The One-Sided Love: A Conversation with Shakespeare...

I was sleeping when I heard someone saying: “The course of true love never did run smooth” and this whispering sound was just over when another babbling voice started passing through my eardrums:

Doubt thou the starts are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt I love.

The moment the last line: “But never doubt I love” reached to my eardrums, it didn’t take me long to figure it out that this is Shakespeare’s voice who is reading out his second act of the second scene from “Hamlet”. But even post figuring out the persona behind the whispering and babbling voice still I was bit confused about why Shakespeare is reading this for me? And to know the reason I asked him, “Did I fall in love? With whom did I fall? Do I know her? Did we meet each other? Did we both fall for each other?” and it was happening in a loop of mixed voices and murmuring sounds that went on and on. As there were so many things and a lot of emotions I was going through after hearing him singing all those lines for me that actually resulted in a massive adrenaline rush for me and drove me to the utmost excitement due to which I didn’t even realize my shaking voice and shivering body and kept asking him one thing after another in one breath.  Upon hearing Shakespeare’s words “The course of true love never did run smooth”, the way I reacted, was quite expected and natural because I always been focused and committed in whatever I do and achieve the goals I have already set for me. Having said that, I must say that sometimes, unintentionally, we do add or we do start doing or chasing the things that weren’t there in our bucket when we started our journey but somehow were added despite being focused. And the reason of this misfortune is that whenever a clash takes place between the focus and the destiny, destiny always wins irrespective of what will happen to you in the near future and that is why we call it “life”. And this is not something that happens rarely, Instead, it happens more often and we human fall into the things we never wanted to fall in. In fact, instead of falling for those things we always wanted to surpass that path silently. Interestingly, the rank of the unexpectedly happing thing in one’s live will keep changing basis on the ration for certain things but “Love” was at the top of the list, it is at the top of the list and will be at the top of the list for unexpectedly happening things until the day on which sun will rise from the west and will set in the east.

Those voices were still echoing in my ears, when I and Shakespeare sat vis a vis, I cleared my throat, looked at his face and started speaking while he was all ears to listen my words: “You often say “But never doubt I love” but have you ever told anybody what is true love? Have you ever able to explain how do we fall for someone? Have you ever succeeded in writing a syntax for stopping oneself from fallen in love? Did you ever imagine what a blink of an eye causes to a heart broken person?  Do you know through what kind of pain and sorrow a one-sided lover goes? Have you ever tried to define first sight love? In all your plays, novels and stories you just showcased the tragic part of the story but never plotted a good and happy ending for any one of your stories. You are saying “But never doubt I love” but on the other hand you gave a tragic death to Macbeth, sorrowing ending to Hamlet, you left Ophelia die in grief that caused her taking her own life by drowning herself. Moreover, because of your plotting for giving Juliet drug for unconsciousness, Romeo takes his poison and later on Juliet stabbed herself. Man! what kind of love you want to showcase? A love where there is no happy ending? Where there no love birds are flying together? A story for which we can’t say, and they lived happily thereafter? By writing such plays you have become the “tragic king of the literature” but do you realize what kind of impressions you have left on us by your tragic plays? We fear to fall in love after coming across your tragic endings. I wish you could give it a happy ending.” By the time this last word came out of my mouth, I had been bursted into the tears.

He looked at me and said, “tough I have plenty of answers for your concerns and questions but still I would only like to recite my poem Orpheus for you”. And then he recited Orpheus in his voice mixed of Irish, Yorkshire and west countries accents:

Orpheus with his lute made trees  

And the mountain tops that freeze  

Bow themselves when he did sing:  

To his music plants and flowers  

Ever sprung; as sun and showers

There had made a lasting spring.  

Everything that heard him play,  

Even the billows of the sea,  

Hung their heads and then lay by.  

In sweet music is such art,

Killing care and grief of heart  

Fall asleep, or hearing, die.

I was just about to wake up from my sleep when “Fall asleep, or hearing, die.” gave me an anxiety attack that made me broke into cold sweat and I felt like someone is whispering in my ears: “Thus with a kiss I die”, hearing upon, I turned to my left, this was Romeo there….