Yet It Remains

I still send "Happy Birthday" to that dead number on that special day, knowing full well no reply will ever come. Still I send it. On that day, not sending the text would leave me unable to breathe easy.

I still shift to one side of the rickshaw in that marvelous moment before the drizzle begins to fall, and wander alone through those particular streets. What else can I do? The streets witnessed everything. Only the streets remain...

I dislike vegetarian food, yet I still go to that vegetarian restaurant and sit in that same chair by the window, eating rice with vegetables. Why do I eat there? I won't say—not everything needs to be told.

This same me wears that large red bindi I dislike and stands before the mirror, because someone once wanted to see me in a red bindi. I keep trying, hopelessly, to see myself as that person saw me, in their vision of beauty.

But I still don't wear high heels. In their words, they didn't suit me. Now no one would see if I wore them, but my taste has been ruined—I'll never wear them again for the rest of my life!

This fiercely independent me still suppresses my deepest desires, still doesn't let myself get drenched in rain, because someone standing on the rooftop didn't like watching me get soaked. I never asked the reason for such madness, afraid they might say something foolish to my face!

I haven't worn my favorite dark shade of lipstick since the day someone said, "The lipstick hides that mole on your lower lip." I don't know what one says after such words, so I only listened.

Someone wanted to see me dressed like a Tagore heroine, so I wore sindoor and took photos, but hid them fearing someone might see. The pictures are still there—I don't look at them. What if everything comes flooding back again! There's no greater torment than dragging memories closer to yourself.

When I open "that" diary, I see on every adjacent page, front and back, in every comma and period, in every drop of ink, in each word on every page—only that person's fragrance lingers. The moment I open the diary, something howls hollow in my chest.

Though I've aged, I haven't changed—I've forcibly bound myself to that earlier age. Fearing that person might not accept my transformation and leave again in hurt, as they did before.