of love that could have been

I have always felt that there is some sort of painful beauty in love stories that did not get a happy happy-ending. There might not be dead bodies strewn about or lovers separated because of hatred between warring ideologies, and the separated lovers might have moved on and might have found happiness in new people and surroundings, and altogether there might be happiness in the way the story ends, but might not be the most desirable happy ending. The way I describe it may sound in a way wrong, or not right; I feel like there is some incompleteness, a small or maybe even big pang of pain that might pass through them whenever they think about the other, about how different it could have been had one moment gone differently. Karthik creates a fictional universe where Jessie is still single and walks to him on that bridge that day, where they get married and hopefully her father doesn’t rain hellfire on them. I don’t think their love could have ended any more poetically, art does outlive our short fickle lives anyway. George and Malar’s love story is a bit more painful. It doesn’t even get the closure it deserves. It’s unfair, losing someone yet not losing them. Even when George finds his happy ending, there is still that little part in him which breaks when Malar turns away with Arivu. And is it not painful to wake up one day and realize that the memories you thought were lost are back, but it’s too late? I always think how it would have been for Malar, the exact moment when it all came back. Do all those foggy memories clear up like the sun breaking out on a winter morning, one day suddenly? Or is it like random flashes triggered by something or the other? What is more painful? To live with the knowledge that the one who you loved, and loved you back, doesn’t remember you anymore or to live without remembering anything and then the lost memories coming back a bit too late, and all you can do now is smile and the wish him all the good luck? I don’t think I wanna know. I am more or less happy about Clara and Jayakrishnan. There is a pleasing closure, no rain or thunder, just sunlight shining through the fast receding clouds. Even though it is not simply fate, but an obstinate father who is the reason why Subbulaxmi had to marry another guy and leave Surya, I think it still deserves to be on this list, simply because the love is not lost nor have they really moved on. Every time I watch the scene where Subbulaxmi, now married to the Collector, meets Surya again at those steps and when Raja’s sadder version of ‘Sundari’ starts playing in the background, I break a little. I don’t think they were really able to sleep for at least a few years after the separation. Again, Ishwarya losing Gowtham, minutes after tying the knot- literally, and forced to go away from home and then return only to see he has moved on and is happily married is solely because of another obstinate father. Gowtham did work on his marriage and build his love for Kundavi, and maybe that’s why he is able to lay his old ghosts to rests, even when they threaten to come out of their graves once in a while. Maybe he never stopped loving Ishu, only started loving Kundavi more; he did name their daughter Ishwarya. Maybe that’s the case with all of them, slowly they might have started to learn to love the ones they ended up with even while leaving a part out there which will always love those early mornings and rain and shared coffees.