Shekhar, I know these words may never truly reach you. But I don't want to grow accustomed to a reality where you don't exist. I can't grow accustomed to it either. At the start of this letter, I've addressed you with just your name. No "dear" or "beloved," nothing like that. Do you know why? Perhaps you don't, and perhaps you wouldn't want to know either. So I'm telling you myself. "Dear," "beloved," "dearest"—these salutations are written in ordinary letters! They're used to address someone on the other side in relationships that follow very normal patterns. Can you tell me what normalcy I should look for you in? Our relationship, our friendship—it's no longer a normal occurrence compared to other normal events, but merely an extraordinary wonder. But you know what? I still live in far greater peace and comfort with your extraordinary companionship than with any normal companionship of today. Can you understand this, Shekhar? I know you can. Because no one in this world has ever understood me better than you have, not until now. I understand this. Both that strength and faith remain unshaken in me toward you. There I need neither explanation nor reasoning. This is perhaps what we call faith. This is perhaps what we call trust. And it's never one-sided. This place was created because of you. Only you! Why did you understand me so much? Why did you love me so much? How did you make me the most important person? Tell me... how? And when you had made me so completely your own, why did you leave me forever like this? Didn't it occur to you even once that if you left, how would your Charu survive? Who else would understand her so much? Guard her so protectively? How could you, Shekhar? How? You know, I wish you on every birthday? I cut cake for you. I call Ranga. Ranga can't say anything! She just cries. She calls me on my birthday too, remembering. Just eleven days ago! How strange, look, if you were here today my birthday would have been so many times more joyful, today because you're not here it's many times more dim than that. I don't like searching for you in the skies anymore, Shekhar. Couldn't you somehow return to me? If you had stayed away angry, then perhaps, sometimes, I would have tried to persuade you. But in what state have you left me by going away? No matter how much I cry, you'll never know how much pain your absence causes me! I can't even save your number in my phonebook under your name! So I've saved Ranga's number under your name, so that even in a momentary lie it feels like your call has come! I can never send you a message even if I want to. I can't tell you anything! So many words, so many grievances, so many arguments left unfinished, Shekhar! Do you know how many of your birthdays have passed without you? For so many years I couldn't even say "Happy Birthday!" to you! Looking at the sky, I've cut and eaten the cakes I brought for you myself. I call Ranga to ask if she's cooked payesh. Ranga always cooks it, never forgets once. She keeps a bowl of payesh in front of your photo for a while, then eats it herself. Maybe you didn't understand my pain, but didn't you understand mother's pain either, Shekhar? You loved eating sorshey ilish, remember? I love eating it too. You know, uncle doesn't allow sorshey ilish to be cooked in your house anymore. I might tell someone now, thinking of them, that they are my everything. The person I think of might understand or might not. And you are that person in my life whose everything was just me. But how strange, look Shekhar, I could never give you such a confession! How could I? You never gave me that chance! Finding someone in this world isn't very difficult, you know, someone I can say is my everything! But it's much more difficult to find someone whose everything I am, entirely me. And I'm so unfortunate that without even wanting, having found such a person, I lost him before I could want him and am left completely destitute! Why did you leave me to live so helplessly? Why didn't you take me with you? And if you did leave me, why didn't you leave me an address, Shekhar? Tell me, to what address should I send this letter I've written for you now? Tell me...! You know, whenever someone hurts me, I always come and fight with you. I blame you. If you were here, they could never have done such things today. They couldn't have hurt me at all! Today you're not here. Do you know how many people make your Charu cry in so many ways? If you were here, you would have raised hell, I know. You could never bear my pain or tears. After keeping me so tenderly protected, why did you finally leave me so carelessly neglected with the selfish and complicated people of this world? Why Shekhar? Why? I now take care of Ranga and uncle daily from my own responsibility and love. I check if they're well. Whenever I get a chance, I go to the house. I stand in front of your photo for a while and come away. I love your photo so much! I love standing before it and looking at you. Sometimes I go to your house just to stand there for some time. You probably don't know any of this. The one for whom everything exists is never asked how he is! This is destiny, isn't it? Yes, destiny indeed! But how can I forget everything citing destiny? Shekhar, there's an unmade household of mine lying in that house. And I love that household so very much. Do you know why? Because you used to love me more than yourself! Won't you come back, Shekhar? Come back, please? I don't want anything else. Without you I'm so helpless. Why don't you understand, Shekhar? The people of this world are very different, I can't keep up the act of adjusting with them anymore. I'm very tired. It hurts a lot now. Throwing dust in the eyes of all reality, can't you return to me, Shekhar? Everyone is here, yet in your absence I'm very alone, Shekhar! Very alone! I can't write to you properly. So many words have accumulated! Can all words ever be said? How are you? Where are you? What are you doing? When will you come? How will I live without you? When will you come?—you are far, far beyond these conventional questions for me!... quite beyond touch! Still I drift in imagination just to be able to touch you. Could you leave me alone like this? Everyone says that someday a prince will come and take me away, and love me so much that he'll make me forget all sorrows and keep me as a queen. But my prince left my palace empty before coming and went away. Even now when I'm angry with someone, all my anger falls on you and God, meaning my best friend—though I've lost him too today! Whenever someone hurts me, I think, if you were here today, no one could have done this to me! You know, how many years have passed without you? Have you kept track at all? Well, do you still give me the same highest priority? Do you still feel nothing is good without me? Do you still do that... for me? I know the time spent with you was so little, in others' eyes it might be nothing, but to me it's completely my own, my heart's treasure!... I could never think of you as anything but completely mine! I know you were that person over whom I alone had rights. That's why I feel you left me so alone so quickly. If you had stayed, perhaps my whole life would have changed, everything would have been different. I can't save a number under your name on my phone, it hurts too much. I can't call you, I can't send you messages, I can't cook for you, I can't wait for you anywhere, I can't keep looking down the road hoping you'll come. Even the canvas of memory is so blurred that I can't remember everything anymore. Why did you leave making me so helpless? You know, just so your number would be on my phone, I've saved Ranga's number under your name. I can't celebrate your birthday like everyone else, I call Ranga on that day. Ranga just cries. But this time I did celebrate, you know! Of course I had to cut and eat the cake myself. And looking at the sky I thought, maybe you'll defeat all reality and come to see me! Won't you come to me once? So many years' worth of words remain... so many things I still haven't told you! Why did you leave so carelessly? And if you had to leave, why did you come? You know, I ask about Ranga every day. I ask about uncle too. We're all here, only you're not. There's an unmade household of mine lying in that house... What I've written and sent, to what address will I post it? Tell me? There's no address. There's no reply to any letter, yet it doesn't pain me at all to write letters for you, I don't get annoyed. So many words accumulate, nothing gets said to you! You know, I regularly keep track of that unmade household of mine lying in that house! I call Ranga, I check if uncle's health is alright. Without saying anything, what a great responsibility you've left me with! Do you remember your grandmother? When I last went to your grandfather's house, Ranga took me where you were. I just wanted to touch the place and feel you. You're completely my own person!
I had so much to tell you, but I couldn’t say anything at all! You didn’t give me any time! Why did you come to me for such a brief moment? Why? You know there will never be another person like you in my life, don’t you? Tell me, who will care for me the way you did?
You know I’m studying medicine. Sometimes I want to become an oncologist. I think I’ll throw myself into the fight so that terrible culprit called cancer can never again steal away someone’s beloved. You loved eating hilsa with mustard so much, and I love it too. You know, after you left, Uncle still hasn’t allowed hilsa fish into the house—he simply won’t eat it. Can you understand their pain? Maybe you don’t understand my pain, but don’t you understand theirs either?
Ranga still makes rice pudding on each of your birthdays. I ask too, “Ranga, didn’t you make pudding?” Either Ranga cries, or tells me, “Don’t cry, Ma,” or just stays silent. When I go home and look at your photograph, I wonder how you would look if you were alive today, what you would do with me, how happy we might have been together… Even when I got angry and said whatever came to mind, you would always calmly set things right between us, and sometimes you’d get angry too, waiting for me to make up. Even someone no one wants in this world has their own person. This also happens—there are people whom others want, yet they lose the very one they want. Then they can’t want anyone else; their heart won’t allow it.
Why did you snatch away the place for all my demands, sulks, and complaints like this? You left me this way, never once thinking how I would live without you after you were gone. Why didn’t you fight a little harder with those who came to take you away and stay for my sake? Tell me how I’m supposed to bear all this pain! Today is New Year 1427, you know… how many New Years have passed without you… I wished so many people “Happy New Year” today! Only to you I couldn’t say anything! What address should I send it to, tell me?
Shekhar, my mind doesn’t work anymore. I write nonsense, keep writing the same things over and over. The one I write so much to never gets to know anything. You left empty-handed, leaving everything only to me. You are the first loss in my life, the most priceless gift! You’re the only person whose entire world was just me. Your absence will never be filled. No one has ever cared for me like this. And no one ever could. It takes love—so much love—to care for someone like this. From the day I understood this, I’ve missed you even more. You don’t get someone like this twice in life—at least my life has remained that way. You remain my first and only home even today!
It’s truly difficult to find someone about whom you can say without hesitation that they are your everything, or something like that. It’s even harder to find someone who makes you their entire life for no reason at all! You were such a person for me. The greatest pain is that you left in such a way that there’s no path back.
Let me tell you, I met someone else later who knows how to care for me deeply. I watch and am amazed sometimes. No, I don’t have that kind of relationship with him, I don’t want to! He knows and understands my reluctance. Still, without expecting anything, he loves me tremendously… there’s no urgency in him to come to me, only the urgency to love me. He knows how to care for me very, very, very tenderly. Sometimes I find you in him. I’m amazed and thank God.
Yours always—
Charu