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

great....I am glad you are back again...I am pretty busy too...but shall take some time off for dear sajhaites.

John. Good going ever since you started writing in sajha. I thought you were a writing prodigy but came to know you are good at tennis as well. you works are a class apart, awaiting for many more.

John! Aren't u married?

thanks newuser,

infact people like you inspire me to write....I have never missed any of your posting....you are a terrific writer brother...wish I could be as near as you....as far as tennis goes...it is lost with time and tide...had played a year ago...lost miserably...haven't swung the racket ever since.

Kiwi,
yes I am married...but remember...I did not flirt with janice...infact she sent me a 250 dollar check after my daugther's birth which I never cashed.

Sometimes U feel so comfortable with someone hai john ji...I just wonder that maybe one thing that give so perfect couple SECOND THOUGHTS...Well written narration JohnJji...YEH DIL MAANGE MOORE>>>>
Nirman

Thanks Nirman,

While I was writing this anecdote, I was thinking parallely about relationship between people, I cannot understand why can't one love two people at the same time? What if I was married....loved my wife and loved janice too? I would never leave my wife for Janice, but would not leave Janice for my wife either. What is so wrong in it? I would love both women equally, impartially....If a mother loves two kids at the same time, why cannot a husband love two wives or wife two husbands. What is so dirty about it, why people call one a pervert if he has a relationship with two women/ men?I mean a strong relation which is more than limited in sleeping together.

I can understand that a one night stand, if one is comitted with another female/male is a crime. I can also understand that having an affair with another female/male......a clandestine affair..... while one is married.... is a crime. I denounce divorcing one's wife/husband for another person blatantly. But why cannot all three people live in peace?If they cannot....it is not commitment....it is posessiveness.

I talk about this issue to my wife often...tell her if I went my way and she went hers... she loved a man and I a woman...and still feel happy for each other... What is so wrong in it? Since when did we start fearing the society? Why cannot one be comitted to two people at the same time. She thinks this is a frivolous remark, but I ask this question to all my friends...mockingly...but serious at heart.

For those evil minds, I am not talking about an orgy........

Can anyone give me a credible answer please?

Can anyone give me a credible answer please?


John,

I am a silent reader of your articles which is always good and well scripted. Sometimes it feels like your story is somewhat similiar to mine, like having crush with ....( on Koirala's story),dont get me wrong, i dont have crush with Manisha Koirala but someone with... and also my father used to work in government office so we have to go with him in all those districts that he has postings. So each and every district that i visited with him, i had big time crush with one girl from each district.... you may be familiar with that, Mostly your company will be son/ daughters of other Hakim ka chora chori... because you dont know anyone in local communities first.

About Man equally loving 2 women and woman equally loving 2 men, I do think the same way why can't we? Is there anything wrong to be loved by 2 women( say A and B) ...or sharing my love equally to 2 women, the answer is NO... there is nothing wrong to share your love in 2 women but ( i hate this word BUT), what A think is you loved B more than her and same thing B thinks You love A more than her. Now there is Jealousy between them A and B.. and start having misunderstanding between them... something erupt between them... now being a Man, you have to listen to the problem and try to slove that one as well, If you take a side of A, B will think, You love A more then her thats why you are taking the side of A and same will happens if you take a side of B. They dont care whose either it was their mistake or not..... Bro, I think you have heard this Nepali UKhan, thats exactly happens ... deuta dunga ma khuttaa rakhyo bhane, khola pani tarna sakinna... so life is like that as well.... I think you know life more than me.. I think woman, they can share everything but not the love of their husband and they do not want their husband loved by someone else either.
I will tell you one small story here, it was like a year ago... I used to work at mall and while working at Mall, you can see thousands of girls every day. There is no big deal and one day, one girl came to me, she was nice good and we had good conversation. I asked her, lets go out one day... and fortunately that day was friday, so we both agree..around 8 pm, i meet her at Rosyln and we went to Georgetown, while walking on the street, on Friday night at Gerogetown, you will see thousands of beautiful girl walking on the street, and its a guy thing, you cant stop looking those girls and all of a sudden, she holds my hand and start walking with me... i just look at her face and she told me, "Dear if you are walking with one girl, please donot ever try to look another girl"
so a girl, which you just meet doesnt want to share you, with other girls.. so forget about your wife. No matter how much you try, they wont let their husband to see other girl or share love to other woman.

John_Galt ji -
Interesting story. It is very refreshing to read "gaan thaan ka kura haru" on Kurakani that is not related to Nepali politics and that is devoid of visceral attacks on one another. Your narrative reminds me of a true story a friend recounted to me recently, a kind of a screwball comedy of the 1930s-40s except it is not a comedy. The story goes like this. A guy meets a girl, an exchange student, in high school. They are infatuated with each other but they could not pull off "Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak". They part after a semester and move on with their lives. Fast forward 15 years. The guy is done with grad school, is married, has a great job, and is working as an expat in an interesting country. Out of nowhere the guy bumps into his old flame at a house party in a foreign land. They had instant connection. The guy tells his wife about the incident, his wife goes ballistic and dumps him. The guy eventually marries his "true love".

The guy, like you John_Galt, probably wanted to have both ways. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too. But the world does not allow that. I have a simple theory for that. I am a great fan of nature programs. After watching countless programs from Sir Richard Attenberg's Life on Earth to National Geographic Special to PBS-Nature, I have concluded that every species from protozoa to homo sapiens have two overriding concerns (1) food (2) procreation. Depending on the species' position in the evolutionary hierarchy, it employs different strategies. Females of certain species of birds allow any males that flirt with them to mate but they extricate the sperms of those they consider "not good enough". The reason, females want be friends with every male as a way to protect themselves. On the other hand, there are monogamous species like the Penguins. I always wonder how a penguin figures out who its mate is because to me every Penguin looks the same. In nature, polygamy and polyandry is probably the rule and monogamy is probably the exception. I think humans are no different i.e. inherently polygamous/polyandrous. But humans have moved beyond just food and sex. May be humans figured out sometime ago that competition for sex would create a Hobbesian world which threatened their own survival and thus devised a rule that they considered fair - one man, one woman.

Like any rule, one man, one woman rule is meant to be broken. Certain communities allow polygamy such as Muslims and Mormons. Muslims because of the skewed sex ratio. Muslims men were decimated during the wars that led to the creation of the Caliphates [yeah, yeah, that was a long time ago]. Mormons because they wanted to regenerate quickly. Mormons survived their own version of the Holocaust during the 1840s ? if you visit Salt Lake City, you?ll hear all their heroic stories. I have heard of polyandry being practiced in certain parts of central Asia but not sure exactly where. For you John_Galt, the situation in Nepal does not look that "promising". According to the UN, the percent of Nepalese men peaked in 1980 at 51.25%. It was 51.06% in 2004 and is expected to steadily decline to 50.35% by 2050. In a country where there are more males than females, it is quite unfair for eligible ?huna khana sakne? writer-cum-tennis player like you to have more than their fair share, right :)

John here's the answer.....
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it's called Mid-Life Crisis

Hi John... Great narration. I have read all your postings and all of them are equally good. Well abt the perplexity of loving two women (or men) equally at the same time, I think nothing is wrong with that. But it's a woman who wouldn't want to share that love with anyone. I mean its human nature--- "I need Everything or Nothing"

Oh, Hi wiz kid.. how is everything going?

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?