My Solitary Sky

Dear Ribhu,

Perhaps because I never learned how to ask, everything comes before me only to slip away somehow! I know you have no time to listen to my words. Still, I will speak. Just one request—please, don’t be annoyed. Oh, and you’re not angry that I called you ‘dear,’ are you? What else can I do, tell me! I simply cannot call you by your name alone! Though I suppose you still have time to be angry at my words—I no longer have the audacity to believe even that.

The very word ‘marriage’ is somehow strange, making life utterly unbearable! Do you know when a girl stops being a girl? When she reaches marriageable age, or when everyone at home wants to see her in another house. All this preparation and terrible haste to marry me off keeps reminding me again and again—I am not merely a girl, I am a dark-skinned girl! To be born a dark-skinned girl means you cannot dislike anyone. What business does a dark girl have with likes and dislikes? If anyone likes a dark girl, that itself is more than enough! What a bizarre society we live in, don’t you think?

Why can I no longer dwell in my realm of imagination? I have decided to run away. I know no one will come with me, but still I’ll go. Far, far away. To an ashram in some distant mountain corner. I will live like Shakuntala. But tell me—will they keep a dark girl? Will they too turn me away?

Listen, Ribhu, can’t you hear me shouting to you so often: “Give me a little time, I will become truly worthy of you. Just stay beside me… save me from these cruel people.” You may not be able to indulge me, but surely you can give me shelter? What do you say? You cannot? Not even a little? When people find a puppy on the street, do they throw it away? The Creator has surely given you at least that much capacity. He may have been miserly with me, but He hasn’t been so stingy with you. For this ordinary girl, can’t you defeat the Creator in generosity, even if just out of miserliness?

Oh, these dreams! I no longer call dreams dreams—I call them sin. Yes, that’s what they are—sin. Ma said that the other day, in my fever, I was crying out ‘Ribhu, Ribhu.’ Was that a dream, you tell me? It’s sin, isn’t it? Ordinary girls make the mistake of thinking sin is a dream. It hurts terribly for me to dream. I won’t dream anymore. What meaning can there be in dreams that give the address of death?

Right now I wish I could smash this phone in my hand to pieces! Ribhu, can’t you understand that your existence is making me non-existent every single moment? These days I don’t even feel hurt by God anymore. What’s the point of being hurt by someone who doesn’t care to mend things? I feel shy even asking God for anything. When you’ve returned empty-handed so many times, how can you keep asking, tell me? If God cannot give shelter to this form, how will you? I have no more complaints against you.

The peacock says, my Krishna is the life of the world. The mynah says, my Radha gives life itself; does she keep anything for her own soul?… A song by Gobindo Adhikari. The sung version is a bit different, somewhat altered here and there. Have you heard it? If not, listen to Lopamudra’s version. Kanika has sung it too, but Lopa’s is sweeter. Believe me, your heart will be filled. Could you listen to it early in the morning, taking a little trouble? Don’t worry, this dark girl won’t call you and wake you up.

Today is the full moon, you know? Will you go to the terrace? Please go! What beautiful moonlight has risen! I don’t go to see moonlight on the terrace anymore. So my room gets covered in a soft blanket of light. Nature never envies the beauty of the unbeautiful.

You know, Ribhu, I’m remembering my childhood. On such moonlit nights when the power would go out, Baba would say, “Reba, Keya, Lata! Come bring the harmonium, dear ones.” We would understand that today we wouldn’t have to study. How happy we’d become! We’d put out the hurricane lamp and run up to the second-floor terrace. Baba could never call just one of us, or maybe he wouldn’t—he’d call all of us together. My elder sister was eleven years older than me, and the middle one nine years older. When they were studying for honors, I was in fifth or sixth grade. Now I often look up at the sky and ask: Baba, if you were going to leave me and go away, why didn’t you leave someone with the responsibility of loving me? You taught me to live on love, then left me so bereft of love, Baba!

Are you laughing? Are you thinking—is love also some kind of responsibility? Do you know what it means to feel with the right of belonging? Do you understand? I know. Watching Baba, I learned love, learned how to love. We’d take my middle sister’s harmonium and spread a reed mat on the terrace, settling ourselves scattered in the moon’s gentle light. I really miss my mother from those old days now. Ma hadn’t yet learned to call my affection and fondness mere whims. I would sing, “The moon’s laughter has broken free…” That was always included. Baba wanted it there. I would sing, and Baba would stretch out his hand as if touching the cool evening breeze, the sweet fragrance of jasmine flowers filled with milky white light. Ma would sit beside him with a garland of jasmine in her sari’s fold, resting her head on Baba’s arm, listening with such peace. I would begin to feel as though I was a girl filled with moonlight!

Baba would say, “Renuka, you see, whichever home our Lata goes to, there will be full moons every day.” Oh, cruel fate! Baba, can you see how helplessly your dark daughter Lata searches for a home today? There are no homes for Latas in this world, Baba! My middle sister would sing, “Will you forget those old days, oh…” Ma would join in too. Little me would curl up and hide in Baba’s lap, looking up at his face to see evening stars playing in his eyes. Using his finger to move aside Ma’s hair scattered across his face, Baba would clean his thick black-framed glasses with Ma’s sari. Now I hum, “My days remained not in their golden cage…”

I miss that lap so much today. I’ve probably grown old enough to learn to disbelieve that such a safe, untroubled, worry-free, certain shelter exists anywhere else. Ribhu, I’m not telling you all this. Absolutely not! These are some of my dear deliriums. You’re not listening to any of this, are you?

On this day, Baba left ‘me’ behind. I don’t feel like saying ‘us’ anymore, so I said ‘me.’ I have no one at all! I can’t even think of anyone as my own anymore. Lovelessness makes people terribly selfish. The one whom nobody loves becomes the most unburdened of all. To be selfish, you have to be unburdened. I don’t even want to die. What meaning would dying have for someone whose living has no meaning? To die, you need someone to feel hurt by. Yes, you do…!

You know, Baba’s black frame is on my table right now, placed on top of Rabindranath. I can see Baba’s innocent eyes through the frame! Today, after so long, I understand why Baba would ask for those two particular songs when there were so many others! Moonlight seems to remind one of many things!

Why am I telling you all this! I don’t know! I truly don’t know!

I can’t think the way I used to. I don’t think either. Let whatever happens happen! How much can happen anyway? How much can happen? How much does happen? Sometimes everything around me seems false. Like right now, as I write to you—perhaps in a little while my thoughts will become something else entirely. How strange, isn’t it? Why does this happen? I can’t even think about it. My head aches terribly. My hands, feet, my entire body and mind become numb. These days I don’t feel like doing anything, don’t feel anything at all. I think, what’s the need? I’ll just do whatever everyone says, without desire. That’s right, isn’t it… tell me? I won’t think such thoughts anymore, won’t stay sad. I don’t care about anything! Let it go! Let it go forever!

Only sometimes I think—there was something I had to do, something I had to do! Out of studies for two days, out of everything. I can’t quite understand at what pace my mind moves. Even as I write to you, it occurs to me—what a pointless thing I’m doing! You’ll never know how many times I’ve written like this and then not sent it to you… I know this too won’t reach you. The moment I think of sending it, I start thinking—what’s the need for all this! What will you think of me! Ugh! I can’t take it anymore! Think whatever you want… as if this dark girl is something worth thinking about!

Once you fall in love with someone, you should never go to that person. I may love him, but what if he doesn’t love me back?

So much work is pending. I’m going…