To My Uttam Kumar

 
Dearest one, my beloved,
how are you?
It's been so long since we last met.
Our afternoons together now...
are only mine, or only yours.
Or perhaps belong to neither of us.
Not every afternoon can be personal, after all...!


Brown envelopes lie scattered in the corner of my table. Unused. Two years now.
I look at them and wonder, they could have stayed in the shop,
what good did coming here do them?


Only one letter of mine ever reached your address.
So many letters still wait to be slipped into envelopes.
Today they have no destination.
The world is full of such letters—addressless, useless.


I no longer feel like writing to you.
As days pass, distance grows deeper.
In time, even the road fades away.


Of course, when an acquaintance began so colorlessly,
how can one hope for color!
Even this hope feels like a kind of sin.
I didn't hope, yet I am guilty...
at least to myself.


Knowing I cannot forget,
I sometimes accept that forgetting is the only way.
To live, one must accept so many things!


Do you know, we met again...
a second time, by chance!
I was standing a little distance from you.
The moment you looked in my direction, or toward where I stood...
I fled in fear.


Perhaps you never saw me at all,
or if you did, couldn't recognize me.
What am I...worth recognizing?
That day we didn't meet, that day only I had an encounter...


Before, I wanted to tell you so many things.
You never felt that way, of course...!
Now I understand, not every thought should be set free.


The world's new illness has stirred fresh anxieties.
I worry so much for you!


At least, if only to have the privilege of neglect...
stay well...stay healthy.
...take a little care of yourself.