Yankees couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. It was sunshine in Long Islands after three days of downpour. The sun had been a greatest enemy earlier, rising mercury to three digits until the rain brought it down. It rained cats and dogs and somehow made way for a small torrent in my uncle's garage.

Janice came early in the morning that very sunny day looking for my aunt. She was a lovely short figure in mid-twenties with limpid eyes and strong limbs. She held a tennis racket which she occasionly swung form time to time gulping water from an aquafina bottle.

"Are you John?" She asked me. It seemed that she knew everything about me and my arrival. I smiled sheepishly....what could a person do when a girl caught him suddenly in a t-shirt and underwear? I had hurriedly hid my well toned thighs (thanks to those back breaking squats in the gym) behind a couch pillow.

We decided to play a tennis in her house after I was through with my embarrassment. She lived a block away, in a beautiful condo which had a small swimming pool and a pretty clay tennis-court.

She played well, but relied in her forehand completely missing back hand shots....made awful mistakes in double faults too. If She was Sarapova, I was Edberg. I was good in tennis but never took part in any tournament. After losing 5 straight games to me,she got mad at herself and I got tired defeating her, we then stopped playing and went to a nearest fast food joint.

"Johnny boy you play tennis good", she commented. She never knew I was once beaten by an Indian guy in dehradun in a similar fashion, my figures against him was so poor, it would have made Agassi shed tears.

We bumped into a bum on the way who had a coiffure like sai baba. He was relatively cleaner than what he must have been before, the rain certainly had cleaned him up.
"Can I have a dollar for a beer?", he asked me.
"Well, do you take mastercard?", I shot back.... but gave him a dollar anyway.
He completely missed the humor but it had Janice in splits.
"Gawd, you are funny". She said between giggles.
A good tennis player and funny too...I was enjoying her compliments.

To be continued

Hi John Galt:

One question-

What if the story is narrated as other way around- by your other half to you???

VR

Hi Meghna,

everything is going well.. thanks for asking and good to see you online and hope everything is going well on your side of the world as well... all the best..

Gosh Johnji:

Your story and posting made me wander for so long. It is so true. I think we fall in love with so many people in our lifetime and each one is so very unique and different and each experience is so different.

Why is it ok to fall in love with one person at a time to different person but not two at the same time?? i can understand what you mean. I feel the same way. I feel love is not what we define or say either. SMOetimes you just enjoy being with some people, do not care about that person's any other things like whether he is married/single, what he does for a living or whether he is educated or not, etc

But now a days, love is more a bargain. i mean if i have to fall in love with a guy then i will have to find out so many things like what is his education (is he better than me or not), can he earn more money that me, do we have the same caste, same religion and similar beliefs, etc, his social status and once we know everything matches then we say we are in love. for others there could be different criteria as well.

I mean is that love??? can't you love someone because he/she is just a human being and you have this strange nice feeling for the person? why do we have to match so many criterias.... i have no clue and may be becasue we are such selfish beings

John Galt,
You need HELP, Big Time. All blondes are majoring in Psychology. Why don't you get some help from them Blonde Psychiatrists.

Thats all.

Hi John Galt:

THE WORLD IS NOT RUN BY THOUGH, NOR BY IMAGINATION, BUT BY "OPINION"

And that is the sad part....

VR

"Thought" rather...

John ji!!!

Well written script.. With respect to your question.. I have my general agreement with Gauleji. I am of the view that love usually does not exist in the marriage (I mean in between husband and wife, in a long term). Well don?t get me wrong here?. People have different criteria and threshold to define a love.. Initially you may find love in between them as the time elapses they will learn to compromise and it will become their habit to do it. Usually, you will find a married man/woman always struggling to fulfill commitments/duties as a partner and as parents since marriage is nothing more than a management thing. As a co-worker you may or may not love your wife (as it always happens in the real world where you will like/love some of your coworkers than others) but you would be always conscious about fulfilling your responsibilities (and I am dam sure you are not doing it for the shake of your co-worker/wife, in fact you are doing it since you don?t want to prove yourself a failure, a loser OR in other words you want to see yourself as a successful individual. And I should say it is not your fault.. There are certain parameters that put forth by the society that would determine what is good and what is bad. I mean you are living under tremendous amount of natural pressure exerted by your society where your personal parameters may look odd). Society wants to see its people trained with good management skills (in terms of evolutionary model, people with good managerial traits would have greater advantage and are more likely to be selected among the population). Otherwise, why you need to get married? ?why you need to get divorced?. I have never seen any other creature getting married and divorced (I guess these are the examples of societal pressure and it may not be natural in some instances). You can just live together and have kids and love your partner and your offspring. Based upon societal pressure hypothesis, the bottom line would be as long as you fulfill your responsibilities as a husband/wife you may (/not) love your wife and at the same time you may also love any other individuals as your friend?share your things and fulfill all the responsibilities as a loving friend.. There won?t be any problem with that until you forget to distinguish between your own responsibilities as a husband/wife and as a friend. There are lots of examples where married people loved and shared there things with their friends. Just to remind you, President Bush has very good/deep friendship with the Conde. Probably she is the only second or third individual in the universe who can greatly influence world?s most powerful person?s decision. My model would be something like that of Bush and Conde.
Nut

Since we are in the "love" "marriage" "affairs" "why" "why not" etc topic, you might find it interesting to read an Indian-American woman's experiences/views on "arranged marriage" "extra-marital affair" "one-night stand" "romance" etc in a recently published "New York" magazine.

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/culture/features/11621/

wizkid and meghna,
appreciate your opinions, but you did not expatiate why women would not like to share their lovers.

gaule and nut,
kudos for gaule for corroborating monogamy/andry with enough evidence. This is the only issue that distinguishes us with animals. Nut, thanks for supporting gaule.

Virtual_reality,
I would listen to my wife deadpan, as she listens to me. We care least what both of us do as long as we are honest to each other.

mr/mrs resurrection,
blondes are blokes, why don't you help me with my quandary.

tauke,
midlife crisis starts from 40 years onwards if the person is destined to lived 80 some years and the way i am at the moment, I might even reach 90 unless a drunk driver knocks me off my feet and this world too. So my midlife crisis starts at 45 dear.

Guys,
it was really interesting reading your replies, the best thing about sajha is, we share ideas that help us to see both sides of the story. Only fools accuse and impeach, wise people give reasons. Gaule had a point ahead the rest of you all because he seems to have had enough proof of what he is talking about. Hats off to him.

But there was a flaw in my argument if it were to be related to the episode with janice. There was no way I could have fallen in love with her in mere two days. It was infatuation, attraction, obsession, passion, call it whatever you want, but certainly not love. Love does not happen at first sight. Infuation does. therefore, love at first sight is a long forbidden cliche'. It has usurped by a new maxim " Infatuation at first sight and love at millionth".

The best answer to my question would have been.

"John you jerk....that was not love...that was an attraction...and if you ever think of sharing your love with janice....may you burn in hell".

resurrection was good in slandering...but he/she missed the point.

So, I have a hangover and it's a slow Saturday afternoon. I was going through the Sajha archives and look what I came across. I've just realized I am fairly new to Sajha. I met this man by the name of John Galt and could not stop myself from resurrecting his pieces. If you haven't already read it, here's to a man with wits and talent. What a writer! Where the hell is he these days?