# To the Sun: One The letter never reached you, and I'm not certain it ever will. Still, I write. There's a peculiar comfort in addressing someone who cannot answer back, don't you think? Perhaps that's why people pray. I'm sitting on the terrace again—the same terrace where I've been sitting for the past three weeks, ever since the rains stopped and you returned in earnest. The neighbourhood is quiet. The kind of quiet that makes you notice small things: the way the sparrows dive and scatter, how the shadow of the wall creeps across the tiles each minute, the exact colour of the light when it begins to fade. You would call it wasted time, I suppose. But there's nothing wasted about it. This is how one truly sees. My mother asked me yesterday if I was well. Not because I appeared unwell, but because I'd stopped doing what I normally do. I no longer rush through the mornings. I've abandoned the pretense of busyness that fills most days. She couldn't find a name for what she saw in me, so she called it illness. Perhaps she was right. I think about that old poem—the one about the woman who spoke only to the moon. Do you remember? No, of course you don't. I read it to myself, and I thought of you. The moon, at least, has the decency to listen without judgment. But you—you do something different. You shine. You warm. You ask nothing and give everything, and somehow that generosity feels almost cruel. People don't write to the sun. It's considered foolish. But I've always been drawn to foolish things. How are you today? Are you as fierce as yesterday? Do you remember the city you warm, or do you move on, indifferent? Either way, I'm here. Still looking up.

Roddur, I don't know what I'm going to do. It hurts so much. Sometimes I feel like a psychopath. Tell me, am I mad? If I am, have I always been this way?

I went to Netrokona today. You know how it is—when I travel, I spend the whole time thinking only of you. The most beautiful thoughts flood my mind, and all I can think is, oh, if only I could share this moment with you!

This place is so beautiful! Fields stretching endlessly on both sides of the road, hardly any settlements, everything so empty, so vast... it creates such a strange, tender feeling. Even when I think of some busy city, I feel annoyed. Well, I won't ramble on. I'll call you when I get home. (I think I've had this thought a million times, but I've never actually done it. But maybe this time I will, because before there was fear—now that fear is gone.) I so desperately want to know how you are, but what can I do? I don't seem to have that kind of luck!

Oh! What day is it today? Promise Day? Come on then, let's make a promise too. "No matter what happens, we will never lose each other. Whatever comes, whatever distance grows between us, whatever separation appears, we will stay close in our hearts. We will never misunderstand each other. Even if the whole world says otherwise, the trust between you and me will remain unshaken." I've made my promise. Will you make yours?

Today is the day for holding close. I won't say anything more today.

Roddur! My insides have suddenly frozen like ice! I want to cry and cry, to let everyone know about the pain inside me. Even if no one else understands, you must understand me a little! What should I do? I can't live with you, and I can't live without you either. It's not right for me to talk this much—I should stay silent. Believe me, there's no arrogance here. How can I make you understand how helpless I am? You know, I'm carrying a thousand sorrows in my chest and trying to find my way forward. Just stay by my side. If you stay with me, one day I'll be able to do everything.

Let me tell you about my stupidity. I so badly want to talk to you on the phone. I spent all day today trying to call you to wish you Happy Valentine's. (Whether you'd answer or not is another matter!) I know that if you pick up, no words will come out of my mouth. My throat dries up, my chest pounds. Tell me why? I'm not that unintelligent! I'm furious with myself, Roddur! I shouldn't be speaking like this. I've decided—I won't bother you anymore. Besides, my mind is always so heavy that I've lost even the joy that talking requires. You don't know how quiet I've become!

I've bothered you so much. Be well. If you're well, I'll be well too. I've forgotten how to be unwell; now I'm always well, just carrying this private sorrow with me. Roddur! I want one thing from you. Will you give it to me? If ever, at any moment, things become unbearable for you, if you're in great pain, alone in some dark hour—will you call me? If you're happy, never mind if you forget about me. But if sadness ever finds you, will you remember me someday?

# A Valentine’s Day Letter

Happy Valentine’s Day. I am in great pain because I cannot see you. Otherwise, I have no other sorrows.

I have this overwhelming urge to listen to a deeply romantic song. I want to dance, soaked in affection like some eighteen-year-old girl, lost in love’s intoxication. Sunshine, right now I feel like telling you everything that comes to my mind. If I truly had you before me, I don’t even know how much I would ramble on. That day, I think I would pour out all the words of a lifetime—things I’ve never told anyone.

As I write this, tears have come to my eyes. Am I losing my mind, Sunshine? The more I love, the more it hurts, and the more I want to cry. I wish I could tear the world apart and bring you before me. The pain of knowing dreams are unreal is terrible, yes—but a thousand times worse is the agony of thinking that the dreams were real, and yet I never understood it!

Stop writing poetry. It burns me from within! I’m going to bed with a heart full of sorrow.

Sunshine! I wasn’t well today, yet I went to an event—my sister’s son’s birthday. I sat quietly all day with a headache. Tomorrow there’s Mangalachandi worship at home; I’ll be busy with that. Tell me—how is it possible that two people from opposite ends of the earth can be so close in heart without any contact at all! I don’t know if you think of it or not, but it’s truly a divine blessing. Even in the depths of pain, there’s a supreme joy. Something keeps haunting me, again and again! The wealth I possess, no one else has—I have a personal you, I have a soul. Let there be no contact; still, we exist for each other. I don’t want to indulge my pain anymore. How can I nurture my suffering when I’m so blessed! One day, you’ll see—joyful days will come. For every tear that has fallen, twice that happiness will arrive.

What is more sacred than love, tell me? Love is as painful as it is joyful. Be well. I am well.

How am I really… if only I could truly tell you! And I can’t even know how you are. I always imagine you’re well, perhaps. I pray you always stay well.

I’m not really well. Growing up isn’t good, Sunshine. When you grow older, you realize at some point that no one in this world truly belongs to you—and then the pain is unbearable. The young don’t understand these things. Because they don’t, they can remain so cheerful, thinking everyone is their own. But I have you even in your absence, so I have no pain. That’s another story…

Sometimes I want to tell all my sorrows one by one, just tell you everything! Some people in this world never grow sad; they never know grief. They live in an ocean of sorrow itself, so they needn’t reach out to touch separate suffering. Not everyone can choose happiness—some knowingly choose the thorny path too, don’t they? Sometimes when I see happy people, I feel such envy, and yet it makes me smile! A person who has lost everything cannot say a word. Their gaze is indifferent, their soul unmoved.

My heart is very heavy today. I wanted to tell you something, couldn’t manage it at all! The words kept turning into poetry somehow. Suddenly a touch of something and the words slipped away from me. I came back to myself.

Stay well. Don’t mind. I’m caught in some trouble. What I want to say, I can never quite say it. I’m sorry for all this mixed-up talk.

There’s something magical about tonight’s moon. I haven’t seen the moon in so long. Suddenly it caught my eye, and I found myself overcome with such tenderness, staring at it for hours. Tell me—is this same moon shining where you are too? I’m feeling so happy! What should I do? Should I give you a good smack and split your head in two? You know, even a little bit of happiness makes something inside flare up and glow!

Listen here! Whatever you do, however you do it, I’ll call you every single day. I won’t write anymore—I’ll just say what needs saying, straight to your ear. You probably don’t know that I’m not quite right in the head. And whenever I call, I make sure it’s Friday or Saturday. I don’t want to bother you on your days off. Anyway, be well. Write as much as you can. I wrote a poem yesterday with so much pain—I don’t ever want to read it again. Listen to songs instead…

Not being able to sleep—such agony! I can’t stay up through the night. I’ve cried myself to sleep. But today, even laughing, sleep won’t come. I keep laughing like a madwoman, laughing and laughing. I have this strange feeling I’m drawing closer and closer to death. Listen—there’s no escape from me. Even if I die, I’ll come back as a ghost and torment you. You be careful! Love is just another name for death’s agony, dissolving bit by bit.

And listen—I’ll call every day; you have to talk to me, have to, have to. Tell me truly—are you ashamed of my shamelessness? I say such brazen things to you, then I hide my face afterward. These past few days I haven’t opened my notebook. You’ve gone silent and I’ve fallen completely to pieces. How many things I’ve written about you in this notebook, how many fragments of verse…

Roddur, what more can I say! I’ve understood this much at least—I should really stop now! Never feel troubled on my account. Roddur is only my imagination, my love—there’s no real Roddur in this world! And yes, there’s no such thing as an ending. Only when a person’s breath stops does the word “end” truly apply, not before. Let life’s boats keep sailing on, rocking and tossing… To stop life is a great sin. I’ve told you my feelings without hesitation, but I’ve never really told you about my troubles. To carry life forward with a smile—that’s the real dharma, don’t you think? May we all be well.

There’s a prayer I hold: if ever you feel too weary, come to the clouds. The clouds will wait for you through eternity.

You really know, Roddur, how I long to disappear! I want to vanish completely, to become nothing, so you’ll never find me anywhere! How do I live with all this resentment, all these complaints? Where does this resentment live, do you know? You never said anything clear, ever. I sat waiting for one clear word from you—through endless ages. Maybe you thought me small and neglected me, or maybe something else entirely. And the insult… that too, you gave to my love! So much doubt, so much truth and falsehood mixed together, so much accounting and reckoning!

# A Letter

Look at me—I love you, that’s all. What if one day you discover every doubt was false, that your faith in me was right all along? Don’t you think it would hurt then? How could I bear to cause you more pain? So through a thousand pretences I’ll prove it to you—that I don’t love you at all.

Life is too short, my love. What’s the use of nursing pride and suspicion and sorrow in our hearts? It’s true, you don’t leave my mind for even a moment. Why God does this, who knows! Why can’t we forget, no matter how hard we try? There’s no use struggling. Better to let go. Let the thoughts think what they will—I want to see how much they can do. When two people were never meant to be one, why does this phantom feeling torture us so?

Never mind all this. We’ve said it so many times already, going in circles. Your words don’t hurt me—what hurts is not being able to do anything for you.

Today I don’t want to speak of myself,
Yet in my heart you’ve stayed all through the day.
Your indifference is so precious to me,
Sweet words of love… they just don’t suit me, do they!

You know, the loneliest solitude in this world has a name: family. Those who haven’t lived through family pain can never imagine what it is. To be alone because no one exists—that we can bear. But to be alone because someone exists—that’s unbearable! Often I feel terribly, achingly alone, consumed by it. Then I sit quietly, staring at the distant trees. The people near us only multiply their expectations; their love never grows. No one loves me.

The person who could have understood all my pride, who could have understood me—I could never reach them. What fortune it must be to lie near someone you love, to fall asleep holding them at the day’s end—I think it equals the fortune of dwelling in heaven.

Today has been a terrible day. Does anything I’ve said mean anything? You once told me not to peddle my suffering. Don’t let me peddle it anymore. I don’t want to harbor regrets or resentment or pain or expectations anymore. Sometimes I just want to share. Let the rest of the year pass well. Let me live, simply and soundly. What more could I ask for?

I’ve been staring at your writings for so long… who did you write such harsh things for? I trouble you too! One day I’ll free everyone, free myself. I’m so tired…

That day my heart was very heavy. Suddenly I felt the urge to take my daughter and disappear with her, somewhere far, away from everyone I know. But where would we go, how would we live? As I kept thinking about this, it occurred to me that if I could just ask you for shelter—only that, just a roof to rest under, nothing more—perhaps you would give it. I was about to tell you this terrible thing, when I saw that piece you’d written about your psycho-lover, and suddenly I felt so helpless, I thought of myself as mad! All my pain seemed to crystallize, to settle into stillness.

Since then, nothing seems to move in me anymore. The whole world feels normal. Whether I’ve left or I’m still here—it doesn’t matter. Everything that must happen will happen. My mind is scattered. It hurts so much. I feel like I’m losing myself. My love—are you really nowhere to be found?

Roddar! There’s so much between us that goes unsaid, misunderstood. I can’t open my heart to you without you flaring up at the smallest thing. The other day I said something—hardly anything—and you shot back, “Can’t you do anything without annoying me?” That’s when it hit me: we’re poles apart, you and I. I can’t stand meaningless noise, and you didn’t even reply to that—not out loud anyway. But I felt it all the same, that reaction inside you, silent as it was. I understood then: I mean nothing to you. I wanted to slip away quietly. I truly don’t understand you. If we were closer, perhaps I could.

Never mind all this. I don’t want to fight. I can’t even tell if you’re angry hearing this. Your words cut like a whip! But I told you all this in such a gentle mood, please don’t lash out at me with your words again.

Since it wasn’t my fortune to be near you, how can I expect to understand you? There’s moonlight outside, so much of it. If you want, you can touch it. Perhaps there are others out there bathing in that moonlight. Somewhere, someone might be caressing the moonlight, thinking of you… Can you feel it, Roddar?

I have things to tell you, Roddar. But I’m not in the frame of mind for it right now. I’m unwell. I’ll tell you everything, when the time comes. Stay well. In all this scattered thinking, what to say and what to leave unsaid—but you understand it all anyway!…All my grievances, all my complaints, all my failures—one day when you have time, I’ll tell you everything.

Today I want something from you. Roddar! Will you build me a house? A small, quiet little house nestled in nature’s lap. One wall of that house will be lined entirely with books, and the other three walls—they’ll be filled with you. One day I’ll leave everything behind and move into that house…I’ll bring a piece of heaven there and arrange it just so, and that day will be mine alone. That day I won’t let you say a single word. That day I’ll only wipe away your weariness…

I’m not a greedy person by nature, and I don’t suffer much when I don’t get what I crave. But when I see your books, Roddar, such longing seizes me, and sometimes such pain too. If I could get some of your books, I’d devour them whole. History and philosophy—those are two subjects I love dearly. I don’t have the habit of buying books, nor the means, but whenever I find one somewhere, I swallow it whole. Sometimes when I see your posts about books, Roddar, I feel such an ache! That’s when I understand how much I lack, how poor I truly am!

But what’s the use of coveting like this and hurting myself? There’s another thing I’ve come to understand, Roddar. The distance between you and me. Where you stand and where I stand! Perhaps that’s why you never reply to me. I must have bothered you so much without even realizing!

Your reply yesterday felt like a surprise to me. I was so happy! Then I felt hurt, then ashamed—asking for gifts like that! These headaches for days now have brought a fear of death to me. I feel like my time is running short.

It’s only with you that I’ve slowly, bit by bit, conquered all my fears, my doubts, my hesitations, my shame, my grievances! If you give me anything, it will be a treasure beyond measure. If I have something that belonged to you, I’ll keep it with such care! Will you send me a couple of books?

# Roddur!

Roddur! Why are there so few languages in this world! Why so few words! Why doesn’t this world possess a language for grief—the kind that tears you apart! Grief finds its own path toward death, slow and sure, yet finds no words to speak itself…

Your poems—they pierce something deep within me, something I cannot name. I don’t know if others feel this way too, or if this torment belongs only to me. Without caring for form or beauty or personality or anything else, I hold that heart of mine close, crush it tight with my own hands, and weep myself clean. It belongs only to me. Weeping and weeping, cleansing myself until there is nothing left, yet I will never say to you: I cannot live without you, deaths dance before me every day, save me…! O heart! Are you truly real?

I picked up the phone again and again, but I couldn’t bring myself to dial. Tell me—when you love someone so much, why this fear of speaking to them! I wonder myself, what will happen! What if they’re annoyed—how much, really! Or perhaps my fear lies elsewhere! What if I discover the truth: that Roddur doesn’t exist at all! That I’m not bothering Roddur, but *you*! If I lose this love, how will I survive! I live on nothing but this—the knowledge that they exist, that’s all the strength I have! I fear myself so much.

There is so much to say, so much sorrow I have gathered, so many accounts to settle. One night, burning bright with moonlight, I will suddenly call and say: Roddur, this is Cloud speaking. (On that day, don’t ask me who I am.) After that, Cloud and Rain will speak every day, and the meaning of living will be born anew. Soon after, they will meet. Beauty will fall all around them in torrents! People will stare in wonder at what these two create! They will think: so beautiful, so beautiful!

These thoughts comfort me. My heart tells me it will all come true, it really will! Our love will become history.

If only I could walk a smooth and beautiful path, avoiding all of life’s tangles! But this is the life I have, and where else can I run from it! I suppose this—just this—is what living means. I only need one person in this vast world, so that walking through it, I never feel utterly alone. When everyone wounds me, I want to tell myself: this wound means nothing, I am not helpless, I am not alone!

Roddur! I long so much to take a little happiness from you and see how beautiful it is! You’ve given your happiness to others, but perhaps your sorrows—you haven’t been able to give those away yet. Could you give me your sorrows! I would keep them carefully, tenderly, and turn them into happiness to give back to you… How can I make you understand how much your poems are hurting me! How do I tell you: I am not well! Please, at least be well.

I haven’t written to you in so long. Why I haven’t written—I have no language to explain. Tell me, Roddur, why didn’t the beauty of your last poem reach Amit! Perhaps beauty didn’t want to, didn’t want any disrespect to touch Amit, and their two stations were not equal, that’s perhaps why. Amit could have forced the marriage; even he couldn’t manage it. Everyone has surrendered to reality! No matter what people say aloud, in the end they bow to reality!

When Radha went to Krishna in Dwarka, she had already understood: Krishna was now the Lord of Dwarka, no longer the cowherd she had known. So Radha never accepted the luxury of the palace. She chose to stay in the kitchen with the maidservants. The love between Radha and Krishna—it was truly strange! Rukmini had told Radha, “You are Krishna’s friend, but he married me. Surely that makes me someone special!” Yet when Satyabhama and Jambavati arrived, Rukmini finally grasped her error—and eventually left. But Radha never left. In every moment of Krishna’s crisis, Radha conquered him with love. Only Radha could truly understand him. Radha and Krishna—they were inseparable.

Even as the divine incarnate, how much suffering Krishna chose to bear! At first I thought him guilty, but later I understood: Radha was someone utterly precious to him.

What am I writing, Roddur? Forgive me. I’ll write no more. There was a secret I meant to tell you. I’ll tell you tomorrow.

My heart is strangely heavy. The sadness has seeped into my body. I miss you so much—you, who one day will free me from all of this and take me away. How beautifully people gift each other on birthdays! On my birthday, you don’t even send a wish. There’s no one close enough to you to remember me that way, is there? I wanted a book from you. You wouldn’t give it. It was my birthday then! What am I to you, that you should remember me? One needs a certain minimum worth even to receive a gift.

I turn my lips over and over, wanting to tell you so many things. I waste hours deliberating whether to voice my grievances, what you’ll think, what you won’t. I can speak openly about everything else, but grievances—they need a kind of claim, a right. And what right do I have?

There was a secret I wanted to tell you the other day, wasn’t there? It’s this: if you ever got furiously angry with me and called me foolish, rude, and whatever else came to mind, none of it would hurt me. It feels like the rage itself would heal everything. Except sometimes a certain sadness settles in your eyes, and then I think: this person writes so much poetry, so many emotional words, yet when you answer me, your words are so robotic, so hollow. Tell me—do you run out of words? Or do I simply bring out your stinginess with language?

When I see you, I think: would it feel even better to see this person in the flesh? Does the world hold as much tenderness as we find in dreams? For some reason I keep thinking you’re not well today either. Your body is all right, isn’t it?

You know, Roddur, that girl who writes her heart to you every day like a fool—sometimes you don’t know how much sorrow she carries when she writes to you, how often her eyes are brimming with tears. You could never imagine all the cruelty she has to endure, all the insults, all the cutting words she silently swallows from so many people. When she’s surrounded by strangers, she misses you terribly. Her heart tells your heart so many things—perhaps because the heart doesn’t age. But her lips can never quite reach your ears with those words. And meanwhile, her body—her body just keeps getting older.

# A Letter in the Night

Well, Roddur, does sin lodge in a man’s body or in his mind? That foolish girl—she doesn’t even know the reckoning of sin and virtue. Not having tasted joy, she doesn’t know what it feels like to receive; she can’t even desire it, doesn’t know how to desire at all! She has no hope, no sorrow, no happiness. She’s forgetting how to live, bit by bit. Will you teach her to live a little, Roddur? For you, she has such a fierce hunger to live!

What do I think you are, and what are you really! Where are you, and where am I! What more can I say! Roddur, I won’t tell you these things anymore, won’t tell you anything. I’m mad, utterly mad! “If one is unworthy, then loss alone is fate’s decree…” I won’t tell you anymore how my heart breaks, how much I suffer!

How unbearable it all is, Roddur…! Even a human’s capacity to bear has its limits. I don’t understand what’s happening inside me—I only know it hurts so much! Never mind all this. But the truth is, I was terribly angry with you. So many dreams still left to fulfill, and here I am, dying at every moment for one Roddur!

I’m in the village, surrounded by nature; sometimes watching the sky, touching the breeze, drenched in rain, and in idle moments, in melancholy, in restlessness, in indifference, with tears in my eyes and a smile on my lips, the days just slip away in silence! And listen, don’t read too many books, will you…read too many books and romance withers away!

When I was young, I used to calculate the small and great accounts of religion. Now my philosophy of faith has changed. To me, all religions seem right. Whatever each person does, therein lies their liberation. Belief itself is the root here. Yet reading the Gita, I’ve understood this much: every human is a part of the Supreme Self, each person is God himself, and to know Him, one must know oneself.

I know you know much, understand much—don’t laugh at my words, though! These are merely my realizations; no one taught me. Tell me, Roddur, which is supreme to you—the yoga of action, the yoga of knowledge, or the yoga of devotion? Can a person embody all three together? Were Einstein or Tagore knowledge-yogis? But they couldn’t practice religion separately, so did they not attain God? Where are they now? In heaven? Or in hell? Is God really as wrathful as we’ve all made Him out to be together? These are purely the musings of my heart, and I have no one to share them with. I have only you!

Tell me something, Roddur—what is religion to you? What is life? What is the world? What is love? When we love someone, whom do we truly love? That person? Or ourselves? We love only because we find something in them that matches our own heart; otherwise, who would love at all? Then is all the world’s love merely love of oneself?

Never mind, I won’t bother you in the middle of the night anymore! I’ll say one last thing before I bid you goodnight. It seems to me that in this world, there is but one thing that is truly real, truly sacred, truly mysterious, truly rare—and that is love.