The Break-up Bench

And yet another love story ended on me.
Have you ever imagined having the butt end view of love stories? Pun intended.
Well, you see….destiny has decreed that that’s what my life will be.
I was born here.
Right in front of this lake.
Let me see…
It must have been some seventy years back. More? Maybe. See, Sameer there, below the Peepal tree and Akbar there, overlooking the Gazebo? Yep…the three of us came into this world in the same week.
Seventy years! Can you believe it?!
It shows though. We are unique. Antique. As some of those lousy smelly teenagers call us. I would choose the word royal. Elegant also. Our texture, the perfect craftsmanship, the carvings. They don’t make them like us anymore. Use cheap cement and metal, they do. To save money. Yeah, the toddlers can scrape off that cheap stuff. Needs patchwork every time it rains. Huh!
We are pure stone. Dug out from the quarries of Jaipur. Hauled across the state on the backs of elephants. Royal, I told you no? These new ones come in truckloads.
But I digress.
What was I saying, yes, this lake and this park. It has survived the ruthless urbanization of this town. Atleast that’s what I gathered from all the bits of chatter I hear from the walkers.
However, the skyline beyond the lake has changed a lot over the years. There was a time when the sun used to set directly in front of me in the lake. It’s reflection in the still waters, pristine.
Those days also, people used to come sit on my back for that one last conversations, a good bye or in some cases, an unpleasant string of choice expletives or just, silence.
Must be something about sunsets and the water that people chose me for the endings and Sameer back beneath the tree, for the romance. Funny how where we are born defines so much about what we become. No?
Anyways….now the sun sets behind the pencil tower. The skyline is serrated with glittering glass and metal buildings.
Frankly speaking, I actually kind of like it. The older skyline was kind of boring. Now, as the sun moves through the day, I get to see it’s reflections and the colors play out on those walls of glass windows.
What else can an old immobile park bench like me do. It’s not like I get to move around like the cleaning trolley or the baby strollers or even the sticks of old people. And oh those fancy scooters and cycles. Zooming by the park. Everywhere.
No doubt I get my dose of entertainment from them. Their adventures and all. But I, I unfortunately can only sit and stare.
I realised a long time back that my destiny is to seat people who look onto the setting sun as they justify the end of their love for one another, or sometimes one’s love for the other, Ouch! Those ones hurt. Last kisses. Last embraces. Tears. Slaps, Curses, Pregnancy declarations. And so on and on. The fruits of love, you see. Like all fruits, some are bound to be rotten.
Oh yes, did I forget to introduce myself? Damn the seventy years, well, you see, they call me The Break-up Bench.
They could have called me The Sunset Bench. I’d have liked that better. But no. The name stuck. Way back in the fifties, there was this one really scandalous couple, scandalous for those times anyways. Guy from a different religion, poor and all, girl from a different religion, rich and all. Their story began when both of them found each other reading War and Peace on Akbar. It then moved to some cute romance on Sameer and finally, ended with me. Rich dad, poor guy, religion, etc etc. I don’t blame them. Made the rounds of the gossip groups across town. Since then the young one’s started calling me that. The Break-up Bench.
I tried telling Sameer to send some of his romantics to me once in a while. He tried. He covered himself in fallen leaves in autumn and let the water stay longer after rains. But the lovers still chose him. Akbar never helped. He liked to keep his place in the park. Reader’s choice he was. With the perfect amount of sun and shade. Readers and parents of kids playing in the Gazebo. That was his clientele. Well, I made the most of what I got.
Did I tell you all the funny endings that happened here? Oh that would take days and days…well let me tell you just this one that has me in splits every time I think of it. So this girl and this guy were about to move into an apartment and they had one of those fancy digital locks on the door. And the guy programmed the door with a code and they were using it and all, till one fine night, the guy’s best friend let it slip that their door code was his best friend’s first ever getting laid date. The next afternoon, the girl, furious and hungover, obviously ended things and threw the guy out of her apartment. Right while sitting on my smooth back. Forgetting to get him to change the combination. He had his revenge also, he hacked the very expensive lock and I hear she still punches that date in every time she has to enter her apartment. That’s when I realized these software engineers were not to be messed with. I have many such anecdotes if you ever want inspiration you see. Grief, rage, empathy, envy, apathy. I see all of it.
I have noticed something though. The endings have exponentially increased since that phone thing became so viral. It’s no longer about real problems only, these days breakups happen because of a “like” on a “reel” or a blue tick gone unanswered. God only knows what those things are. Back when I was first created, there were so less love stories in the open and so it would be one sad ending a week or less …. Love seemed like a treasure then..something to fight for, till one couldn’t.
But now….these young ones…as young as sixteen…decide that “they want different things from life” or “don’t have the same world view” or “don’t like the way the other snores” or “don’t feel valued and seen” or “don’t like pineapple on their pizza” or “don’t like to share their chips” or “didn’t know they were in a relationship” as frequent as twice a day. Love seems to have changed meanings with time, grown shallower, murkier, not unlike the lake, I guess.
What’s the busiest time for me you ask? I’d say the marriage seasons. They happen some 2-3 times a year. That’s when things get interesting between couples and many of them realise they might not really want to spend a lifetime together. February and December are lighter months for me, valentine’s and new years., filled with hope and all…Sameer there sees more butts then.
Anyways…so the reason I wanted to walk you thru my life is because the parks division wants to build a lake view open air theatre…and I’m being decommissioned.
Funny no, endings, for all the millions that I’ve witnessed, I have to witness mine, alone.
I heard the park supervisor say they were gifting me to the museum of Udaipur. I am apparently a good specimen of pre independence sculpture and was worked upon by some famous sculptor of the time .. apparently I am quite expensive…Right? Who would have known!
Anyways…I guess I’d miss this view. I’d miss the endings. No, I don’t think I’m bad for wanting those stories. Endings are after all new beginnings. I will be a part of so so so many stories that are told generations after generations.
Some home somehwere in the town has an old lady rocking in her armchair telling her grandkids how she bade a tearful goodbye to her first and only true love, looking into the sunset on The Break-up Bench because society wasn’t ready to accept gay lovestories just then.
Some father, after a whisky too many, finally confronting his newly engaged daughter and apologizing about why her mom left him and chose integrity and dignity for her kid in the setting sun on The Break-up Bench.
Two friends chatting away in the early hours of dawn, over a crate of beer, about the various romantic adventures that they ended on The Break-up Bench looking over the serene golden lake.
I am forever etched in the life stories of people. In the lives of people. And they are etched into me, the tears, the unspoken words, the silently scraping nails, the nervous scratches.
Now isn’t that a life well lived?

**Written as part of Write Club Bangalore’s session on non human characters.