A great one-sided love story
There are many forces that run this world but none of them can come close to the sheer magnitude of unrequited love. Believe it or not, one-sided love stories are everywhere. It’s the most common trait amongst our species. There is not one person who has ever walked this planet and doesn't know what we are talking about here. People say love is in the air. In practice, one-sided stories are always in the air. If you ask me, I would even go as far as to claim it’s the genuine source of oxygen. Don’t ask me about the chemical formula.
That cleared, the worst form of unrequited love is when you are in a relationship with a city that doesn’t love you back. It could be any place, for that matter, with you trying to find something that you will never get. You are constantly dangling between absolute calm and irresistible chaos. Makes sense?
OK. Let me paint a broader picture for you.
You walk through the old lanes as you are in no hurry to reach anywhere in particular; you stop to read the rusty signboards that no other bystander appears to bother with; you click pictures knowing very well that you don’t need to as your memory have those moments stored exclusively in the index of your loveless brain; you feel too much about the liveliness of the city and are genuinely invested in its wellbeing. You want everything to be perfect: thoughtful designs for public space, sewage treatment, no potholes, more green cover, timely transportation services, more warm people, less cold cases.
As a consequence, your conversations with your friends and family members are peppered with little nuggets that you found out about the city’s long forgotten heritage. You know the exact history behind why certain streets are named after certain individuals. You don’t want to call yourself a city historian—since you obviously lack the academic credentials—albeit we can all accept that the finest historians were those who didn’t hail from the academia: Faxian, Batuta, Polo, Gibbon, Churchill, Nehru—as it’s a burden you are least interested in carrying forward.
You happen to be interested in something more precious, something more subtle, something more tender. When you are being a flâneur—your favourite French word by miles—and ambling aimlessly, you personify joy. Nobody else, even those who reluctantly say that they love a city, can ever understand. Your bond is different from theirs. They are either residents or tourists, depending on their frame of mind and budget. If they have stayed in a city for a considerable period of time, they say they love that city for a simple bonanza: they survived it. Similarly, if they have visited a city and had a nice time, they roam around declaring their short-lived affection for a place, that has more to do with convenience than anything else. They are not invested like you are. Why? Because you are in love and you know it in the pits of your bleeding heart that you will never be loved back. Like a flower emptying itself out to a bee. Like a river drowning into the sea.
Speaking of which, there is a reason why those who live by the sea end up spending hours and hours staring into the blue horizon, not realizing the hypnotic effect the water body has on their psyche. When you find yourself in a one-sided love story with a city, something similar happens. You are reeled in, little by little, day by day, until you are completely swayed by the ceaseless charm of the place. Now, you are wondering why is it a one-way traffic. Why can’t the city love you back? Well, when you are truly fond of an entity—living or otherwise, crowded or spacious, literary or figurative, wholesome or hungry, irrigated or parched—you can’t possibly be requited. Your compensation would be those fleeting moments of freedom you’d experience as you go out to embrace the city that has chosen you.
It’s difficult for me to write a sad paean for a designated piece of land and not mention the must-watch Mangalorean film Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana (2021). Set in my favourite city, you’d eventually wonder why is this movie lacking female characters—not in the light of The Shawshank Redemption (1994) but more in the shadow of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)—only to understand much later that the goddess Mangaladevi (after whom Mangalore is named) was the main protagonist. The point being, sometimes, what completes the arc of the story remains invisible.
So, yes, there are some faint shreds of hope. Perhaps you could bump into another person who is also in a one-sided love story with the same city as you are. And if fate behaves, you two could end up together, strolling through your adored destination, exchanging notes and kisses. Maybe then, just maybe, the city would finally love you back as you finally get to acknowledge what it means to be complete for a change.