Book Seven: Nine Years Accounted
Nine years. Nine monsoons, nine winters, nine springs. More than three thousand two hundred and fifty days—I have thought of you on each one, dreamed of you through every night. In all this time, I have never once been there on your birthday. And I shall not be again—I have freed myself from that. But is freedom truly freedom? Or is it another kind of captivity—the body unshackled, yet the mind still bound in chains?
A question turns restlessly in my mind, day and night—where were you all those years? Why did we not meet sooner? Back then, I studied in a cramped old room in some small town, hurried to my lessons. If only I had spent those days with you! Then in nine years I would have been filled with your tenderness—this demon of incompleteness would not have devoured me.
Loving you, I have drowned your whole family in love. That photograph of you and your father together—the two of you at home, your hand on his shoulder—I saw it, and I loved him too. Then your mother. Nipa. Anis. Love is this way—when you love someone, you must love those whom they love, as a stone thrown into a pond sends ripples in all directions—no one can stop them.
I shall wear a black sari on Diwali—black suits you so well, you know. Tell me, am I beautiful? How do I look to you? I have never had the courage to ask this question—so I ask it in the darkness of night, pressing my face into the pillow; I ask it in dreams, I ask it of myself—and receive no answer.
Your birthday was drawing near—I had such plans. We would be together, laugh, I would give you roses. You said you would not be there. I am a fool, so I did not cry. Fools do not cry—fools simply flow on, like a river, soundlessly. The tears came, flowed silently—from where, who knows. No one else knew.
Why must everything stand against my love? Tell me why.
Book Eight: So Many Whys
Why are you rushing into everything?
Why did you go ahead and marry?
Why do you let another's hands hold mine?
Why do you stay silent even when you hear me weep?
And the greatest "why" of all—why can I not scream and cry out loud?
These are not questions—they are wounds. Each "why" is a cut mark across my chest. No one sees them—beneath my clothes, beneath my skin, beneath my bones. I do not count these scars, do not wipe them away—I simply carry them. As a river carries the stones from its bed—from above, you see clear water, a gentle current; but the riverbed? The riverbed bears weight—stone upon stone, years piled upon years.
I am the greatest fool in my family. Everything was thrust upon me; medicine, university—I was never allowed to sit for exams. They say I would not even get a job in primary school. Simply because I knew the name Sarojini, could I have studied at Sarojini? Did I not have to earn my place? I have murdered those grievances—with my own hands, driven a knife into my own chest. I have demolished myself from head to toe. And with you? Whatever you said, I never protested—why should I? I love you. And love means surrender—unconditional, voiceless, limitless.
You have known me for two months. I have known you for nine years. Who will balance this inequality? There is no equation in mathematics that can measure this gap.
Book Nine: The Thief of Illusion
Love can be refused—you have returned my letters, cut my calls, turned your face away. With each refusal, I have died a little—yet I have not died completely. The reason is this illusion, this maya. Maya is a thief—close the door and it enters through the window; close the window and it seeps through the cracks in the wall; seal the cracks and it mingles with the air and slips into your lungs. You can refuse my love—but my illusion?
It’s seeped into your blood—and you don’t even know it yourself.
Love can be refused.
But attachment? Attachment knows no boundaries.
Forget love. Keep yourself whole. Never think of yourself as alone—because someone, in secret so profound the world knows nothing of it, has laid their heart bare before you. With utmost tenderness. The way people place lamps in temples—whether they burn or not, the placing itself is prayer.
Every time we speak from Chayapur, I never want to let you go. Reluctantly, I set down the phone—but your voice comes rushing back. Into my ear, into my blood, into my veins. Like a tsunami—it tears through everything inside and passes, then settles, then comes again. That voice will never fade from me—I know it.
Live in love, live in letters.
Live through your books, your poetry, your songs—all of it.
I’ve woven myself into all of you—
keep me woven into all that you are.
Tenth Episode: The Miraculous
Some things happen in this world in ways that defy all reason—no logic can explain them, no science can measure them. Take this: you decide to call me, and at that exact moment, I call you. Not once, not twice—it happens every day. When two people feel each other as divine, this is what occurs—time aligns, breath aligns, even silence learns to speak. Then distance becomes merely a number—kilometers, miles—meaningless.
You think of me—I call.
I think of you—you call.
People call it coincidence. I call it love.
Am I hurting you terribly? When pain comes, grip my hand tight. If two people bear suffering together, one day they can cross that suffering together.
But do you still love me as much as before? What I receive fills my hand—but my heart? My heart is greedy. My heart only wants—if it doesn’t get the whole hundred, its tears won’t stop. Mine is the same—even with ninety-nine out of a hundred, it weeps, because that one number is missing—and that single number is its entire answer key.
Eleventh Episode: From the Dust Below
Everything you have belongs to another—I know. Time, society, family, fate—all stand against my love, their hands raised saying, “Stop.” But I love you in reverence, in devoted surrender—from the dust below. Like a devotee standing outside the temple who prays without permission to enter—inside the doors are forbidden, but prayer needs no approval—so am I.
Even with all I have to give, I cannot hold you—how it weighs on me! You were alone before. I came and colored your life a little—is that nothing? A little color, a little fragrance, a little warmth—is even this worthless?
Is someone else receiving the love that was meant to be mine? Even a part of it? Or am I no one? Am I nothing?!
Don’t answer this question. Some questions are better left suspended in emptiness—like stars hanging in the sky, nobody knows by what thread. If answered, perhaps the thread will break—the star will fall—and I? I may not survive it.
Final Episode: Though I Turn Gray, May You Remain Radiant
How long can one endure such pain? I think each person’s life contains a place of absence—where they stand alone, where they have no language, where only a still, unquenchable thirst sits awake. This thirst blames no one. It doesn’t cry out. It doesn’t envy. It only waits—steady, steadfast, eternal—the way a stone sits on the shore while waves come and go, but the stone doesn’t move.
Deep in the house, a sorrowful bird weeps with clouded eyes—facing sorrow, wings folded, throat swollen. What pain is it that even someone like you has learned to hide suffering?
If I had another life—a parallel world where everything unfolded just a little differently—I would watch the sunset with you there, break all the rules and flee to some distant shore, rest my head on your shoulder by the sea. You call me your “silly child.” And I am your sweet breeze. But in this life? In this life there is only pink paper and yellow paper and green paper—and across their surface, a little ink stained with blood.
I want to love you madly—like a fool. This madness is my last possession. Nothing else remains—no claim, no right, no future—only this small madness, which no one can steal from me, because no one owns madness but the mad.
Do you remember? That evening when the light and the rose petals melted into one—you came back with so many roses. I grew drunk with joy. That day I thought—I will remain a rose in your life, I have come only to color your world. But roses wither too. Petals fall, color fades, fragrance vanishes. What remains then is memory—and memory never withers. Memory does not soak in rain, does not burn in sun—it simply endures…in silence, the way the scent of bakul flowers lingers by the roadside.
Beloved, be radiant—
Take all my color,
Take the smile from my face,
Take all of my love.
Even if I turn grey—
Stay painted in light.
My thirst will never be quenched. I know it. You know it too. But quenching thirst is not love’s purpose—keeping thirst alive is what love does. In the desert, the mirage keeps the traveler moving—there is no water, but there is the dream of water, and that dream alone is enough to take one more step forward. My thirst is like that—thirst itself is my mirage, thirst itself is my fuel. As long as thirst remains, I remain alive. The day it is satisfied, nothing will be left—no path, no traveler, no desert.
So never quench it. Never, ever quench it.