On this rain-drenched afternoon heavy with youth, it would be a grave injustice not to write something about you. Are you well? Is such wonderful rain falling there too, streaming down the branches, hibiscus, and periwinkle?
If nature doesn't have her natural cycle, it could mean no child in her womb—have you ever thought about this? Or are you still concentrating hard on office work today?
How much longer will you keep working, tell me? Learn to love a little now. If not with me, then with the rain. I'm not talking about your girlfriend Rain, mind you! Tell your aunt to make khichuri today. And you sit down with a book of Mallika Sengupta's poems. On days like this you must skip all work and give time to yourself, silly! Some days come bearing new reasons to live. Don't go back to sleep with the AC on though. How long has it been since such a sweeping-away rain came, tell me?
Poetry reads so well on cloudy days like this, doesn't it? I feel as if I've gone to get soaked in the rain and lost myself in some forest, no one can find me, I won't let them! I'm lost on purpose, trying to capture nature's form, watching the trees finish their bath. It seems to me this unruly rain will force me to lose myself today. No, I'm not going home this evening; I go back every day, I have to! Today I'll be unruly, today I'll become poetry. I cannot wait for another wonderful rain to befriend the poet, and who knows if any of us will live that long? Simpler than that—to stand in this forest in a wet sari, waiting. I'm standing here in my wet sari beneath the hijal tree.
Poet, don't keep me waiting—come here before I catch cold.