# The Green Box: Heart's Ledger / 7 The rain has stopped. The smell of wet earth—that ancient, honest smell—rises from the garden. I stand by the window and watch the dripping leaves catch what little light remains of the day. There is something cleansing about rain, something that makes you feel the world has been washed of its smaller sins. I think of your letter again. It arrived three days ago, and I have read it so many times the paper has begun to soften at the creases. You wrote about the monsoon where you are, how it transforms the rice fields into mirrors. You wrote about standing alone on the veranda in the evening, listening to the water strike the tin roof. A simple thing, you said. But I understand—it is in these small, solitary moments that the heart speaks most clearly. My mother asked me yesterday why I seem distracted. I told her nothing. What could I say? That I am inhabited by someone else's words? That I carry your voice with me through ordinary days—in the morning when I pour tea, in the afternoon when I sit with my books, at night when sleep comes slowly? The green box sits on my shelf still. Sometimes I take it down and simply hold it, as if the weight of it might tell me something I need to know. Inside, your words wait like pressed flowers—fragile, precious, real in a way that the present moment often is not. I have begun to write you a reply. But the words are difficult. How do you tell someone that you have become a different person since they entered your life? How do you explain that even this—the rain, the wet earth, the fading light—feels less real than your absence? Perhaps I will simply tell you the truth.

The world’s enchantment,
Life’s enchantment, the enchantment of ‘enchantment’ itself—-

I know it all,
Only life’s shadow!

One day we must abandon all this
And journey to that unknown land,

With empty hands,
In destitute form,

To that strange country
From which no one returns.

So I shall raise my children thus—

That they may live well enough
Without us.

In nobility,
In fame and splendor, the human heart
Only perishes,

Let them learn to live
By fighting in battle!

Not riding a diamond-studded boat
With leisure oars in hand,

Mere trivial
Indulgences alone………..

Let them now learn to swim
Without oars,

Let them master
The turbulent sea!

Let life be hard
And steadfast,

Let truth come,
Let goodness come.

How sweet it sounds
To read! Listen here, my dear! You write quite well! But tell me yourself—how can I forget you? Why doesn’t the market sell a medicine for forgetting someone? If such a thing were invented,
scientists and doctors wouldn’t be able
to keep up with the supply! Truly, I need a medicine like that—
one that, if I took it, would let me
forget you. Not just me—everyone needs it.
Even you, for that matter. I see
you still cannot forget that century! Odd creature, this male species! It’s the most irritating, strangest species on earth. You men, when the one you love is beside you, you neglect her so thoroughly that you poison her entire existence, and when she leaves you,
you miss her so much that you yourself
dissolve into the ground! Listen, will you show me
that century once? You know how badly I wish to see her! From the very first day you answered the phone, you spoke of her for a while, and when we met,
you spoke of her still; I often see how carelessly, openly, without hesitation you still remember her,
and it makes me so jealous! Why did she
leave you like that? I know your neglect of her was not lacking, and yet……..Ah! If God had only given me
a birth in that century’s form! But, of course, not every form suits everyone. Who is this spirit that is that century? If only I could catch a glimpse of her!

So tell me, how do you know women so well? Through novels, books, movies, stories?
Or is it from loving? From chatting? Weren’t you the celibate type back in college days?
Then how do you understand all this?
Women themselves don’t even know
they’re like this! But you, sir—
how did you learn it, figure it out, come to know it? Have you become omniscient or something? I’ve never seen such divine power in anyone. Are you truly some great soul then? You’re certainly the dream man, the love man, the beloved man for quite a few women now—call it what you will! Don’t write like this, please! It breaks the heart, and I don’t know what happens then!
All the body’s reactions just stop in a single moment! And stop driving everyone mad.
You understand, don’t you, that I can’t open my mouth to say anything, can’t make you hear, can’t explain. You won’t even listen to me—what can I do?
I can’t be like everyone else.
Didn’t you realize I’m just a useless pestle, grinding away at nothing?
But believe me,
I am truly devoted beyond measure.
If you’d only give me a place at your feet, I’d be overjoyed! I’d never lift my eyes to look if you didn’t permit it! I’m probably not even worthy of that place, I know. Where do I keep you, tell me? And where can I place you so I don’t have to live scrambling and searching? What will it take to escape this suffocating life? Is life’s meaning only to succeed? Success first,
then regret-free living?
Or is it regret-free living first, then success? Does my regret work against you then?
No, no, never! Not at all, not in the least! I don’t want to make you my regret. You are my joy, you are the joy within my pain. Even loving you so much,
I am at peace. Because stopping this love is impossible. What loss is there if I didn’t get you?
It feels good to love.
You’re not near, not beside me,
not anywhere close, and yet you’re so near, so impossibly near that even if I went blind I could still see you! No problem at all. I can see with my eyes open, and I can see with my eyes closed too, and most nights I see you in my dreams. You are my innermost self. You are another name for my heart. And yet,
you don’t know a thing,
don’t understand anything, don’t even like me. Don’t put me in that category.
What is this called? Forbidden love?
Why am I babbling like this,
talking such nonsense?
Can love even be forbidden? Love might not be, but devotion?
That’s a sacred feeling!

What’s happened to me lately, do you know? The moment I see you, my chest twists—wrings itself like a wet cloth! Like gastric pain. Or is it my heart? There was this uncle of mine who’d get terrible chest pains. The doctors would just say it was gastric trouble. He’d swallow high-power antacid tablets, one after another, trying to dull the ache. Two years barely passed before he had a heart attack and was gone. Later we learned he’d had heart problems all along—for years, maybe. The doctors never caught it. The pain in his chest wasn’t from gastric issues at all; it was his heart screaming. What if something like that happens to me? When I see your eyes, that smile of yours, I feel so helpless I can’t bear to look for long. But I can’t not look either. If it stays this way, I’ll die! Why do we hang photographs of the dead on our walls? Because we loved them so deeply, of course. We keep their pictures to hold onto the memory, we garland them with flowers. But we can’t look at them every day with full attention, or rather, we deliberately don’t—the pain becomes too much. We feel their absence so brutally. So the frame stays on the wall, and slowly, slowly, the memory fades from the mind. Seeing you hurts. Hurts so very much. I kiss your photographs countless times. I zoom in, enlarge them, and kiss them like a madwoman—your cheeks, your lips, your forehead, your eyes. I become absolutely desperate then! That’s why I look at your pictures sparingly. I want to look longer, but looking too long becomes an addiction! The truth is—this is the truth—I want to live with this addiction. But if I do, I’ll surely die. If I reduce the time I spend looking at you because it causes pain, then I’ll go mad, that’s certain. I can’t bear not to see you, that much is true. But the habit of seeing you for only small snatches of time—that’s even more terrible! I won’t let that happen. There’s no cure for this pain. How helpless I am! Could a girl like me love someone and become this helpless? I don’t know if the heroines in your posts are real or imagined, but I’m sadder than them, more helpless, more destitute. They at least had something and lost it, were betrayed. But me? I can’t even blame anyone, can’t lay the fault at anyone’s door—I don’t even have that small comfort. Is losing what you’ve had the same as the sorrow of never having it at all? No. Never the same. Traitors fade from the heart eventually, because we ourselves cast them away. But what if the unattainable, the rare, what if something that never existed at all—what if that scatters itself across your entire life? How am I supposed to live then, can you tell me? What else can I write to you to find even a moment’s peace? How much more must I love before I’m exhausted, tell me that! I beg you! (30-03-2016. 5:01 AM)

Dear Writer,

I’ve read through all your work, and I’ve never once seen you portray a woman as a deceiver. Why is that? In the public eye, you’ve chosen to expose only the true nature of men. This may well have earned you the affection of women, but men—they see right through it. They recognize the deceivers among women. Is it to attract women that you paint men as such villains? Women read your words and think: *Oh, such men exist!* What remarkable thoughts, what wisdom! What a noble heart this man possesses! What fortunate woman gets to call him her own? Here is a man who, despite being male, reveals the authentic face of his own kind! You’ve become the crush of the lover-species. (By the way, why doesn’t the lover-species have a proper scientific name?) And yet—here’s the thing—writers are, without exception, members of the male species. They write things they don’t even believe in themselves. And everyone else follows them blindly! Some even treat writers like spiritual masters—*pirs*. And you can’t hurt a *pir*. If you do, the disciples—I mean, the readers—suffer. But that’s not really the point, my friend. The point is this: every writer has their own style, and a single writer can produce vastly different kinds of work while holding the same core beliefs. Because when thought originates around a single idea, it spawns countless narratives. And from those narratives, writing is born. And from writing, the writer emerges, and with him, the reader. Does a writer cease to be a writer if no one has ever read their work? It’s worth pondering, certainly! There’s a curious question in philosophy: a tree falls in the forest where no one hears it. Does that mean it never fell? If I say it did fall, then I must have known about it somehow. But if I didn’t know, how would the thought of it ever enter my mind? Does this mean that whatever escapes our notice simply doesn’t exist? Yet aliens could exist somewhere in this vast universe, couldn’t they? Nothing can be dismissed outright. Back to what I was saying: someone writes something brilliant, yet no one reads it. Does that mean the writing has no existence? And by that logic, the writer has no existence either? And here I am, loving you in the strangest, most overwhelming way, and you don’t even know it—does that diminish my love, or make me any less real?

But that’s not quite it either. What I’ve said so far is mostly preamble. The real matter lies elsewhere. You see, when the same thought spawns countless pieces of writing or stories—whatever you want to call them—it all comes from the mind, doesn’t it? A writer follows more or less the same style that belongs to them; they maintain it. So isn’t that also a kind of habit? Everyone continues writing while maintaining this habit, as far as I can tell. Then why doesn’t this habit translate into reality? Is it only because they’re writing for readers? Are the thoughts a writer holds and the thoughts they wish to impart to their readers two different things? If thousands upon thousands of pieces can be produced within the same style or around the same subject, then surely that falls within a writer’s principles or rules. But what’s the use of knowing that in reality? “I’m a writer; my thoughts are spent on pleasing my readers. That doesn’t mean I have to prove it through my personal life as well! If everyone wants to see me as a sage, that’s their problem, not mine.” Fine, okay. But isn’t that hypocrisy? I know everything, I write about it, I understand it, and I please my readers. Because writers know what readers want. Yet that same writer, outside of writing, is just another man, a man from another world entirely—meaning, in reality, he’s like everyone else. And yet with a head full of beautiful thoughts, he writes in a way that scrambles other people’s minds, robbing everyone of their sleep with these beautiful notions. In reality, he’s crude. This business of blending beautiful thoughts for others and presenting something beautiful—they don’t even believe in it themselves. Isn’t that fraud? I write what I think, but in reality, I’m the opposite. I’m like a mirror. One side is real, the other side is reflection—inverted. One surface is smooth, the other is coated; you wouldn’t be able to tell from the front. Writers too move about wearing a coating or a veil. People with beautiful thoughts, sure, more or less all of them have it, yet none of them practice it. Perhaps it’s possible they write for joy—their own, their readers’. Even if we see the writer in the role of truth-seer, we might still perceive the person in another light. Perhaps if the writer’s personal self—just as it is—isn’t allowed to remain itself, then they can’t write anymore. And that would damage the reader. If you break the creator, the creation shatters to pieces! And surely writers are a different species of creature than us. I mean, what they’re like, we don’t even know. How they write through some kind of magic—we don’t know that either. It could be that if a writer isn’t allowed to be in their personal life as they are, they’ll lose that very magic, meaning they won’t be able to write at all. Isn’t that murder? Why do we readers want writers to be the way we’d like them? If their writing has already pleased us, shouldn’t we be satisfied with just that? If the one whose creation accompanies my joy and sorrow—why must I wound them? Isn’t this simultaneously ingratitude and betrayal?

This is perhaps the first time
I’ve written something contentious, haven’t I? Or has some rebellion begun in the kingdom of my unconscious? I’m determined to wrench you out of my heart—by struggling, by rage, by stubbornness, by sheer force. Is that what’s coming? I filled three pages of this diary with considerable bitterness, yet I held myself back from going too far, because that would only hurt me. Whatever you are, I cannot live without you. You are my reason for living, my excuse for dying. To write such poison about you is nothing but contradiction, pure and simple. Why these thoughts came to me, I don’t know. Whether I’ve spoken truth or falsehood, I can’t say. And yet I want terribly to scold you. Again and again I wonder—why am I becoming venerable in women’s eyes through all this writing? And then sometimes it strikes me—if you hadn’t told me things, I wouldn’t have understood so much. Do women ever understand themselves without help? The truth is, not everything in the world can be explained away. Least of all you, because as you yourself have said, women who love someone refuse to see—or refuse to want to see—any flaw or failing in them. They willingly grant bail to the accused again and again, just to keep themselves content. So why should I trudge about in some other grammar?

Forgive me.
I’m truly amazed at myself! How could I speak to you like that! Don’t I love you?
It’s for you that I’ve hunted down my old habit of reading books, for you that I’ve filled this house buying books. It’s for you that I remember to thank God for my time here. It’s for you that I’ve learned to bear hearing things without speaking back. It’s for you that I’ve learned to bear suffering.
I hide everything from you, yet the pain finds me all the same. There’s so much more! And here I am—the very same person—speaking to you with sarcasm and argument? Go ahead and slap my face hard! You did well not to answer me. If you had, I’d have hurled questions at you, flung accusations, argued endlessly for no reason at all!

Listen here,
when all is said and done,
I love you. This diary is almost finished. How much more can I write? All right then, go. As long as I’m alone, I’ll keep on writing. In the last two months I’ve written eighteen letters. Look at the state of me! Whatever you do, whatever you write, I love you, I love you, love you, will love you. (31-03-2016. 3:10 AM)

[I like writing down the date. Though sometimes I don’t. If I like it, I’ll write it. If not, I won’t.]

From yesterday

How many times have I cried—for reasons, for no reasons at all—that if I’d collected those tears, they’d have made a small pond! What an extraordinary person you are! Now and then you do something so unexpected that I find myself spending whole days in anticipation of just that. Yesterday, when you called me back—before I’d rung you, I checked my balance and saw I had ten rupees. I thought I’d recharge and then call. But I’m terribly lazy. Even with a card in my bag, I can’t be bothered to recharge. I’m the same way about certain things as you are—indifferent. The biggest thing we have in common is that neither of us can stay in touch. You’re a hero, so you don’t have time to respond to everyone, and here I am, nobody special, yet I don’t even reply to the handful of people I know. Everyone thinks I’m full of airs, but the truth is, I simply don’t remember to call or text. The point is, I don’t feel like it. I have no desire. So what am I supposed to do if I don’t feel like calling? It’s the same with you, I suppose. God! What was I trying to say, and what am I saying now! Anyway, back to what I was saying. I’d thought of recharging but didn’t. The reason? With ten rupees, I’d get far more than ten minutes of talk time. And the person—who never remembers me, or perhaps doesn’t remember me at all—why would they talk for ten whole minutes? Whether they’d even pick up is questionable! And by God’s grace, they spend all twenty-four hours waiting anyway! Yet in this senseless life of mine, whenever something miraculous happens—and it does happen—I owe endless, countless thanks to two people. One is you, and the other is my God.

He called me himself—
talked for eleven whole minutes! What a strange surprise! And here I was, terrified to even hope for ten minutes on my ten takas, and he went and gave me eleven minutes as a gift! Is this anything but God’s grace? I know it will seem childish to you. But you’re the one who taught me that not everything in life runs on logic and reason, that you can live just fine thumbing your nose at all sense if you’ve got feeling and love to keep you company. That’s how I’ve survived. But since yesterday, ever since then, it feels like I’ve started living differently! In some impossible, uncertain, unreal state of doubt and confusion, I’m still passing the time. I can’t tell if this is happiness or torment. You’re the one who understands everything, supposedly. So you must have the capacity to understand at least this much! What did you understand? Tell me! Why did I come to you?………….

Just now I wrote something and crossed it out savagely—the same thing I then turned the diary upside down to write on the back in reverse, so it could never be read again. Do you know what was there? After fighting against every reluctance inside myself a thousand times over, I’m telling you anyway, listen………I wrote something just like that, without thinking—understand? The moment I finished writing, my chest seized up! My breath stopped, like it was trapped! If you actually figured out what it was, how could I ever face you again? Your calls—I couldn’t possibly answer them anymore. I was so terrified writing those words! I’ve never even had the courage to ask you what you think of me! Since yesterday, my chest has been churning. “Does he understand? Does he know everything? Yes, he must! No, no, why would he? How could he? I haven’t done anything! I keep myself hidden as much as I can! I never tell him anything, never let him know about my feelings. Only when I absolutely can’t hold it in do I knock. But there’s nothing to understand from that! The kind of person he is, even if he did understand these things, he’d never indulge them. He’d probably just stop talking to me instead! That’s why I keep myself hidden from him and love him comfortably in secret. But yesterday……?”

Yesterday came and, rivaling nature itself, stirred up storm after storm in my life before it left. What kind of thing is this? I knew it already, I understood it—that’s fine. But what do you know, what do you think, why do you think it, are you even thinking the right thing, or something else entirely—these thoughts are wearing me down, bit by bit. Over and over I try to convince myself: what does it matter what he thinks, or doesn’t think? What good is understanding if he won’t even acknowledge it? Forget about compassion and indulgence! Better he just goes on being himself. But my heart is so uncouth, so shameless, so crude and base that it’s being crushed beneath your tears, my tears. Oh, if only I could whip my heart into shape with reason the way you’d whip a horse! What’s the point of all this gnawing away? Understand what you will—no problem. Every single day thousands of heroines understand him. Fine, I understand that too. But why did he have to tell me that he knows I understand his every gesture, his mood? Two or three words from him and my breath stops cold!

Did you really see it in me—that I love you? But what in my manner gave you that impression? Or are you thinking of something else entirely, and I’m just spinning my own fantasies, believing what I want to believe? Better if you were thinking of something else. I don’t need to know my own heart laid bare. Don’t understand me. Please, don’t let me know that you know what lives inside me. I’ll run—far, so very far—if you do. Who else will I talk to without you? Whose face will I wrap my dreams around? With whom will I share everything? Who do I have but you?

Please, just keep pretending you understand nothing of what I feel. I won’t survive otherwise. I’m half-dead as it is. At least I can console myself with this much: that I never spoke it aloud, never let the words escape, so how could you possibly know? I could bear anything—anything—but not your outright rejection. Never that! It still hurts so much! I could wound myself with my own hands. I want to take a knife and cut right through my chest. I can’t do this anymore. Why didn’t I understand sooner that love is such a terrible, wretched thing? And when I finally did understand, why did it have to be through loving *you*? A robot with no feelings at all? Are there no other people in this world? How could I fall in love with someone for whom countless women are mad? When I see comments from certain accounts, I think: I should poison myself. Better to die than read those things. Where do they get so much passion, so much love, so much feeling from? I want to grab those shameless girls and shake them till their teeth rattle. Fire should shoot from my eyes! I want to set myself ablaze! I’m such a fool—lusting after what everyone lusts after. Chasing after public property like some deranged thing! Oh God! Why did you give me something I never asked for? I can’t hold it. I can’t let it go. I can’t forget it. I can’t walk away from it. I’m in such a state that I can’t even scream in the privacy of my own mind, can’t say that he’s only mine—when I know, I know so well, that he was never mine at all. So why can’t I bear it when I see someone else with him? On what right do I suffer? It’s absolutely, utterly absurd!

Why have you left me like this, begging and broken? Where am I to go? There’s no space for me anywhere. Night after night I lie awake, clutching at lies and worries in my chest. As if I’m trapped inside some terrible claw! Everyone watches hungrily for that claw to strike, yet I am not its prey—and yet I am drenched, I am consumed by the heat and force of whoever owns that claw! I feel myself lower than ash, lower than refuse. If only I could hate that person even a little! But I’m only furious with myself. Why did I love him? Why? Why? Why? How could I be such a fool? There were people enough for me, celebrities no less devoted than he, so why did I fall this way for him? And those who loved me—is it their curse that’s brought me to this? What am I to do? How can I find even a moment’s peace? Where are you? Where? Where? Why do you sit like this in my chest? Come out, just for a moment! I can’t bear it anymore, I can’t carry this unbearable weight! I never asked for the flower of love, but why this stone pressing down on me? I cannot breathe! All this emotion, this pain, this wounded pride—I cannot hold it anymore. You make me cry for reason and without reason! How wicked you are! How much longer must I burn? Must I be consumed? I will truly die! I asked you to come to the Barunee fair tomorrow, and what did you say to me? Never mind—don’t come. I will lay down my life there, one day. So it’s better you don’t go. How many days more can I endure this suffering? I don’t know. I’m either hardening as I waste away, or dissolving entirely—I can’t tell. But please, don’t try to understand anything. What I could never accept, you must never understand. And even if you do understand, pretend you don’t.

I cannot bear even a harsh word said about you. I’ve been silent all this time—how much longer? That day brought such pain, and today brings more. Why does everyone speak like this about you? Why about you? You—why you? I cannot take even one crude remark about you. Today, when I read such filthy comments about Mother and Father, the pain was so sharp I cried like a child. Believe me, I felt as though I should have died before ever reading those words. How could they say such vile things about Mother? The world is so full of wicked people! Facebook shouldn’t be free. It’s run by cattle and donkeys of the world. It needs a fence! True! All those ignorant fools and charlatans! To me, everything in the world is a lie, and only my Mother is truth. So when I read those words, it felt as if someone were lashing you with a whip—crack, crack—and every blow landed on me instead. I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted to run to you and hold you close in my arms so that no blow could touch you, so that not a speck of dirt could soil you, so that not a single creature of this world could lay a finger on you! Believe me, I’m not lying—not a word. If any of this is false, then let me die. I love only you, and so I cannot bear any wound to that love. I’m so helpless—I can do nothing but cry.

I am nothing but a weed.
Yet somehow I dared to love you. I couldn’t help it—couldn’t hold myself back, not for a moment. How long I have been paying the price for this mistake, I do not know. How much longer I must go on paying, that too I do not know.
You want to know what amazes me most? Now something—a small light—keeps forcing its way out from within me, insisting on being seen. That light looks like hope…………I know it’s a mirage, a lie,
yet why does it keep offering me hope? I am grasping at something! Searching for only you. And yet this shouldn’t be happening at all. Why is it? If only someone could explain! You yourself explained that all hope concerning you is merely wishful thinking, and yet why do I keep searching for hope? Why am I this mad, writing without cease, why do I ache for you in every single moment? You are the rarest thing that has ever entered my life. Even having so much, I don’t have you—you aren’t there, nowhere at all…………If I were to tear open my chest, I would find only you, in this………..in this diary I find you, in my books I find you, in the photographs on my ID I find you. Where else can I find you? Actually, I should ask—where won’t I find you? You are fixed in my eyes for lifetimes without end! Across the whole expanse of my existence, you have made your home. I truly love you. Learning to love you, I am amazed—amazed that I am capable of loving this much!

Today I don’t want to think about anything.
But my head is spinning. All my thoughts, my body lies still beneath the open sky. Standing over it, the sun beats down relentlessly. You left me for somewhere, taking with you all my hopes, my love, and my dreams, while leaving behind painful memories that will chase me all my life! Without you I shall always remain incomplete, for my heart held only you—you were there, you are here, you will remain. I know you will never search for me. Sometimes I feel like telling you—come, let us disappear! We shall go far away together, somewhere no one will ever find us. We’ll have a small world of our own, built on our love. Days will pass in such joy. But fleeing would cause mother such pain. She carried me in her womb through such suffering, raised me with such care. My love is perhaps not yet complete, not yet mature—that’s why, I understand, I cannot keep you near, why I lose you. One parched afternoon or in the falling dusk, you will search for me, you’ll see! I will have dissolved into the scent of morning air—search carefully, you will surely find me. Only you will hear the sound of my hidden tears that day, no one else. But don’t leave your path even then, live as someone successful, accomplished, good. Yet I want to believe that without my existence you can never become a whole person. Don’t hide from yourself the way I do—live with your head held high, not just before society, but before yourself too.
It is easy to hold your head high before society, but it is not easy to hold your head high before the mirror of your own conscience—not everyone can do that. When someone’s living or dying depends on another, then living is not easy for them. They live in imagination, or else they die while living in reality. There is no other option.

With such care,
with such tenderness I will keep you
all my life. You are that doll from my childhood, the one I used to clutch to myself all day long. I lavished such affection on that doll, even though I knew—knew for certain—that it would never love me back. And yet I loved it. You are that love of mine, the thought of which makes me forget all my sorrows and sufferings. Why I love you so much, I honestly don’t know. Listen, let me tell you something amusing today. It was five years ago. I had just passed my SSC exams. My little sister always wanted to play with me. I had two conditions—we would play cricket, and I would bat first. When I hit a six, I’d send her to fetch the ball. She’d ask me to play gently, but I wouldn’t listen. I’d threaten her, saying I wouldn’t play if she didn’t bring the ball back. When she went to retrieve it after a four, I’d sneak in two more runs. So the four became a six. She was a bit simple, you know. Never complained. That’s how I’d build my mountains of runs. Then when it came to her turn to bat, if she hit the ball far, I’d make her fetch it herself. She’d protest: “Why are the rules different for me in the same game?” I’d laugh and say, “That’s how you have to play. Otherwise I won’t play.” And she’d just continue without another word. When she hit a four, it stayed a four. When I hit a four, it became at least a six! You are like a goddess to me, someone I could offer everything of myself to. That’s why, in this game of love, even knowing you don’t love me back, I love you selflessly—out of fear that if you won’t play, then what? I’ve decided that one night I’ll come to you. It will be a moonless night. I’ll surrender myself to the darkness. That night will be our first and last night of drawing close. Very close—so close that two people’s breaths become one. Everything will happen, but we won’t see each other, no one else will know, not even I will know myself. I want the happiness that isn’t meant to last in my life, the happiness I crave with all my heart, to not come in the light of day but in the darkness of night. I will absorb that happiness into my life through an endless journey through darkness. I don’t want to become greedy, picking up that happiness in daylight. Let that happiness of the night lose its way in the night’s darkness.

Day by day, my longing for you only grows—and with it, my suffering. I wish I could leave you behind and forget you entirely. But when I see, or hear, or read in your writing that someone loves you the way I do, I find myself seized by a rage I cannot explain. When you write about a woman’s heart, a woman drowning in love for someone who doesn’t love her back, I begin to think: these are my words you’re writing. How do you know? How could you possibly know?

You’re a fine writer. I’m proud of you. I want you to be well, to eat properly, to take care of yourself. If I ask how you are, just reply in a word or two. (Like this: if I ask, are you well? just write—yes/no. That’s all I need.)

If the person I love isn’t well, shouldn’t I have the right to offer a prayer for them? I know I won’t have you, but doesn’t love itself give me the right to pray for you? Please, I’m begging you—let me check on you. I’ll wait for your reply. I won’t ask to hear your voice, but give me something small—some feeling, even if it’s a lie. If you’re well, I’ll be well. If you take care of yourself, then I’ll know I’m taken care of. (I know you don’t care about such things, but still! I want to be well too, don’t I? What else can I do? I’m only human!)

I write all this knowing—perhaps it will never reach you at all. If I die, you’ll never know. The day I die, one day will pass, then two, then three, then four… I won’t text you, I won’t write thinking of you, no call from my number will come to your phone, and you’ll forget me easily enough. Maybe my family will keep my SIM active for a few days to notify everyone of my death, and if you happen to call by mistake, you’ll learn then: your Mohua is gone. (Don’t be angry that I wrote “your”—what can I do if my heart wants to write it!) The truth is simpler: you won’t call. Days will stretch into weeks. Then one day, unbidden, it might flash across your mind—didn’t someone call me once, whispering love, love, love into my ear? Where did she go? Why doesn’t she call anymore? Maybe then you’ll try to reach me. But by then there’ll be no point keeping my SIM on; everyone will have heard the news of my death. You’ll see my phone dark and feel nothing. You’ll turn your attention back to your own life, your own rhythm. You’ll never know that the girl who babbled love, love, love—that God has stolen away all her power to babble, forever.

Hey, how are you? You’re doing okay, right? Haven’t you put on a little weight? You’re dieting properly, aren’t you? You know, I’ve become such a good girl now! I don’t mess around anymore, don’t drive you crazy like I used to. You told me not to call or text, so I don’t. I listen to everything you say like I’m Lakshmi herself, dutiful and obedient. But there’s one thing I want to know—are you really okay?

My little treasure! My precious boy! I love you so much, you know! Don’t you know that? Can’t you feel the language of my heart? You do understand it, don’t you!

Then why do you hurt me like this? It makes you happy, doesn’t it—watching me suffer? I can see it. You know, one day—suddenly—not a single text from my phone will reach yours. Nobody will call you. Nobody will bother you asking what you like, whether you’re eating properly, if you had lunch—nothing. Nobody will ask you anything at all! You’ll be so relieved then, won’t you? It’ll be wonderful! So much freedom! I guess I’m too much for you, aren’t I? Forgive me. What else can I do? Tell me. I just can’t live without you! Falling in love means losing all your dignity. I didn’t understand that before. Without you, everything goes dark for me. You avoid me so much, you curse at me terribly, and still I follow you around like a dog. Why do I do it? I don’t even know! Do you understand, darling? Love makes a person as helpless as an animal. How are you, really? Tell me, please!

# Love Letter

Listen, darling—

I dream of you. Beautiful dreams, the kind that bloom like flowers in the dark. And when I’m dreaming, it feels as though I’ve stepped right into the dream itself! Remember that day I told you I have my own world? A world entirely my own?

In that world, I am everything. But now—now there’s someone else there too. And that someone is *you*.

I want to tell you about all the dreams in that world. The *you* in my dreams is a different kind of you—a precious, precious doll showered with endless affection. A little child, that’s what you are when you visit my dreams, and oh, how I cherish you!

I think of it with such joy: when that child of mine is sleeping, I’ll watch your innocent face in repose. All the beauty in the world will fade before that exquisite sight. I’ll slip out of bed and make you your favorite breakfast—while you’re still asleep, my darling. Can you picture it?

Your eyes won’t flutter open to the alarm on your phone. No. They’ll open to the warm touch of my lips on yours. Water from my wet hair will gently kiss your eyes awake. You’ll stir, begin getting ready for the office. And I’ll stand amazed, watching you, thinking: *What a beautiful person. And he’s mine.*

How I long to dress you for work—the way a mother prepares her little boy for school. I’ll feed you with my own hands, fasten your belt with such care. You’ll kiss my forehead and leave for the office, and I—I could spend the whole day basking in that happiness, waiting for you to return. I’ll cook all your favorite dishes before you walk through the door. Again and again, I’ll go to the window and look, waiting to see if you’re coming home.

I’ll wear a white sari with a red border—the pleats will slip a little, revealing the curve below my belly, and around my wrists, red silk bangles. A tiny vermillion dot in the center of my brow. I’ll adorn myself for you the way a devotee arranges an offering for her god—a sacred preparation, a complete surrender. All day I’ll sit restless, my heart chasing the road where you walk.

The moment you step through the door—finished with your work—I’ll run to you. I’ll wrap my arms around you and breathe in the scent of your shirt, damp with the day’s sweat. I’ll cover your face, your eyes, your cheeks, your forehead, your lips with kisses. The fragrance of your skin will intoxicate me like wine! Like a lost child who sees a familiar face in a strange place and runs toward it without thinking—that’s how I’ll run to you. Because without you, this whole world is a stranger to me. This house, these rooms—they’re nothing. You’re my home.

You’ll freshen up, have your breakfast, then sit at the laptop to write. I’ll watch you with eyes full of wonder, just *watch*. Your words matter so much to me. At night, I’ll feed you dinner with my own hands. If you sit down to write again after eating, I’ll stay awake for you. Not beside you—I’ll take a book to another room and read. You’ll keep writing, and I’ll think: *Tomorrow, he’ll let me read what he’s written today. Another beautiful creation is coming into the world. I’m waiting for it.* What feeling is more beautiful than this? Life is so beautiful.

Perhaps I’ll fall asleep at the table while reading. When it’s time for bed, you’ll carefully lift me into your arms and carry me to the bed. Even if I feel it, I won’t wake—I’ll pretend to sleep, savoring every moment of your care. You’ll lean down and kiss my forehead softly, turn on the dim light, and lie beside me.

Maybe you’re worn down by the day’s labor,
exhausted, sapped of vitality… not a drop of strength left in your body—
and still, it wouldn’t be wrong of you
to give me that small tenderness! Even with just that much, I could live out my days in perfect contentment.
I would never ask God for anything again. I know this dream of mine will remain only a dream, yet why does dreaming it feel so beautiful! What I won’t have in life
seems the most beautiful of all!
I keep running after illusions and it brings me joy! My heart is shameless, truly! You neglect me so much, and yet your memory keeps returning to me again and again. I want to know about you, but what can I do, tell me! You’re always so caught up, so unavailable to me!
Forget calling you—even sending a text terrifies me! I don’t know if I exist in your mind at all, but I know this much: if you ever grow weary of me, I’ll withdraw far away on my own! That’s why I trouble you so little! The fear of losing what I never possessed is always so sharp, so cutting!

You know, I cannot live without you, believe me! I’ll die, truly! Can I ask you something? Don’t hide me away in your chest! Nobody will ever find you! You and I will build a little home together, just the two of us. You know, believe me, I’ll keep you so well, with such care. I won’t complain about anything, I’ll let you live as you wish. Love means letting the person you love live as they are, letting them grow! Knowing how to accept someone exactly as they are—that’s a real art form! We want the person we love to be the way we imagine them, and we never learn to accept them as they actually are. That’s where all the trouble starts! If you want, go ahead and give some attention to another girl even—just stay in front of my eyes, that’s enough. I know you’re a good person, you’d never hurt anyone. I love you so much, and you won’t save me? Tell me! I’m dying! One day you’ll hear it—Mohua is gone, she belongs to someone else now. Then you’ll feel such a wrench in your chest! Maybe you don’t even love me, but still, the thought that I’m not anyone else’s—that brings you comfort, I understand that. The day I become someone else’s, maybe I won’t be able to bear it. Not having the person I love—that I can endure, but becoming someone’s when I don’t love them at all—I can’t accept that! I see so many girls leaving the person they love and building a home with someone else. I watch them and wonder, how can they do it? How much, how very much I love you—you can’t even imagine. They say in the movies, don’t they, that you can tear out your heart for the person you love? I used to laugh at that line once. Now I understand—it’s not literal. For someone precious, you can sacrifice anything precious, and do it with a smile!

Don’t keep me hidden, please! I’m suffering so much! The thought of living without you—it empties my head completely, makes my own life feel meaningless. You’re such an addiction, and I want to die with this addiction. Why aren’t you mine? I can’t accept it! What can I do, tell me—I’m just this way! In my kingdom, I am the king! Whatever my heart tells me to do, I do it. When I get stubborn about something, I can’t help myself. You’re my stubbornness. I can’t get you out of my head! You wanted me. My own desires will never be fulfilled, so I decided at least to fulfill yours. Out of that very stubbornness, I decided to come to you! And I did! Yet you, for some mysterious reason, didn’t fulfill your own desire. Why didn’t you take my most precious possession? I always thought that’s all you wanted from me! That’s how I’ve always known you! But the moment I come close, the familiar person pretends to be a stranger! What kind of deception is this? I came to you wanting to win, wanting to gamble with my life itself, and yet I lost completely and came back defeated! So much resentment had piled up, the anger inside was seething at myself. I felt I deserved a lesson! That day I ran to you wanting to destroy myself. Something was destroyed, yes—but not me. It was the narrowness of my own thinking!

If I survive this life bearing so many blows, then I’ll rebuild it from scratch. You’ll rebuild yours, that’s certain—but what of me? Dreams that come true never linger long in the heart; it’s the dreams that will never come true that haunt you your whole life long! Is this what they call living? You know, if I could have married you, I would have spent my entire life being a fool for you! If closing both eyes makes the world beautiful, then I’d do exactly that, understanding everything and all. You hide things, you don’t want to talk about some things—but I understand it all, and yet I stay silent like I know nothing. I know you won’t keep your word, won’t call me on time, won’t reply to the texts I send you, ever—believe me, I know it all. And yet I play dumb and ask you anyway: when will you call me? You promise, don’t you? I’m being stupid, aren’t I? You laugh after hanging up, thinking I’m mad, don’t you? Or maybe after you cut the line you think, thank God, I’m free! Do you think that too—how much longer will I have to endure this, who knows! I understand everything and yet I’m a fool, an idiot, a dunce. You win without understanding anything, and I lose despite understanding it all. And that itself is my victory! I have this one friend, completely mad! Loves me so much! Cares for me so deeply! Says in the next life she’ll be born a man and become my husband! No one understands me the way she does. Lately she says I’ve changed so much! Lost my childishness, become more mature than before! Of course, I don’t show my childish side to everyone. Very few have seen this side of me—only those I love dearly. Only with them am I a child.

You cannot go a day without writing—you simply must write something, anything, every single day. Reading you has become essential to how I live my life. I know you love chocolate; I love chocolate too. One day an aunt gave me a video of one of your speeches. I didn’t think much of it then. Later, when I went to delete it from my phone, something stopped me—I don’t know why. So there it stayed. Almost two months passed before I watched it. I owe that aunt everything. You’ve taught me so much. And when I hurt because of you, I think: why did I have to see that video? I was perfectly fine not knowing you existed! This is the first time in my life that thinking about someone makes my heart race like this. When your innocent face appears before my eyes, I come undone. I’ve watched every video of yours so many times I’ve lost count. There’s this strange feeling it gives me, deep in my chest. I started hunting through the internet, talking to friends, gathering every scrap of information about you. And somewhere in all of that, I fell in love with you. Watching your videos, you felt so close, so real. I felt this pull—I can’t quite explain what kind of pull it was. I wish I could attach a tiny camera to your head and follow you always—see what you’re doing, how you are, whether you’ve eaten, if you’re sad, how your body feels, the way you sleep and eat and walk and laugh, what you have for breakfast, what you choose for lunch, what’s on the menu for dinner, whether the people around you are taking proper care of you, and so much more!………..Wait! Are you sleeping? Sleep well then. I’ve cried into my pillow three nights straight, stayed awake until four in the morning, just hoping to talk to you for a moment. There’s this part of me that actually believes you’ll call me. Strange, isn’t it? The other day you looked so thin in that photo—you’re not eating properly, are you? Winter’s come; aren’t you using lotion and cream on your skin? If I were there, you wouldn’t have to worry about any of that! That yellow glass bottle on your dressing table—the one with lotion—why don’t you use it? What are you thinking? I know everything about you, don’t I? I really do know almost everything. When boys fall in love, they forget things they once knew. When girls fall in love, they know things they’ve never been told. It’s magic! I’m calling it Love-Magic! Now tell me—how do I know about your dressing table? Go on, tell me, and I’ll give your right eye a soft kiss. (Though honestly, even if you can’t tell me, I will anyway.)

May God grant me
the strength to forget you. I want this from the depths of my heart. From today, I will try to live for myself alone. Be well. I want to say it—Goodbye forever! I have learned so much from you.
Truly, thank you so much. I have received so many gifts from you. The story of how life can be turned around—I first heard it from you, and I’ve put so much of it to use! I say it from my heart, thank you! My only prayer is that you remain well. I have freed myself from my panic over you. Go. I had thought I would build a new life with you. God does not will it. What can I do, tell me? What kind of person are you! You cannot be held, you are so precious!
The treasure of seven kingdoms you are, the most precious stone in all the world, entirely beyond reach—
ruby, pearl, diamond! No,
you are worth far more than that! How rare you are, not for everyone
you are………certainly never for me! Ram shall have only Sita, I know! Where is that Sita? Will I be able to see her? What am I writing! Forgive me,
you must! I have sinned by loving you, against God’s will
I have loved you, and so I shall never
have you! Stay as you are, I wish only
that you remain well. May all the filth and grime of the world
stay far from even your shadow! Let no dark shadow
touch you, bloom
like a flower in full bloom,
and with your fragrance
intoxicate the world. I will love you from afar, never wishing to hold you close. Night is fading,
light is breaking.

Why did I fall in love with you?
Why do I think of you all day long?
If you love someone,
must you think of them all day? Why such yearning?
Yearning for what? There is a pain that settles
in my chest………everything is fine, and yet somehow
I feel unwell all the time. Is it all because of you? Or is it because I cannot have you? Because I don’t speak with you? Because I wait for your letters? Because I love you, I am consumed wondering where you are now, what you are doing, how you are, what you are like, how well you are, whether you are well, these thoughts keep me suspended
in an unknown dread, and in a kingdom
of suffering I cannot pass a single moment without thinking of you! Why are you causing me such pain?
I cannot think of anything
but you!………Do you hear? I am calling out to you
with all my heart every moment!
I think of you so constantly, yet can you not understand
that one day I will truly
go mad? You will never even
know it! Is it because you are alone that I have fallen in love with you like this? Or is it because I like you that I love you, that I keep on loving? Why did I love you? Why do I suffer this madness so intensely and utter these ravings?
People rave in illness,
but is love perhaps
a kind of sickness? I……I truly
cannot breathe properly, I am suffocating.
Kill me, kill me,
please! In this cruel
world, to live dying from loving you is far worse than simply being dead! If I were dead, then everything would be over, I would not have to love you anymore! What shall I do? Where shall I go?
Where can I go to forget you? Why did I write these words crooked
in my diary? I understand nothing. What is wrong with me? Am I forgetting
how to write straight on the page?

What do you call a love that has no outward expression? A one-sided love, as they say? Let me give that kind of love a proper name. What do you think? It seems to me like an unclaimed love. From now on, I’m naming this lopsided, one-directional love: “unclaimed love.” It’s just like an unclaimed corpse—a body with no address, no one searching for it, which after autopsy gets distributed among medical students to learn dissection. But unclaimed love is even more helpless—at least an unclaimed corpse has some use in medicine. But unclaimed love serves no purpose at all. No one is obliged to search for it, but even the one it was born for doesn’t search for it. And if someone were to tell that person the love has become like a corpse—”dead”—they wouldn’t even know that. From today, my love has a name: unclaimed love. In your life, I am an unknown living corpse. Just as boiling water eventually turns to steam and rises into the air, yet leaves its particles scattered in the atmosphere—so too, I am diminishing my own existence, loving you, breath by breath. Your neglect pierces me as it will, yet even ending, I will not end. I will dissolve into your contempt… Oh! But you don’t even despise anyone! So where will I dwell then? I need some place, don’t I? Don’t keep me in your affection—at least keep me in your disdain! I won’t vanish even at the final hour. I will live on in falsehood. I will live on in illusion—your illusion. I will stay hundreds of thousands of miles away from those who love you, even though I’ve placed myself in their ranks. Yet how could I ever become like them? Tell me. You know, some lines are enough to destroy an entire life—and these lines aren’t even yours. They come from one of your insufferable admirers who claims she can’t love anyone but you, can’t marry anyone but you, that she falls ill without you, that forgetting you is impossible! Who is this shameless creature? Amazing! Doesn’t even a girl have a minimum sense of modesty?

What is love, really?
Is it not some kind of affliction?
For someone who knows nothing of my longing,
and here I am, turning myself inside out,
wrestling with thoughts that bash against my skull like wild horses! The thoughts keep hammering away, crudely, relentlessly, inside my head!
One person can be loved by many, but not everyone can have them—that much is simple, natural.
But what of those who, day after day, lay flowers at God’s feet, praying to possess that one soul? Tell me, I understand—God, pleased with their devotion, fulfills someone’s heart’s desire and makes her your wife. So what wrong did the others commit? They too have wept themselves dry, shed tears and blood loving you. Maybe they didn’t worship with equal fervor, but will they gain nothing at all? A person like you shouldn’t exist in singular form! Don’t their tears have worth? Or are they being punished for some sin? What sin? The sin of loving you? So is it a sin to love someone and not have them? And this person—who grows ill from yearning for you, from endless prayers, yet cannot possess you no matter what—is this not punishment? No, actually… this is love! Hahahaha… Is love truly beyond the reach of our hands? But I’m not speaking of myself at all, because I know I will never have you, so I’ve never bothered God even once, never asked Him for you, not even in prayer. I’ve only wished for your happiness. Those who ask and don’t receive—why do I ache for them? I cannot say. Perhaps because I am made of the same longing they are. I don’t even wish that any of them would have you, nor do I wish it for myself either. But then what do I wish for? That you remain unmarried forever—is that what I want? What kind of thing is that to say? Where, then, lies the true joy of this unwanted love? Is the happiness only in the loving itself, nothing more? Is there no gain here, no hope of gain?

Who Knows From Where

Someone leaves a comment on your wall, and with it, the dark serpent coiled in my chest writhes and laughs! Again and again I think: given even a moment’s opening, it will swallow the whole world and erase every name, every sign of love—forever! An invisible jangling rings through the day from somewhere, ceaseless. That rhythm, that melody, that raga—so fierce, so overwhelming—it won’t let me think a single thought my own way. You slip into every idea, every moment. It has become law! My conscience and my upbringing hurl accusations at me over and over: you are shameless…shameless…shameless! This tenderness embedded in me—it isn’t truly mine. It’s a false offering. And what good is an offering that bears no fruit? An offering summons the deity, appeases them, yes—but what do I do with mine? My god does not hear, does not see, does not understand. And besides, that god is already determined by the Savior himself! So why? For whose sake, under whose spell, do I keep sacrificing myself again and again? The earth holds its place in the solar system, unwavering, immovable—and you too are fixed in your character, your will. You cannot be divided. Dry wood can be sawn, split with an axe, reduced to splinters. Even glass can be cut clean. But you—I lack the strength God never gave me to break you, to split you in two. You will always remain whole. Yet where did I find such audacity? It takes courage to love, perhaps permission to be liked—but why does this love have to consume me alone?

I am devouring myself! The sting of that self-inflicted wound is no less than a serpent’s venom. Snake poison can be drawn out, extracted in time—but how do I pull this poison from my mind? It spreads and spreads through every hour, bleaching me colorless! I have lost all my colors! Is this not a false indulgence in life’s game? How much longer can this go on? How much more time, how many more hours? Who will bear this burden? You’re under no obligation. Will God, then? No. He’s already told me—through you yourself—that I cling to a lie, that I live by falsehood. So why is this burden mine alone to carry? Tell me then: how do I end? How far must I walk before I finish—completely, finally? I gave birth to this love, yet I can never acknowledge it, never let it grow, never make it real. I must strangle it before it even learns to breathe! The way desperate women commit abortion, I too must kill my own love. To keep it alive, I must kill it. At least tell me how, when, in what way I can do this. What grows in me—this feeling with no end—I cannot let out, and never will. If I must throttle it dead, I must first bind my own heart in iron chains. Is that what I should do? Better yet, if only I could end myself before you. I know—God won’t grant me even that mercy. I am this unworthy, this incapable, this wretched. (April 5, 2016. Seven forty in the sleepless dawn.)