Gambling to Moonlight

 
Dear Ajit, in this life I could never call you 'tumi' again.
What you have given me,
not even a fragment of it could the past twenty-five years of my life offer,
and even if I live another ninety years, this truth will remain relevant still.
Had you left, I would have ended long ago.
Thank you for staying with me.

You yourself don't know what you have given me!
You have given me an entire life.
You have given me the chance to live in heaven for a year.
Ajit, after birth I had never truly lived.
You made me truly live for at least one year.
Perhaps you didn't know this yourself. So I'm telling you.

You taught me how to listen to the heartbeat.
There is such a wondrous world within me
that no one has ever seen—you have walked much of that path.
Believe me, Ajit, I am a terrifyingly good person.
I love myself deeply, so I want to keep myself well too!
...Had I not met you, I would never have known this truth.

I spent many years just being sad.
Now it seems one can live laughing, simply for you.
Looking at myself, I feel no one has ever come with greater fortune than mine.
...I never told you these things, Ajit.
You know what—within me, my thirst for life is small,
but with you beside me, even this problem will fade away in time.

Dear Ajit, you have given me such a world
that you yourself didn't know of its existence at first. You created that world for me.
From outside, everyone knows me as cheerful and lively.
When I go out, I carry many smiling faces,
my features scattered with boundless exuberance.
Yet no one in the world knows that I never really laugh.
The moment I enter home, I become a completely different person.
Ajit, you don't know—thinking of you,
day and night I have laughed alone, talked alone. For so many, many days!

You often say
you cannot love me exactly the way I love.
Why do you keep saying this, Ajit?
Loving like me...what does this look like in your eyes, tell me?
Today let me make one thing crystal clear.
In this past year, you and I have grown so close
that even lovers or spouses of ten years cannot come this near.
If you don't believe it, go inquire and see! Love is quite relative, Ajit.
Your thoughts, your grammar, your beliefs...there is so much beyond these!

That I can write—I never knew this before!
You are the one who brought out the beautiful person within me!
Can you imagine, Ajit, that within me too
lives a complete lover and a domestic soul—I didn't know this myself!
This is your gift. Tell me, isn't it so?

It took you a long time to know me. Do you know why?
Because I never once tried to enchant you!
Whatever you saw of me, you saw it all gradually, bit by bit.
I too knew I would have to be discovered. Do you understand, Ajit?
If you can do that, then I am so much more that you don't know!
Far more than what you know remains unknown to you.
I wanted you to understand this. And if you fail,
then I am nothing to you!...Though I would have felt no sorrow in that either.

Have you ever noticed what I've written in my profile, Ajit?
If you haven't, please look now. You'll see
I've described myself as psychopath, as arrogant.
There's a reason for this. While writing, I thought
if someone wants to enter this life,
let them first set in their mind that
I am very strange as a person and equally bizarre in nature.

The advantage for me would be
that no one would come into my life expecting much.
In fact, knowing those two identities, no one would want to come at all!
Even then, if someone comes by mistake—like you did,
then let them discover the amazing world within me!
If they can, they'll receive some wonderful surprises!
This is what I've always wanted. I felt
whoever doesn't know how to discover me, I don't need them in this life.

From the very first day I have called you 'Ajit.'
I add nothing before or after. Never 'dada,' 'bhaiya,' 'sir,' 'mister'—nothing ever.
Has this ever occurred to you? Have you noticed this?
Probably not. Do you know why I did this?
Because I wanted that until the last day of our acquaintance
I could call you by just one name.