Champaklal Speaks

Kissing and Joy

1952-08-04

Mother spoke to me of an incident that had taken place at her grandmother's when Mother was about 12 or 13.

She said: “Two relatives, a boy and a girl, had come. The girl was sitting in the boy's lap. They were kissing each other very vigorously. I say now that they were kissing; bur at that time it was only a scene, a scene of something new to me. I did not know anything about this love. I simply saw that they were busy and that they were extremely happy and enjoying themselves. To me it was just a scene. (My grandmother was a moralist.) All of a sudden something entered into me like a spark. And I experienced the joy that they were having, even more intensely than they, without the act.”

Mother showed with expressive gestures what joy she had experienced.

I said: “But Mother, everybody cannot do that.”

Mother smiled.