A Story of Restlessness

 
Dearest Babui,


Perhaps you think I'm terribly, terribly angry. You haven't called me for two days now, so I must be sitting here with puffed cheeks, fuming mad. Who knows, I might explode any moment.


Actually, yes, I am angry. I can no longer bear not hearing your voice, not speaking with you. It causes me such pain. I feel restless somehow, keep staring at my phone screen, checking again and again to see if you've called. I know no call has come, yet I do this because it has become my habit. I grow angry with you, I sulk, I accumulate so many grievances against you, but still I cannot stop loving you, cannot show you my anger.


This isn't because showing anger or quarreling would make you leave me. I know you won't leave me. This is my faith. This is the faith born of countless long nights I have waited for you, or still wait. This wasn't built in a day, and to break this faith would require both of us to burn a great deal of fuel. Neither of us has that kind of time. From this faith I know you won't leave me, and I won't leave you.


I will no longer show you my anger or complaints, because when I do these things, you suffer, you feel pain. When you understand that I'm angry, that I'm in pain, it causes you pain. I can no longer accept this suffering of yours. Even if it's hard for me to digest, I will digest it, I will swallow it like medicine, but I will never again let you know that any behavior of yours causes me pain.


I want to feel your pain now. I don't know if any person in this world has ever been able to fully feel another's pain, but I want to feel yours with everything I have. The way my whole body senses when one part is hurt, the way nothing remains unknown to itself then—I will feel you that way. Perhaps I won't be able to reduce your pain, but I will be able to share it.


I'm trying to understand now that you really are like this. When you're completely absorbed in some work, you dislike your mind wandering elsewhere. When the brain keeps going in other directions, concentration gets destroyed. That's why you're this way. It might be a little hard for me to reconcile this with myself, might take a little time, but I can do it. Now I can do many things, I've learned so much. And now that I consider myself part of you, I must be able to!


I also know I act very childishly, which perhaps doesn't suit my age at all. But believe me, I don't act this way with anyone else. I never bother anyone else. You know, bird, these past two days I've said "I love you" to you very little, but every moment I've felt much more love for you than before. Perhaps you understand all of this. Intense love can never be expressed in any language, bird; it can only be understood through feeling.


I suffered from not being able to say it, but when I tried to speak, I felt that I love you millions of times more than this—so what would be the point of saying it! But tell me, dear bird, if I hadn't spent these past few years expressing the love I feel for you, would you be able to understand it this way today? Silence doesn't always convey language, darling. Sometimes you have to explain through words, sometimes through actions, sometimes by showing, and sometimes by remaining completely silent. People generally fall silent only when they can find nothing else, no arrow left to shoot. This also happens: when they remain silent, they speak the most, they become most entangled in feeling.


I know you're not with me, I cannot make you understand through my work, my eyes' language, any of these. That's why I neither try nor blame you. As much as I say that love cannot be forced, I suffer just as much in accepting it. But we all have to accept so many unwanted things anyway—then why can't I accept the one who occupies the largest place in my life the way they are? These are some mental conflicts. As long as there's life in the body, there are such internal burnings too.


Truth be told, receiving your love has made me even more greedy. This incompleteness, this greed might destroy me entirely. I used to think I understood a lot, knew a lot. But for a long time now, for about a year and a half or two years, I feel like I know nothing, understand nothing. I can't even say what I've learned all this time. But every day I'm learning more, every day I discover things I never knew before.


The path doesn't end, and the thirst becomes terrible, yet I keep walking. Is there any difference between a beggar and me! I feel utterly empty without you. Ah, if only I could have come into this life with such good fortune that I could have gotten you in exchange! If you hadn't given me freedom, hadn't given me the freedom to speak my mind, perhaps so much would never have been said. I would never have gotten even this day. Even accepting your anger, your discomfort, your pain, all of it—if I could just have you, I feel today I could easily swallow a lifetime's worth of burden.


Do whatever you wish, darling. You're my bird, a piece of my heart. You're my only bird—only you suit all of this.


Yours, your Sparrow