I wanted to be a simple three-hundred-rupee handloom-wearing lover, wanted our love to be even plainer than my plain sari. I wanted to be like those lovers of the seventies who could go years without meeting and still knew how to wait...
I never wanted to be a high-caliber book like Jibanananda's "Malyaban" or Arundhati Roy's "Azadi"; I only wanted to be a simple book like Dale Carnegie's collected works, whose Bengali translation can easily be found in almost every home in our country.
Instead of that seven-hundred-and-fifty-rupee Turkish coffee at the Radisson, I would have felt far more at ease with a life like that five-rupee strong liquor-laced milk tea made with condensed milk at the roadside stall.
I never wanted to be the girl who foams at the mouth saying "I love you" over and over, I wanted to be a young woman who could speak her heart with patience and grace.
But...
You made me throw away my handlooms and forced me to wear Kanjivarams. While I struggled daily with those heavy saris, you never even noticed how heavy my heart had grown.
You transformed my mind from the seventies into the mind of those restless twenty-first-century girls who break relationships at the drop of a word!
To erase Sunil's straightforward poems from my mind, you began reciting Baudelaire in my ear on holidays, you brought ornate richness into my world of poetry whether I wanted it or not!
Nothing but black coffee could find space in our teapot anymore, I forgot my old habit of drinking tea after the evening prayer. You made me say "I love you" morning and evening until you brought me to such a point that now even writing this "love" makes my mouth bitter with spit.
Yes, it's true, you succeeded in making me a memsaheb, and became my worthy saheb too.
But I wanted some things about me to change while keeping my core foundation intact; I wanted you too to become a simple person with your own authenticity.
I wanted you and I together to create a happy life, but you made me into your favorite doll and kept making me dance on strings, saying... "This wooden doll is my creation, she will only love what I allow her to love."