When boys have time on their hands, they drive girls mad. When girls have time on their hands, they let boys drive them mad. And yet look—though we're both so busy, we remain mad for each other. We've never even met, but I see nothing except you, you see nothing except me. Perhaps this is what love is.
Well, never mind all that.
First, take my anchal-full of love. I asked myself today, you know—how are you doing! I remembered that night of new moon when you were telling me the story of how the first person of silence stays well! You asked, Nil, how are you?
What a difficult question! What can I say in reply! What is there to say! I learned from you: "No one stays well; everyone must learn how to stay well. To think less about whether you're well or not—that's essential for staying well."
Wellness is mostly contagious—from flower to bee, cloud to rainbow, green to meadow, rain to kadam, river to tree, you to me! In that half-bloomed moonlight I saw in your eyes the arrangements for endangered dreams slowly fading away!
You are not well, the shiuli dew is not well, a broken mirror is not well, a few glass bangles are not well, not a single lunar day is well.
And so it can be said, I am well—like your first person of silence, slowly wearing away, I think... I'm quite well!
I remember, the twenty-fourth of Ashwin, we were talking about love... Suddenly you said, Is love a beggar, Nil? So very poor... does it become? I had said, Love grows rich, wealthy with the treasures of affection. You said, Then do I not understand love, Nil?!
I couldn't answer that day.
Once you would say, you're a person defeated for lifetimes, a person of no-stories you are. I would laugh and say, No no, you're victorious in love. Your story-life is enriched by love. I thought a kashbon-love would keep you well for a long time. Fertile alluvial soil would be flooded with fresh words for several more ages! You're not a copper-skinned farmer, you're a cultivator of fertile word-land! Love will surely enrich you in the end.
Today in this last watch of night, sitting to write to you, I realized I was wrong. Love truly is poor. There's no wealth in it. Blue-love couldn't give any prosperity even to someone like you! An untimely krishnachura came and arranged an untimely love in your city, yet still I haven't learned to love.
You remain a defeated person as before, not a single new story was born this spring! Still you're the father of fertile words, your alluvial soil flooded with fresh words remains the same. Yet you didn't know that an immense blue sky has lost to you, accumulated blue-pride, all the newly bloomed blue lotuses, a blue person searching for firefly-light in your depths!
Your depths are so private, I sink gradually into your indefinable boundaries. A soul immersed in fathomless water has been enriched by your touch. You are a vast wonder, you know! Your wealth is contagious wealth—whoever comes near you will bloom; yes... here's a full stop, this time your excuses won't work!
A poet teaches thinking through words, teaches life philosophy, unravels the complexities of worldly life like a mirror, arranges separation searching bit by bit for moonlight. Humble words accept defeat, can give simple confessions of personal incompleteness; self-absorbed words never know conflict!
But sometimes in powerful words rings the protest of certain incongruities wearing colorful masks. You—you teach how to love through words, colors, fragrances! With so much love in your poems, you're the one who says frustration plays in your pen! Sometimes I see love and separation living in the same room; you can do it, because you're a classical, impenetrable new moon! Why should ordinary people like me understand this!
If you say frustration, then so be it. If you say pure darkness, then so be it. If you say loneliness and fadedness, then so be it... so be it! I want to love this very frustration, loneliness, fadedness! Do you have anything to say? Speak!
One day you said, "Can you handle it, Nil, taking responsibility for a messy life!" Thinking you wanted to entrust me with your life's responsibility, I was terribly startled. How can a shaky sapling bear the life-burden of a tree! The tree has footprints of long journeys, sworn testimonies of fragrant flowers, its basket of experience arranged in complete letters; it has kashbon-girl Martha and neon lights; child-brides, housewife lovers and various inventories of happiness or sorrow! It has the wares of certain domesticated mornings. It has moonlit nights by the Mayurakkhi; ghats bound in darkness and the smoky evenings of Momen's or shall I say, Dulal-da's shop!
Whose life is woven with such aesthetic beauty in stories—I'll take responsibility for that life; when did I ever acquire such depth!
I said, if you're not happy, if I fail, then this failure will lose its manageable measure. Perhaps in a long sigh you said, "No one wants to take responsibility, Nil, life has traveled so far this way. I want to give you responsibility, because when you're sad, life turns blue with pain; I'm trying to lean on you and stand up a little!"
I realized—I loved, yet didn't take responsibility for keeping well; does anyone love someone so insipidly! That day I became somewhat woman, became somewhat enriched, and kept the rest for you! When you become 'you,' monsoon comes to the lotus pond; when we two are together, spring calls at odd hours! Then why don't we stay together! Why don't we take even that small responsibility of keeping each other well!
Writing this, I wondered what life would have been like without you! What life was like without you! Perhaps it was fine, though nothing extraordinary. It was full of stories and characters, nothing aesthetic. Life had been bound to colorful canvas through pen and ink scribbles, but that wasn't anything intimate! Plots arranged in flowers and fragrances—it wasn't authentic!
How was life? Truthfully, I never called life close, sat it beside me and asked privately: Life, how are you? How were you? How do you want to be? I only came asking life... keep me well! I never once considered whether life was staying well or poorly.
You taught me that I and my life are never the same. They are two different entities, two shelters. Life must also be tasted and tested. One must know how much life can smile, how well it knows how to live! You showed me how much debt had accumulated! Walking along the shore of words, somewhat rhythmically you said, Not everyone has the wealth to leave behind a few handfuls of debt in privacy; you left some—ah! Call this debt tenderness then! Prosperity is a word that dissolves in the depths of wealth; like a mountain's tears becoming the ocean! Someone will come, perhaps already came; you're a careless krishnachura, very busy with the mixture of colors! Keep a few handfuls of wealth for me too, some debt-happiness is also my due!
What strange creatures we are as humans, isn't that right, Mehu! The one we want to love—we never think about keeping them well! The one we go to love—we only want to stay well ourselves near them, no one wants to borrow even a drop of their pain. Yet we say, don't we, that we don't want to share our own sorrows with anyone, we don't... actually there's no such thing as private sorrow. No one gives away their share of pain—intimate people quietly take it upon themselves!
Again see, the one we arrange so much of life to keep well—we can't love them; intimate people one day become duty-nurtured people! Two people living so close, yet light-years apart. On the other hand, the person who's beyond even touch... whom the road says, there's still far to go... that very person dwells in the heart, so far away, yet feels so close that I could touch them with breath!
Ah, my love awaited for lifetimes. How fate plays with us, isn't that right, Mehu!
This man I am, having spoken so much to you, do you notice how the night slips away? Listen! The red-toothed sun, as always, appears at the window. You know there's so much more left unsaid, so much more I must write! So I'll go now! When the new moon returns, I'll dress up the night with you again — how lovely!
Beloved letter-writer, kohl of my eyes, be well, stay carefully and tenderly. A night sweet as honeyed leaves for you.
Yours truly, Your hibiscus blooming at odd hours
1429, Autumn Issue Ten Flower Kunjalata, Fourth Watch of Night Subarnagrāma, Ruhitan Lake