After waking up today, I kept thinking—what strange things I told you yesterday! I spoke of dewdrops to the ocean! In the dead of night, all sorts of wild thoughts come and go through one's head... Tell me, Roddur, will you keep growing bigger? How much bigger will you become? Will you touch the sky? Why do people make such a fuss over you? I don't like all this! Roddur! I'm suddenly feeling so low! I made such noise all day long, and now look—my heart has settled into sadness! Nothing feels right. If only I could talk with you a little! How are you? What are you doing? Very busy? Spending time with family, I suppose? Or are you writing? Well then, Roddur, stay well. Would you tell me her name, Roddur... I'm dying to know... so very much... Don't tell anyone else in the world, just tell me... that person, the one you wrote about: "There is only one sorrow—I could no longer keep that person safe!"... Never make fun of me. Have you ever thought how much it hurts me to digest such things? Roddur! How deeply melancholy I remain, how much I die inside—no one ever knows this. I don't let my sadness touch anyone else now; sadness has become precious to me, as precious as my love. I've understood that love and pain live at the same point. I now know every meaning of love, Roddur! How much pain dwells there, how much longing, how much melancholy—I know it all. How eyes grow wet with the fierce yearning of not having someone close—that too I've learned. Can anyone be held responsible for another's sadness, Roddur! When you can truly love, you simply have to bear all this. There's joy even in those tears! My sadness, my longing, my yearning—these are what keep me alive, these are what my love means! I live with these things, I stay well with them. I have certain superstitions about you. No one in this world can love you better than I do, and you too cannot love anyone else. We were born to be each other's, but through some mistake we never met. If we two had been together, some miracle would have happened, some history would have been made! I believe the name connected with you in past, present and future is Megh [Cloud]. I don't know why, Roddur, even knowing reality I can never free myself from this superstition! Don't be sad. You weren't born to be sad. Don't you understand that at least one person cannot bear your sadness! Keep this in mind from now on. I died long ago, Roddur! I'm probably just a living stone! I haven't written poetry in ages, I don't even touch my diary! I can't seem to stay well anymore. I feel restless, agitated. I don't know what to do... I have so much to say but somehow nothing gets said. They say just staying alive accomplishes many things—let's see if life has kept anything for me! I'm looking at you... seeing you makes the sadness flee. I don't know what I want to tell you, or if I have anything to tell you at all! I want to say something... but I can't. Perhaps I don't even know what I want to say! If there's any language in the depths of the heart, then understand in that language all the unspoken words. I can only say this much—I am well, I've learned to stay well. You stay well too. Roddur! I'm so afraid of people now. I don't feel like talking at all, I don't know why, nothing feels good anymore. Only trees and plants, birds and animals—I feel a little good about them. I used to find great joy in the smallest things, but lately joy has disappeared from my life. I don't find joy in anything anymore. These days I don't even like you. I know there's no one called Roddur, and if there is, he's very cruel, he'll never say anything. I don't want him to say anything either! Let him stay well in his own way—that gives me peace! I've forgotten how to talk to people, I don't even want to anymore. I like being alone now. I just spend time with myself, sometimes I sing, recite poetry—I don't want to share these with anyone. Am I gradually losing my mental balance? Who likes to keep losing to themselves like this, Roddur! I want my desires to return, I'm trying. Roddur! I feel so restless. I can't think of anything. I'm suffocating. I miss you and keep on missing you. The one I'll never have—I'm spending my entire life on them! You probably don't know that every few days I writhe in migraine pain, like yesterday and the day before. The piece you posted an hour ago—reading it started my pain again. Can you talk to me a little normally? Or am I not even human enough to talk to! I have so much to say to you, so very much! One day I'll open my heart and scold you thoroughly! What more can I say, Roddur! I really will leave. Those words of yours—acting, deception—they hurt me. Why don't you ever reply to me? I still don't know what my place is with you! What you write, why you write, to whom you write—I don't know any of it. I only feel pain when I learn you're not well. You never know how I am either. Forget all this accounting. People are truly alone—I accepted this truth long ago, so I have no expectations from anyone in the world. For the few days I live, I wanted to live with an open heart. Many relationships have no future, not even a past. Does that make those relationships wrong, Roddur? Does saying there's no relationship make it disappear? I don't know what I'm saying, Roddur. Stay well. You're breaking me completely this way! You know, Roddur, last night at midnight I saw a strangely beautiful dream and woke up. Then I couldn't sleep anymore, I wanted to hold onto that good feeling... in the dream I saw you! Every time I drown in tears and accept that all my notions are wrong, that you're nobody to me, that you're someone else—just that many times the goddess of dreams sends you to me, makes me understand who you are to me! Someone who makes life seem worthwhile just by seeing them once—I don't want to die without seeing them once, Roddur. Whatever I do, I only want to reach you. Nothing else, I just beg one day from you, Roddur! I want to see you with my eyes full. I have nothing else to ask of God. You write so beautifully about death—think once about this: when two people have a soul-to-soul connection, if one of them leaves this planet called Earth, how bland this planet becomes for the other! Would they like staying here? You have a 'you'—if that 'you' left the world, how lonely you'd feel then! We'll all leave someday, Roddur! Why do you say these cruel truths? We haven't even lived properly yet... "Yet there is no one called you!" Reading this line of yours felt like suddenly declaring a living person dead! What strange power a pen stroke has, Roddur! So much can be brought about with one stroke of the pen! Yet the heart...! It remains steady, unmoved! How firm its strength! Even if everything around the world breaks and crumbles, nothing affects the heart! It moves in its own way, not caring about anything... You wrote somewhere that when the heart moves against reality, nothing is more unbearable. I don't know what will happen, Roddur... sometimes the heart becomes so heavy! Your written stories match everyone's life, Roddur—only they don't match mine! Even if hatred lies on the reverse side of love, why do people still love! I've never been able to hate anyone, Roddur! Even if someone destroys me with hatred, pierces me with death's agony, I can't say anything out loud. Getting punished without crime must be my destiny then! No matter what happens to me, not a drop of love decreases for the beloved person—I only feel restless for their sake. Everything can be done for their good, Roddur; one can disappear oneself if necessary. When you ever feel like winning, talk to me, Roddur! I'll help you win. I find peace in losing to you. Because I love you! You know, Roddur, once I used to think that the day I first meet you, I might not be able to approach you from sheer joy, or I'd watch from afar and cry! But now I feel that the day I see you, I'll run straight to you and bury my face in your chest and keep crying, let the whole world see! How long I suffered in the dilemma of sin and virtue! Now I understand these things, Roddur! Going against the heart is sin, causing pain to the soul is sin! But I also don't want others to suffer because of my heart—I don't want to hurt anyone! You and I will share all the pain and keep everyone else happy. Someday, after fulfilling everyone's needs, we'll become ascetics together in some distant unknown place. The only regret is that by then our beauty will be gone. Sometimes standing before the mirror I think—how many people in this life told me I was beautiful as nature! Today that beauty is slowly fading! I could have said these words to your face instead of writing them, but some shyness makes me shrink—I just can't overcome that first shock of bashfulness! I suffer too! If we can't share our joys, what of it—we'll certainly share our sorrows! When do we have time to be unhappy! Even if we two can't exist in each other's reality, we exist in each other's work, we'll exist in feeling too.
Reading some of your writing makes me think you’re quite angry. It reminds me of one of my teachers—as strong a personality as his temper. When he first came to our school, he was young, newly married, and quite handsome too. Once he gave such a beating to some Class Ten girl for talking about his personal affairs! That incident caused quite a stir—we used to hear about it even in primary school, about this new teacher’s terrible temper.
Let me tell you about an incident. After I got to high school, I became this teacher’s favorite, because he loved all the students who were good at English, and I consistently scored ninety-plus in English every exam. The teacher himself told my father that he would tutor me, that he would ensure I got the scholarship in Class Eight.
So I took private lessons with him. I did get the scholarship too. But he wouldn’t take any money for the private tuition. When he refused so adamantly to take payment, we would gift him shirts and trousers every Puja. Whether there was an invitation or not, he would come and eat at any family function. He had a good relationship with my sisters too—still does.
I grew up wearing frocks in front of this teacher, went to his house and played with his son. When I couldn’t do well in my SSC, failing in all the science subjects, it was on his advice that I changed groups and came to Arts. He often said I would achieve something great. He always kept track of how I was doing.
So when I was in Inter First Year, one day he suddenly embraced me, kissed me, put his hands on my body. I respected him so much, was so afraid of him—I could never forgive him for it. I never spoke to him again. Four or five years ago, at a very young age, he had a stroke and became paralyzed. Everyone in my family has visited him—I haven’t.
Lately I feel I’ve forgiven him. Sometimes I even think perhaps it’s his curse that I couldn’t achieve anything good in this life. What happened that day was really just a trivial incident—it doesn’t make his affection for me false. After he did that to me, I had a fever from disgust and hatred. The person I hate so much—I’m drowning in guilt because of him! What a strange bondage!
I often feel so petty and small! When I see good people, I feel it even more. I sigh! What more can I do than this!
Tell me, Roddur, when I was very little and used to talk alone with the birds and leaves, spending long stretches of time alone in the garden—I must have sensed someone’s presence then! Was that you? Very early in the morning when I would gather my sari’s fold full of shiuli flowers and think, a prince will surely come to take these flowers—at day’s end my flowers would fade, yet why wouldn’t you come then? During Pujas when everyone would give anjali offerings with great fanfare, I would quietly come to my room and look for you at my study table. Somehow I felt lonely even in crowds—what did you do then? On Dashami, getting tired of giving Bijoya greetings to everyone, I would feel as if I hadn’t greeted someone—where was that person then? In Chaitra’s intoxicated, melancholy breeze, the shimul flowers I would gather—why wouldn’t you take them? In the tired afternoons when I would fall asleep while reading story books, the open book resting on my chest—even then I was thinking of you!
Are you my completion? Where have you been all this time? If we were to meet, why so late?
I can never quite reach you, can never find your depths.
If I could see you, I would tell you about those tears of yours!
Roddur, you look for poetry everywhere, that’s why you can’t find the person! You find joy in poetry too, even sorrow is pleasure to you, while I write poetry in blood! Go on, I won’t write anything more!
Roddur, I woke up from a terribly bad dream. In the dream, I saw that my time of death had come. Knowing this, someone switched off the room’s light. The room became so dark instantly! I was trying to say, turn on the light, I want to say something. But no words would come from my throat. I was trying to scream and crying hard. Someone in front of me was listening to everything but not helping—rather, laughing nastily, suppressing their laughter. In fear, I was just trying to chant Hare Krishna and trying to move the person in front of me so I could see Krishna. Then I woke up terribly frightened! The fear hasn’t left me yet—now I’m afraid to sleep.
If I could immerse myself in your writing, I would come back to reality. What strange things you write—I can’t make sense of them at all! You write about the starkest real world, while I live in a world of dreams! You know, Roddur, death is such a real word that has no connection with this world’s anger, sorrow, resentment, happiness, pain—not even with love! Is that dream world more real, Roddur? Which world do we live in then? All the great souls who have left this earth—where are they now? Don’t be annoyed. When morning comes, everything will be fine. I won’t bother you then. Megh is trapped in a cage of fear now, Roddur!
Nothing appeals to me, Roddur! I don’t feel like talking to anyone either. When I want to tell you something, I need my own time, Roddur. I haven’t had that opportunity for many days. Suddenly I writhe in some inexplicable pain—when I wake up in the middle of the night, I can’t fall asleep again. So many things have piled up to say! Life seems to be nothing but constantly spinning in dilemma, conflict, and mystery.
These past few days I’ve been especially pained thinking that the person whose happiness I wanted to be the cause of—somehow I’ve become their greatest source of pain! Is there nothing pure in this world then? Even the most sacred feeling like love ultimately results in sorrow and pain! This world itself is perhaps a hell!
The melancholy in your eyes makes me restless! Melancholy doesn’t suit you, Roddur. There are many paths of light for you—stay there, walk on the path of light! I don’t want to walk anywhere—I am a dead person. Don’t befriend the dead, Roddur! Sometimes when you scold me very badly, I feel hurt, feel very small about myself, and cry. I die a little more.
I understand I should reveal everything inside, but I can’t. I writhe inside, then eventually let go of everything, opening my fists, thinking—if you’re meant to understand, you will! How much can one explain oneself? I can’t anymore, I’m tired! I have no trouble recognizing you because we two are one—same thoughts, same anger-sorrow-love. I can see the you inside you. The only difference is that you’re alive, and I’m dead. Don’t stay with me, Roddur! When expectations grow for a dead person, that dead person suffers greatly!
Even an insignificant person like me could have had a very meaningful and worthwhile life, but I’ve sacrificed living for some terrible resentment, I don’t know why. So much resentment toward myself, so much resentment toward love. All my well-being could have depended on one person, yet I could never find them! I feel sick about myself—the person for whom I sacrificed an entire world, I never let them understand that! Now I want nothing from anyone. Now I only wish that all living beings stay well, that no one suffers because of me.
This business of writing to explain feelings—it’s such agony, Roddur! I understand how much it pains you. Isn’t there any other way to share feelings? What would happen if we didn’t share them! If we could talk, how many small joys, laughter, and pleasant moments we could create! I’ve forgotten how to speak today! You have to write me so many difficult things, and then you have to read all this again… I want to free you from this. Can’t there be a love, Roddur, that is completely free from obligation, unhesitating, unburdened? Where there’s no duty or expectation; beyond all ego, a very personal love that’s peaceful, gentle, tender in its own way… can’t there be? I can’t do anything else—keep your sorrows with me, I’ll take great care of them. And I want to walk a few steps with you one day—fulfill this small wish of mine, won’t you? I feel shy writing love letters at this old age, Roddur. The thing is, you mustn’t write like that anymore. Thousands of girls are falling in love with you—I can’t stand it. Now everyone will really think you’re crazy!
You know, Roddur, my mother was quite the tyrant type of mother. She would never praise her daughters in front of people—on the contrary, she would humiliate us. When neighbors would say, such well-behaved girls… mother would immediately get angry and say, well-behaved, my foot! Complete lazy good-for-nothings! She made reading the Gita mandatory every day—if we didn’t, there would be endless scolding. I, that little girl, would sometimes read the Gita while crying. From that young age, repeating the same words over and over, perhaps unknowingly they entered my brain. Somehow a sense of detachment has come into me!
I want to enjoy everything, but somehow I end up renouncing it all! Your madness and love stir excitement in my heart, I want to hold you tight, for a moment I become restless, but the next moment some fear, indifference, detachment comes and possesses me!
Sometimes I feel like running away! My heart wants to be crazy, to be happy and keep others happy. Suddenly I want to call you, that childhood restlessness wants to return just for you. Then… there is no then! Haven’t we both grown old! Love like children doesn’t suit us, Mister! It absolutely doesn’t suit you!
Give me a little time. I will come back, I promise! Besides you, where else do I have to live, to breathe? My heart is terribly restless—let me absorb this blow, let me steady myself. You too, please be calm! For you, nothing but love and love! It pains me to see your restlessness, Roddur. For my sake, at least, stay well. Don’t write of any suffering anymore, please! My heart is heavy, Roddur!
There was a promise once—that one day the princess and prince would meet in some final twilight. The princess would wear a red sari with black borders, her arms full of silk bangles, their gentle chiming keeping time with her eager eyes as she waits! Through the dust kicked up by hooves, slowly becoming clear in the dim light—the prince! All valor, all heroism, all beauty gathered at his feet! Lightning seems to dance in his smile! Rivers grow calm beneath his gaze. The princess stares in wonder, thinking he has descended from heaven—but where will she seat him now? A moment later she startles at a confident, gentle voice! The red sari won’t do today—why don’t you wear green instead! Green would play games with sky and earth and underworld! You’re like a flock of parakeets soaring through a tender green sky! Those lips of yours drip scarlet fire! The princess hides herself with a blushing face and quiet, peaceful eyes. From somewhere a rainbow comes and spreads its seven colors! In that colored light the princess seems to grow even more radiant! Then the prince becomes a gentle shower, touching just so the princess’s lips, cheeks, eyes! So much light! So much color! So much sweetness! With bowed head, all beauty seems to surrender before that intimate union of princess and prince!
I can never do anything on time. Don’t punish me, please! I don’t know why, but I feel terribly restless! I think I’m mentally unwell. Even at the cost of everything, you must stay well. I will never read your writing again. If I do, I’ll suffer terribly, I’ll want to call you. When you fuck, life smiles. When life fucks, you cry. But when life fucks, I just enjoy it, though it hurts terribly!
I thought today would mark the beginning of a new chapter in life. I’d been restless since morning, desperate to talk. I’m so afraid of you, like you’re a deity, so I’d arranged my thoughts carefully. Just as I picked up the phone, the neighbor’s wife came over with her child. Right in front of her I read your message. A wild storm was raging in my heart then! Somehow I saw her off and dialed your number, only to find mine blocked! I know that however harsh Roddur appears on the outside, inside she’s that soft. However practical she seems, she’s a thousand times more emotional than that. I couldn’t heal her wounds. Wherever I am, my blessings will remain with her.
Listen here, Krishna! I too have some household duties, don’t I? When you play your flute like this, how can my mind stay on worldly matters! What pleasure did Krishna get from tormenting Radha so? Did Krishna ever know how much Radha had to suffer, abandoning all household work to rush to the banks of the Yamuna! In the end, wasn’t Radha’s place in Ayan’s cowshed, known to the whole world as a fallen woman! Now Krishna isn’t worshipped without Radha, Krishna’s name isn’t uttered without Radha’s—but what difference does that make to Radha? She suffered all the pain she had to suffer! In today’s age, no one is foolish enough to become Radha anymore—all the honor and recognition belongs to Rukmini alone! And Krishna too forgot everything and focused on royal duties—why don’t you pursue such royal work? Now Radha is no more!
You have my “I” with you. Come and take it back! That piece you wrote a little while ago—that was meant to be my writing… Roddur! Sometimes I suffer from terrible melancholy. I don’t know what’s true, what’s real, what will happen in the future? Often I hide my tears with mischief. I know no one is anywhere, yet I try with all my heart and soul to believe… she exists, she must exist! Once I became an atheist for no reason, now I’ve become deeply religious for no reason! I’ve developed great faith in the afterlife, perhaps from the intense thirst of this life’s incompleteness! Lately I feel I don’t have much time left. Before leaving, I want to create some beauty. Tell me, Roddur! Why do you speak to me in such a harsh voice in the few words you do say? The day I truly go far away in hurt, you won’t find me anywhere, you’ll see!
Roddur, I badly want to deactivate my account. But I won’t be able to—I’ll have to face too many questions and… in the end, I won’t be able to stay without seeing you either. I am an unworthy person. There are many worthy people in your life who will keep you well. It doesn’t pain me at all to say goodbye…