well. And it is from this innocent belief that she often seems to draw her strengths too when it is an off day. She may not admit it, may portray a different persona altogether, but the innocent girl in her is ever ready to revolt, provided that she gets the comfort level with someone.
 

Not that her dreams of a fairy tale life has not crashed. And it is in this contradiction that she often feels trapped and helpless. At times she just reminds me of the song, “sheeshey ki bani ek ladki patthar key shahar ko aayi, woh dhoondh rahi thi moti aur reit sey ja takrai” from the film Dastak. The issue here is not that whether she wants to; rather she needs to flirt, love and, more importantly, live life on the edge. The sooner she realizes this, the better it is for her. After all, poise, like consciousness comes from within. And my personal interaction with her has often found that she tries to come out of her shell, yet does not have the courage to defy the norms and boundaries imposed more by the self than the society.
 

Whenever she gets the courage, whenever in the inherent contradiction between the head and the heart, it is the heart that overpowers mind; she appears to be as cheerful and lovely lady as anybody else. In her subtle, shy and at times overt exchange of feelings, she reassures herself that she too is worth loving, worth adoring and worth being a true woman. Love her or hate her, you can’t ignore her.
 

It is true that woman is the most complex creature that God has ever produced, but she is more than a mere mystery wrapped in an enigma. And that is something which makes her worth in gold. After all, which man would not love his woman to see a bit mysterious. My only wish is that the eternal quest for the right man and right destination may not deprive her of the journey called life. Her dreams may have been crushed more than once, forced her to get into a shell and suspect all around; but then it is always a new beginning.