The One Desire

But we are two worlds apart
Can’t reach to your heart
When you say
That I want it that way..

A Backstreet Boys classic playing in the background, my little cousin is growing up, a 11 year old now and it feels good to see someone listening to good old boy bands these days, at least it takes me back in time. That is what good music does, it reconnects you to stuff that you felt might have long left or deserted you, but as the Backstreet Boys rightly sang: Ain’t nothing but a heartache.

It’s silly as to how everything that I listen to these days, everything I set my sight upon: all of it reminds me of her, connects her to me in some way or the other. Be it the seasonal change, the rains, the streets or the songs that play on the radio. I haven’t grown out of it, I will never grow out of it. We had seen that we would fall apart, I did; but deep down inside of me She was the fire, the one desire. The lyrics now resonating loud within me, every word making it clear where She stood, what She meant and what She would continue to be.
I might have wanted things a certain way, it might have been a mistake and now with this niggling heartache, I know: I’d never want her to say: it wasn’t a mistake, still a heartache and it will be.

Way back in 1999, I was this sixth standard student humming this song, one of the very few songs I still hum once in a while, with my cousin now taking me on a trip down the memory lane; I hadn’t ever thought then that it would one day ache my heart as I would hum the song again. Yes, we are two worlds apart, me trying to reach her heart, but this heartache; it does feel good.
There’s no question of me now having another desire for life than to not get over the heartache, the mistake would still be a mistake; no consolations here, but this lingering hope that the song makes me go back in time every time it plays on the radio.

I ask my cousin to explain to me what she understood, what the song meant, she couldn’t, not her age. We fall in love with tunes, the lyrics make sense when we go through something similar to what is being sung, until then it’s just another song that feels good. And, as I try explaining to her what the Backstreet Boys actually meant, I seem to be at a loss. I end up telling her my version of what it is, perhaps a void, an irreplaceable void of something, a heartache and a mistake; an extraordinary mistake.

No one to tell or explain to me why, never will I hear her say, nor would anyone tell me that they wanted it that way; again. Some things just don’t add up, a void remains and the distance between the two worlds don’t cease, all I can do for now is hum along, try teaching my cousin the tune and the lyrics of the song. The song too deep for an eleven year old to relate to, but one day and I hope not, she would be listening to it the way I am. Some whys are never answered, some heartaches remain and the mistake: well, it haunts for life.

No matter the distance
I want you to know
That deep down inside of me
You are my fire
The one desire..

The fire still burns; the desire?? No desire left!!

P.S: Starting and ending lines from the song ‘I want it that way’; by the Backstreet Boys.