Lolita is dead. As this realization sinks in, a sense of loss overwhelms me no doubt, but at the same time there is also a nostalgic sense of freedom. For six long years, Lolita had me in bondage, chained to her. And yet all through these years never once did I realize that I had been confined to a penitentiary in my own mind. On the contrary I never doubted for once that I was in complete control of my emotions, that it was I who had allowed Lolita to reign supreme in my heart and mind.
Lolita was an image that I had painstakingly and passionately put together I had suffered from her birth pangs, had nurtured her and had finally made her an identity within myself. I had intended Lolita to be a reflection of someone I knew long ago, someone who had first made me toss and turn in bed till the wee hours of dawn - a certain "she".
I first saw her on a sunny morning perched at the topmost step of the college verandah. There she stood in all her radiance and beauty, a glow on her seraphic face. There was the hint of a smile on her lips; a gentle breeze had blown a few strands of hair across her face and the morning sunrays wallowed in the black cascade of her hair. Her eyes frolicked around, probably searching for someone; their crystal clarity a sight to behold; their depth portraying a serenity that stood in sharp contrast to the playful exuberance of her face.
She stood there for a while, almost a statue, with only her eyes dancing around, while I savored the innocence of her enchanting beauty. And when, inevitably the curtains came down on that beholding sight, I walked off with that ethereal moment firmly entrenched in a corner of my mind - a moment that would sustain my dreams for years to come.
It was sooner than later that I fell in love with her. I tried to woo her in my own subtle ways, to make her see my love for her ; but alas my efforts were to no avail. She side stepped all my overtures with considerable ease and with an effeminate grace Slowly my infatuation for her grew to gargantuan proportions. She invaded my dreams, pervaded my mind and enslaved my heart. But she feigned complete ignorance of her hold over me , though I suspect she always knew the truth.
And then suddenly our ways parted. I was left salvaging memories of her, cherishing her images that I had frozen in my mind. It was then that LOLITA was born.
In the beginning, it was all very easy. I could see her face in the moonlit nights among the stars, feel the silkiness of her hair as the wind brushed past me and feel her presence beside my bed as she tiptoed up to me. But with time the images began to get blurred. Those seemingly trivial details whether the mole was on her upper or lower lip began to elude me. It was at such moments of desperation when my memory failed me that my imagination took over. And slowly but surely Lolita began to take shape, innocuously at first but soon Lolita imbued my mind and indeed my whole being
There were no doubt saner moments when I tried top shrug off the spectre of Lolita. But a part of me always relented all such attempts to free my mind from Lolita's bondage. On numerous occasions, I ended up talking to Lolita throughout the night, feeling her presence, watching her take form before my very eyes. I was relentlessly being sucked into the quagmire that was Lolita until suddenly one evening I was jolted out of my reverie.
It happened on a foggy wintry evening back in my hometown and several years after I had first seen her on the college verandah. She was in a rickshaw. Just when it was a yard or two away from me, the dense fog screen parted. Her moonlit face stared out at me almost from nowhere. There was someone else in the rickshaw, a handsome young man, who was caressing her hands. Her eyes locked with mine for a moment. I thought they betrayed the sign of recognition but she quickly averted her gaze away from me. I was awe struck and only after the rickshaw had passed by me did the reality of the moment sink in. I was about to go after the rickshaw when suddenly I stopped dead in my tracks. A bolt of lightning raced across my mind, stunning me for a moment. She was not Lolita or rather Lolita was not she. She had not caused the turbulence of emotions to swell inside me as Lolita always did. No doubt, she was still a nymph. But somehow she had failed to strike the right chord in my heart. Maybe it was because of all those years, maybe it was because of the companion be her side. I could not say for sure.
It was then that the futility of it all dawned upon me. I realized that the Lolita that I had loved all these years was only a figment of my imagination that Lolita did not exist in flesh and blood. I had intended Lolita to be a splitting image of "HER" but somehow, unknown to me, Lolita had evolved into a separate identity altogether.
The rickshaw was slowly trudging along into oblivion. The fog swirled around me as if trying to fall into a definite pattern. Slowly, the image of Lolita manifested itself amongst the dense fog screen. I stared at the image hard and long. Lolita was so much like her and and yet so vastly different. I sighed and turned around. As I made my way back through the fog, I glanced back. The image of Lolita was slowly fading away and the rickshaw was nowhere to be seen.
I continued the trudge back home, my feet weary and my heart heavy with grief. For six long years I had fervently and passionately loved Lolita, only to discover that Lolita was nothing more than a myth, that she was only a creation of my mind, a flight of my imagination. But strangely, I do not grieve because my love does not exist. I grieve because I have lost the passion and the ardour to sustain the image of Lolita within myself.
Alas, Lolita is dead.
Written By
Mr. Arunangshu Sharma
A yr junior to me at IIM Bangalore
You can mail him at [email protected]