Broken Suitcase

   
 From tomorrow, you will no longer be there in the sullen crowd's face, the cause of all my melancholy or despair.
  
 That I would be your devoted wife—such words were never written anywhere. Not even today. Only one sorrow remains… I understood you far too late!
  
 You are yourself as you are, and all explanations of your love belong to you alone. Of course, the explanation of my love is mine alone too, I am as I am. Yet you are that sky of mine where I roam freely. In one lifetime there is only one earth, and only one sky. Though I may be merely a wrong decision for you, still you have become my entire life and remain so even today.
  
 I want to learn to live alone, beloved. I desperately want to learn to live without you. This much will be my solace—that once again, I managed to take on the challenge of showing the courage to live after leaving someone dear.
  
 In the battle to stay, I have lost in the end.
  
 I have observed so carefully, you know… for exactly as long as you stay with me, for exactly that long I can forget everything and feel what it means to be truly well. Have you ever been able to do that—thinking of me, feeling such a thing? You haven't, I know.
  
 My faithful writing pen and my intimate choice of words have now come to a complete halt, I'm letting you know. Do you remember how I used to write to you every day once? I wrote thinking of you, wrote only to you… remember? Even if I wanted to, I couldn't stop writing, no matter what I wrote! Now I can't write anymore, you know? I'm telling the truth, even if I wanted to, I can't. How strange, isn't it! Tell me, you never had the time or desire to write me even two lines! You write so much… but never once did you feel like writing something to me! Till today… no! You don't, do you? How many letters I gave you… how busy you are, see… you didn't even have time to reply to those letters. Maybe you haven't even opened the envelopes yet! Let me tell you, listen. One day you'll see, this busyness of yours today, because of which you forgot me; you'll see, one day this very busyness will remind you of me. I've made arrangements for that. But that day I won't be there near you… not even to hear that you remembered me.
  
 Well, so many mistakes happen in life… couldn't you make one more mistake by fighting once more to come to me?
  
 What is beyond my means, I no longer desire now. So I can no longer desire you either.
  
 We last spoke well on some Sunday night. You don't remember me even once, do you? Such is your busyness! Or is it all just indifference? Can anyone in this world be so busy that they don't even have time to think of someone close, even by mistake? Why can't I be that busy? I too want to be busy like you all!
  
 What are you to me now? An ex?
 And what was I to you? A pastime?
 Dear ex, with this broken heart waiting on city streets hoping for some former love to look back, but to accept them again… no, not anymore!
  
 I know, there will be rain-play again someday.
 In the monsoon your lover's body will get wet just fine.
 That day you will properly arrange someone else's wet sari's edge.
 Some other eyes' kohl will draw you just fine.
 You will become someone else's beloved just fine.
 Yet my heart will still want you again and again as my beloved in this lifetime's embrace.
  
 That familiar voice, familiar phone number, familiar handwriting, familiar way of speaking… everything will one day become unfamiliar, soaked in separation's salt water.
 Still, you will dock your boat just fine at some new moored ghat.
 You will appear as some new sky in someone else's dear possession.
 And me?
 I too will perhaps remain still, eyes fixed on your eyes… at some new wrong address.
 I will learn just fine the pretense and performance of love.
 Finding no place in the old, in the curse of welcoming someone new… everything will continue just fine in some room-full empty atmosphere.
  
 Who came to whom first or who left whom or who stayed yet made the 'absence' clear—let that remain unclear for ages and ages! Whether I lose you or myself, I have surely lost someone!
 Someone has surely been defeated!
 Let that hundred-year-old desire remain primal even today!
 The calculation of how much one should quarrel with fate to get you later—let that remain impossible and survive!
  
 If love is again expressed in some irregular color and rhythm by rule, then don't think the black or blue color is your own, never like that. In some melancholy brown evening, keep guarded in your breast pocket… whatever color comes—be it your own or another's!
  
 In this city's sorrowful necropolis if you ever want to find me again, then know this—that day even if rain falls, I will no longer be on that cloud's raft in any ledger of debts.
  
 The tune of burning, an afternoon rolling with wet tears… if at such a time a wild myna loses its way,
 then know that just then this girl will apply more red alta on her red feet.
  
 In your lost white shirt, may every tear-drop of mine mixed with you be sanctified.
 Mixed with that shirt's familiar fragrance, may all my lost sweet happiness remain.
 May all peace and comfort be tormented by love's very curse.
  
 From just yesterday I have handful after handful of happiness for show, some false laughter and well-being, a beautiful house of cards, love's colorful festival of drama, and a chestful of disappointment's bone and blood cells.
  
 Now I am completely alone… and a broken suitcase filled with scattered emptiness.