Neel,
I woke suddenly this morning, very early. I felt as if you had come and buried your hand in my hair, and your fingers were wandering here and there like morning glory vines, so carefully! I was so startled, you know!
I rushed up and looked—you weren't anywhere—not at the window, not at the door, not in the water glass, not on the dog-eared thirty-third page of the book, not in what was left of last night's meatball, not on the left side of the bed...where you used to sleep, not on the prayer mat...where you kept your crystal prayer beads—I searched every place step by step, but you hadn't come anywhere at all!
Exhausted by excitement, I saw the half-drunk glass of water on the table and thought, perhaps you dipped your lips here and left!
I felt such a longing to taste a little water where you had hidden, to try a sip myself! The calendar says it's the 10th of autumn, and the walled garden outside tells me I'm still living in Sripur.
Neel,
I went to see the peperomia plant this evening; it seems to have drunk plenty of water, its branches are glowing like a frog's, with a rosy color that has a springlike feeling! I think her girlhood is coming to an end. Our little peperomia—when did she grow so big? I didn't even notice!
I think the girl has fallen in love! . . . No, whatever you say, I know for certain the girl is secretly in love. Lately, at the end of afternoon, a little sparrow comes and sits on the window across the way. The two of them whisper together about something. Maybe he says, "Come on, Pepu dear, let's take a walk around Shyamla pond today," or maybe he says, "The salt fruit has ripened nicely in Rangada's garden—let's steal a few! My Tepa and Bulu's father loves to eat salt fruit!"
Or does he say something else, Neel? About you, about me, about us...does he? Like how we used to search for duck eggs by all the village ponds and come home with our feet cut by broken shells, how you would sit on a boat I made from dried areca palm leaves and I would hold the tip and row you around the whole courtyard. You loved Urmida's gardenia tree so much, always saying, "This one is so dear to me, see how artistic it looks? And what a sweet fragrance—I feel like tying it to the tip of my nose with string."
You know, Neel, when I walk beside that tree, I feel like you're very close, somewhere nearby!
And then, that mischief of yours on the platform—dipping your hand into the pickle jar, grabbing a fistful of sun-dried, mustard-oil-soaked olives and running off, then coming back and wiping your oil-and-mustard-stained hand on my white handkerchief!
The oil stain still hasn't come out, but you've gone away, Neel!
Remember, when you first saw the shower tree blooming in Jaker sir's garden at the zamindar's house across the way, you said, "You know, this flower is called Cassia javanica." Actually they were shower trees—I didn't correct your mistake that day; I thought, how few people could make such an innocent mistake like you! Even now when you make mistakes, I feel such love, Neel!
Then I feel like writing poetry, bursting into song, composing melodies in your name, spinning around like a water-clock's hand again.
One day you will be mine—mark this down carefully, in some paused moment of life.
One day the javanica will bloom again, perhaps in the wrong garden, but it will bloom!
The ruellia will sing; the door of Santa del Priscilla—mark this down—will open one day.
A home woven in the pages of letter-writing will ring with laughter and song, and the screw pine will sing again in that moonlit garden.
I know, one day you will surely be mine.
Neel,
Something strange has happened to me today! I can't remember you at all—what were your eyes like? Deep black, or brown?
And your hair? Very long, or around your shoulders?
How did you laugh, so carelessly? Your face seems so distant in memory!
As far as I remember, your eyes spoke a lot, I think, as if they could only love.
I asked Pepu, "Hey, do you remember your mother? The one who used to give you pink water to drink every day?
What did mama look like, tell me!"
Little Pepu just stays quiet—I see she's inherited your very nature.
I say, "Fine, you haven't learned to speak yet, but why did you make the girl like that too! Are you going to kill me with this famine of words?"
Say something today, Neel! I'm terribly tired, thirsty! No one has given me water, believe me. When I try to drink from someone else's hand, I feel such disgust.
Call my name today, Neel. It's been so long since anyone called my name. When I hear my name from someone else's mouth, such rebellion stirs in me, Neel! Touch me a little—my heart is burning in the sun and suffering from drought!
Neel, even today you remain the secluded Neelambari of that story.
You know, I sit with you every day in the shade of the aging flame tree, talking so much...it all gets printed on the clouds, but why doesn't it ever fall as rain? Beauty must be very expensive—that's why it doesn't want to appear to worthless people?
Do you remember, I once told you that someday this very person would seem terribly awful to you as a human being?
See, it came true! Neel, you used to love this awful, worthless person! How could you?
Sometimes you don't seem like anyone from this world, as if you're not of this light and air! Who are you, Neel? And me? Who am I? Did you know me?
You know, I feel like García Márquez's José Arcadio Buendía from 'One Hundred Years of Solitude.' No, no, why that! José Arcadio Buendía could at least take Úrsula's hand and travel mile after mile, together they created a village like their dreams, together they named it 'Macondo'! But I don't have you, Neel! We haven't even built a dollhouse together! Like our relationship, we too remained nameless!
Oh, do you remember your García Márquez's famous characters Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza? You know, you seem exactly like Fermina Daza to me; one day when you're mine, I'll feel like Florentino Ariza. Then who is Juvenal Urbino, Neel?
That fortunate man who crossed my destiny line, isn't that right?
Do I seem very cruel to you, Neel?
I should go now—I have to feed Pepu!