The Cascade of Golden Script

Dear Aniruddha,…no no, should I call you Ani instead?
It's been so many years since I've called you by that name.
The word Aniruddha carries such weight, you see...I can no longer bear it!
I long to see you again, Ani, just once more
as my old Ani of before!
What can I do—I'm more at home with the past, you know!
Is that perhaps why you've grown so accustomed to the new?

You know, Ani, that first time we spoke on the phone,
the entire day passed in a daze for me.
How sweet your voice was! Ah, it still rings in my ears!
Yes, it rings still, but now there's less sweetness in it
than the faithful skill of destroying me bit by bit!
The four corners of these closed walls seem to hurl at me
nothing but heaps and heaps of insolent mockery!

I never loved anyone with such complete surrender, Ani,
as I loved you...then why?
Then why didn't you understand me, Ani?
There were no gaps in my love,
so why did you leave me entirely in deception and go away, Ani? Tell me!
Tell me, Ani, what more could you have done to love me
with that same complete surrender?

Ani, do you remember that black sari?
The one you wanted to see me in—for which
you wouldn't have minded traveling a thousand miles!...do you remember, Ani?
And that white shirt? That one…? Have you forgotten that too, Ani?
Well, I suppose you don't wear it anymore? Why would you!
I was the one who loved seeing you in that shirt, not you!

Ani, you know that place under the shiuli tree where we used to sit,
other couples can be seen sitting there now!
Do you remember? Handfuls of tiny shiuli flowers like grains of rice,
jasmine flowers in the waves of my loose hair...do you remember?
And those earrings of mine? Do you remember them?
You haven't kept even those in memory? They weren't even my beloved's,
yet you forgot them so completely, Ani!

Tell me, Ani, have you ever gone back to that street corner with someone else?
With the lamppost as witness, taking shelter by the neon light,
hand in hand, head on your shoulder, gazing at you with unblinking eyes...
have you given this to someone else?
You must have, I know!

You're so busy now selling love!...just as you sold me!
What did you get for it, Ani, selling love? Lots and lots of glass dolls, or wooden flowers?

Ani, when my heart grew heavy, do you remember your restlessness then?
Of course you wouldn't remember—you weren't distressed by my sadness,
but found more joy in the restlessness that my sadness offered!

Everyone else may be strangers, but you could have been close, couldn't you, Ani?
Instead of keeping me hidden, you could have told me
to shine with my own strength!
Tell me, couldn't you have?
No! How could you! If you had, then you couldn't have transformed
from my Ani...into today's Aniruddha!

Tell me, do those who foam at the mouth today
calling you Aniruddha, Aniruddha so many times—
do they know you were once someone's Ani?...
No no, I mean...that you once pretended to be someone's Ani? Do they know, Ani?
Do they know what yearning Ani once had for loving?
Have they ever learned that in becoming Aniruddha from Ani,
you left someone as a beggar on the street
and in return sold your love for a good price—do they know all this, Ani?
No no! Why would they know! This isn't meant to be known! This is mere neglect!

Ani, even now if I called you, would you refuse to answer?
Making excuses about countless calls or exhaustion,
would you avoid me this way still? Tell me, Ani?
Yet how many of my calls were lost so easily
to your phone's supposed illness—do you know this, Ani?
No no! How would you know!...You no longer have time
to distinguish between my heart's language and my pen's language!

You know, Ani, now I no longer write to you,
rather I've learned to write because of you! Do you understand the difference, Ani?
No no! How could you understand! You've simply turned me into poetry
and carefully preserved me! Can poetry ever make you forget!

Still, I couldn't manage to arrange everything precisely
and show you in poetry's form!
So without making poetry, I simply said today:
Stay well, Ani!