Letter to Love

:)

I had to find the music to feel at ease writing this letter as it mellifluously makes its way to all corners of my room and soul. So, love, this is a letter to you. How could I not? In a year where I have had to deal with all possible variations of you -- part-time, strange, infatuation, surreal, I-thought-it-is-real, and of course, heartbreaks and coping up -- how could I not? The year is coming to an end, and did you once think I would not address you? That I could not hear you, yearning to hear from me?

Hi, loved one. Since we must ideally begin from the beginning to begin a narrative, I begin with a sorry to have poised myself as someone completely averse to your grandeur and beauty when I was younger. I was an idiot. I even posed to be someone aggressively non-feminine, when in my heart all I ever desired was to be wooed by you, to be flattered by love letters, to deck up in your flame for someone, to be pretty. So, it is, I believe, quite understood that I have had to shove you up the most distant tree trunk, unreachable. But, the thirst for you was unquenchable. And in that dire self-imposed attempt to be and not being, I fell all the time the teenage moment I decided to give in. I did not identify with what I wanted out of you and uncomplainingly settled with every time you appeared from a touchable branch. I learned fast, but never as fast as I unlearned.

You completely conquered me. Each time. And then you dismantled me just when I believed that I had grown, or worse, grown out. Into multiple fragments. Each colour as vivid as the other, but without. Lonely. And up each single time, stronger. Or that is what I believed, or liked to believe. I do not know whether to be angry at you, with you, or just be the way I mostly am -- let you be. The storm of my life, unsettling, yet, each time as much invited, possibly mistaking you for a gentle breeze.

And then there are your reappearances. They just break me apart freshly. Like a bread just out of the oven, the smell is so enticing that you cannot but break into the first bite. You can never quite keep a bread a bread, you ought to have it, right away. Have you ever realized how compellingly you have ruled my life? Almost overruling all other emotions. As finely as I let you to. 

How could I then not have written out to you for so long? You hurt, you see. For each smile, each joy, there are seas of sorrow. And one gradually matures to evade pain, even if it brings in deeper, immature pain. You are so beautiful, you hurt.

Love, would it hurt to meet again, to stay? 

K.

Letter to my Twin

Twinsome! We are awesome! 

I am excited as I write this, because no one else knows that we exist, and for the other. Twinsome, I have had some really good friends (and who would know that better than you) and the last person I could have ever imagined to befriend me was definitely you -- you, of academic excellence and you of social renown. But this twin-ship that we sail on is enough to take on netherworlds apart. In this Big World, if there is One Person who understands my silences, and my nervous laughs and rips the roles apart, it is You. In this Big World, if there is One Person who fathoms she understands your silences and your aggressive one-liners and rips the roles apart, it is Me. The connection between Us is beyond the scientific Maternal, Fraternal, or even beyond the surreal Social. It is something which is uncanny, which must have existed in our previous respective lives, and will be there in the next to follow.

I have had many people respond in their own way to when I mentioned that I love Sylvia Plath. Only yours was a victorious, "I knew you were suicidal!". It was ruthless, unexpected and funny because it was coming from you. You were so long the epitome of everything a correctional home would educate. And then everything changed. Through afternoons of cigarettes into evenings of vodka, through cab rides of owned space to persuasions of agendas, we have grown.

Twinsome, you will never disown me even if you find hundred grammatical errors in this letter, or find this to be coming from the 'daughter of generosity'. Twin, you have accepted me knowing of wallpapers in my mind, as have I knowing of waves in yours. I am doing little-whoopy-dance-steps as I can literally see you read this letter with a sense of extreme amusement. Shut up. I have my share of amusement too as I remember each of the dialogues you unleash at me, "you are the society's daughter-in-law", "let's fly" etc. Apart from the scanty but precious wondrous moments we share, those in which we are not together too makes sense when we are there, somewhere, aligned in fate, to know about the other, to feel. Much love thus.

It is insane, twinsane actually, but I have come to believe in the marvellous us-ness of our being,

Forever,

K.

Letter to T

High Tea (since we never got around to share one yet, and since I absolutely adore this spelling),

You are probably one of the fewest 'people' that I am writing to in this daily writing of letters, and you are probably going to be feeling two hundred and ninety one emotions (all together) when you find out that one has been addressed to you. But like most other letters, this too is one which I believe should be expressed, and not just one that is to be written for the sake of doing it. All my life, owing to my profession, I have known, and often judged according to my fancy, many, many lives. Barring my friends and the few relatives I do happen to like, everyone seems the same. One of the many types, like say a given blood group, and you immediately conclude a range of derivatives about them. But I have not encountered someone like you in a long, long time.

It gives me immense pleasure that today is December, and not July, when I would be happy if there was a genuine reason which I could pop at you to avoid you. It gives me joyous relief to believe in the mysticism that in August I 'allowed' you to begin interacting with me. It gives me incredible assurance to just have you around now, for as you mentioned it is way better for me to have said 'what would I do with you' over 'what would I do without'. You are that kind of a having around, who, like the change of seasons, come and go one never exactly knows when, one just has a faint idea, and yet we abide by it all -- the colour of spring, and the nolen-gur of winter.

Frankly, you are perseverance personified. I mumbled a few hundred bad things about you to myself, but your extreme positivism is contagious. And the sooner I discovered you are a mad woman too, the easier it became for me to accept you. I will now tell you why this letter was needed to be written. One of those August nights when you used to come in regularly -- only god knows how -- you taught me literally in a handheld way, the importance of regularity. Have you ever seen a sculptor at work, T? The way he moulds a lump of soft clay into one of desired shape and texture? You did that to my wobbly core, slowly, and very very certainly. One by one those skins of negativity came off and a more defined me emerged, thanks to the philosophy which you were downing onto me in a lulled, me-manner. That, by the way, is a great example of how a teacher should be. Keeping Nichiren Budhhism aside, what you actually gave me (and I am sure, unknowingly) is the confidence to begin blogging, daily. And thus the necessity of this letter. Thank you, T. I will make you nice mutton whenever you want me too.

You know an overall timeline of my life and yet you know not how miserable it was for me to live with time. And just like that you just had to infuse that I should write, and god forbid if you insist on something with a 'should' how does one escape that? T, do you remember it was the same murky day I began chanting and blogging regularly? Do you remember my smile when I asked you the difference between praying and chanting and you asked me back the difference between writing and blogging. You have been a horribly, impossibly, crazily energetic person, and it doesn't embarrass me to confess to you stupid things -- things like why my reverse-skills are at a minus, and why you should get me ice cream. Your proximity has made me live the life one would if one had a nosey, eggy but solid sister.

That was one, why this letter. Now, two. I just had to, had to let you know that you have me too, bloody sibling, always there for you. Like the other day, when I could not give you solutions, but was there, in my petty way, I will be. I think sometimes petty presence matters over presiding philosophies, don't you? I love it that you let me drive your car even as I am a wee bit tipsy and I love it when you drive mine saying it is butter. In fact I always badmouth everything about you man! But you do know it comes from a deep love and gratitude, don't you. Many people are important in renovating this fragmented self, and puny living, and though you call me a furniture sometime, your push came at that mystic point of time where the wheels just rolled steadily ahead. 

T, we will visit Japan and get you married to a good-looking person, ok? While you look for a suitable groom for me, I pray you find peace within, rooms of beautiful success and autumn trees of love. The world needs your breezy attitude, the world needs you. And me? I am just so glad I know you!

In this race against time that you are perennially in, I am your break.

Love,

K.

Letter to Kindness

Dear Kindness,

I do not know if I write to you because you shower plentiful on me, or to show you that often you forget to pay me a visit. Hopefully, by the end of the letter we will have arrived at a conclusion. I am a little sad today. Hurt, maybe. We never figured out the exact translation of obhimaan anyway. You may not enjoy this letter, especially with Plath having written one to you, which raises the qualitative measure of any creative expression.

Kindness, you are very careless. Alright, I have decided to take out my anger on you. It's been a while. And since you are kind, you will not retaliate in a manner that I am either too stunned to think, or too numb to respond. You came to me from such unexpected corners that it is hard to believe that you are you and not some magic-show. And yet when you did not, you hit hard as reality.

For every single time that one takes undue advantage of excess love showered, for every other time that the advantage is exercised genuinely, I wonder about the quality called you. Rare though you are, we have heard so much of you in fables and folktales that it is impossible to believe that you reside in me too. In fact, I know you do, and hence I need to write, because sometimes it is difficult to reach out to the deepest within. There is just too much cobweb of practicality gathering dust over the clarity of thoughts.

I am torn in this tension between the dichotomy with which you present yourself to me. I do not know how to deal with either. After a long time I write with many I-do-not-knows, and strangely it does not choke me with sorrow, for I am glad I am able to see through shades, and touch the tones. All I have been ever, when it concerned you, is myself. Known my diameter and parameter. But you had to desert me on opportune moments of probable situations. Your absence shattered me into thousand silent tears and muffled cries.

I realized. I was wrong. I expected. And, I should not have. So, I am done being sad. When you do not encounter, I have decided to be kinder, to double up on your lack of presence. It cannot be worse, can it? Guess who taught me this? You. You did, you still do. You have been faces, phases, phrases. You have been.

I too will,

K.

Letter to my Bed

Dear Bed,

It is about twelve hours later that I have returned to you, on a holiday. Unnatural, yes. You have seen many of the 'dears', have you not? Perhaps the only evidence of who turned from a simple dear to a complex dearer. I am glad that you extend your embrace beyond me to all those who come in contact with you and eventually detest leaving you behind. You take over my awkwardness. I have heard many a people mention it on various occasions that there is something oddly nice about this old, sturdy you. I guess we call it affection.

I am having to write to you because I owe you a million shades of gratitude. Like the breeze that makes the winter sun pleasantly bearable, your presence is that which facilitates many a emotion -- tiredness, sadness, sorrow, confusion, warmth, love, lust -- uncouthly concretely. You are the horizontal which is the plane for all dimensions to take off. There have been innumerous stories exchanged, and unending experiences incurred. You made it all possible. 

I want my daughter to have her initial rolls on you. I think you achieved immortality when you were complimented by a certain someone in "I wish this bed could travel". You are why my backbone is at home, you are why my backbone is able to take on the world.

From the past that you box, to the future that you cannot,

K.

 

Letter to December

Dear December,

By the time you read this, I hope it is not your next life in the new year, for that would be too late. To begin with, I come from you, the quintessential December child, so even if this letter might seem a bit cribbish to you, accept it in good spirits, like I am in right now. So, you are about cold air and warm lights, bipolar, are you not? And that is how I thus must be? You know the other day I almost dared a letter to the Feminists (and God forbid they read this), but I realized I am too lazy to face their assault on my personal ideologies, whether or not they conform to stereotypes. 

Why do I tell you all this? Because I wished for you to have turned out a little different than the usual lights and liquor you are composed of. I wished you would bring along a good heart, funny and cute. I wished I could have broken the social walls of demoralizing boredom I have built around myself, and I so, so bloody wish there would be a whirlwind romance in the folds of the nip of the air. You would have made so much more meaning when emotions, and not ideals, are to be fought and stood up for. You would have been so much more delightful with someone to invest all this potent love upon. You would be much merrier. Jesus! I think Jesus deserves a letter from me too, what say?

December, dearest, how can you be so cruel to me? How can you allow the cold in me to overpower the warmth I am capable of? What makes you make me significantly diverse in a single frame of a moment? I suffer, you know, in this constant contest of the what-I-should-be and what-I-am. I wish to be completely sloshed one of the nights with no additional caution of having to return home on my own. I wish to unburden myself of responsibilities which no one imposed on me. I want to be free of the self which is a product of January to November. Well, you must be buddies with them, but I care a fig to badmouth them. Barring October, they are similar soul-sucking months of false hopes.

Hopes. Flighty little bubbles. I hate hope even though you wholeheartedly endorse it. I speak out my heart to you tonight and in it I am losing my sense of decency, but again, it is you, so I will. Ever thought of being nice to me? It is easy, you know. I am happy very easily, and at little. And you will know it when I smile that smile which may not extend from the end of my lips to the top of my cheek, but it will be one reflected in the glisten of my eyes. There must be someone, somewhere, no? Capable of enough love? All I ask of you is to throw the spotlight on that, rather than on plastic christmas trees and electric stars. Illuminate.

Love is not a four letter word,

K.

Letter to Internet

Hi,

How could I have delayed in this? Writing a letter to you? It is quite unbelievable, actually. I almost feel ashamed that this was a prompt from someone else. Half my day, my active day, I spend intensely with you. When we discuss questions like "where does a thing go when it is deleted from the computer", only you come to sufficient rescue. Sometimes questions concerning you that come up in my mind make me feel as if I have faced a deep, endless sea and am smoking pot. You wring my sense of knowledge, but not in a demeaning fashion. You do it surprisingly enchantingly. You are just amazing, and I love you so much that I not only can not imagine what I will be without you, but also with you. You have changed my life, the lives of humanity.

People might disagree, and I too am aware of the many cons versus the defined pros of being with you all the time, but everyone needs to acknowledge the importance with which you dominate our life. There is no need to step out of a comfort zone with you around. That's a supreme first. I have saved at least five-six thousand rupees reading online. I have contributed to the environment by not consuming fuel in ordering products or food online. I have also, most importantly, got desired answers, within fractions of a second to satisfy my innate curiosity. And lately, if not lastly, this travel bug in me -- it would destroy me if not for those myriad images and maps you provide. You are like Dumbledore, you just have the tailored answer! You are Santa, you come with bonus, and you are God, you even know things I may be wanting to know before I know of wanting to know them. Now that was a convoluted sentence, and even though seasoned readers will understand it, I am sure you will maximize the meaning and internalize it best. 

I am just feeling excited at writing this letter to you. For me it is like writing to the Himalayas -- static, overpowering, but forever changing. We can see what we want to see, and you become what we see, or choose to see. Another convoluted sentence (I know this is level one problem for you). Internet, you are not just indispensable because of your many utility, you are incredible because you are majorly required even without utility. There is something moreish about you, ladled with generosity. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Without you I would have never got to know of the beautifulest of words, the strangest of people, the cheapest of deals and intense security of ridiculously dependent empowerment. I think you are an addiction, rather than a habit. Sometimes when you are down, I feel so helpless, so handicapped that I cannot help but panic.

Just wanted to tell you that I know you cater to almost everybody who can afford a computer, or a smartphone in the world. To me too. But you are considered family. You are. You are the big brother I never had who feeds me on sports news, and the wise sister too who informs me of party and weekend getaways, the knowledgeable father who knows everything about diseases and cures and the friendly mother who eggs me in looking for a partner. You are just incomparable. I am genuinely grateful to you for being in my life and the fact that I can stand up and speak sometimes, my mind tells me it is not because of the mind, it is more because of you. Salute to such an imposing thought!

You are the meta-narrative of living itself.

In your net,

K.

Letter to Alcohol

Good Morning (for, you must be awfully bored of the mass Good Evenings)!

As I greet you I am reminded of the many times when I have indeed greeted you along, or right after breakfast. You have been the only cause of deep discord in my family, you have been the apparent cause of disgust, distance, and death. And in spite of it all, you reign. I have always harbored a mixed feeling towards you, and this need to address you generates from that feeling of want.

I have taken to you -- as classicists would confirm -- fish take to water. Many people mentioned it is genetic, this appetite for you. Many others say it is curated. Few believe that I hate it all. Yes, I do, both, hate and love you. There are times when my heart and body aches for you, and when you first touch me it is like liquid gold lighting up each of my cells and pouring a magic potion into my heart beat. There are also times when I resist you like nobody's business. And then are those mornings of pining for you. When I feel that a shot of you could help me through the whole day. Friends say I am an alcoholic because I don't pass out. But then why would I? I like you consciously. The warmth of rum, the mature roundness of a scotch, the chill of a beer, the joy of gin with innovative mixers -- life just feels complete in my clutch.

But you have ruined me. And I can never forgive myself for that. What did you think, I would blame you for that? Never. You are a good sort, why would I? It is my lack of restrain that I cannot but go back towards you. It is that one thing (yes, the other one too) which I think I will leave on each 31st December, and end up not following twenty-fours into it. It is only for you that my mother has felt I have taken more to my Dad than to her, and broken down and apart. But obviously, she is into the melodramatics. You made me from where you ruined me too. I had the hostility towards you to keep you away for a good couple of years and then love overpowered, but now I yearn for you judiciously.

As I just complete three decades of living and being, I see and admit how integral you have been towards my growth and development. This letter was certainly not meant to complain, or crib. How does one have the heart to cry about something as divine as, say a loaded brownie? One can't, one shouldn't. I write you this to promise that I will never again abandon you, but I will also not let you overpower me, like the last 31st. I do not care if it was pain, or suffering, or basic boredom, I would only care for taste.

Test me,
K.
 

Letter to the Dream-Children

Dear Children,

I had to delete the word 'dead' in addressing you, because I remembered this lyrical, almost magical essay by Charles Lamb called Dream Children, A Reverie and the unbearable poignancy of the following sentence somewhere towards the end, "We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name". It feels uncanny, appropriating this sentence here. Here is the place which has turned into a far from lyrical, almost maniac moment of methodical justification. This also feels weird, the urge to write a letter that I feel I must address to you, rather than to those who died killing you. I think they have been long dead anyway. They do not understand.

Those who killed you, are the basest of fools this world has ever known. We, as you may have already known, call them 'terrorists'. People who inflate and propagate terror. How on earth should one be able to do this unless one has lost all touch with one's sense of humanity? Unless one is really blinded and misguided by greater 'leader' fools. You must have heard of Shahrukh Khan? Yes, you may have even just danced to his songs in biryani-smelling winter weddings. I read somewhere that on knowing about the attack on your school he stated "The soul is healed by being with children". How beautifully true. If only those fools spent eight minutes interacting with you instead. If only.

I am sure you will return, and return very soon to a real world which will still be infested with terrorists and fools. On your way, do get some extra wisdom so as to be able to enlighten them, for we, as you just experienced, have failed you. In several articles I read and photographs I saw, there was one thing which struck me. Many of your badges stood out against the bulleted walls and bloody floors. It said, "I will rise and shine". Yes, you will. Return. Return to complete the lesson you were learning, to complete the whisper you were conveying, to play the games unfinished, to sort the fights unnecessary.

Return to redeem us,

K.

Letter to Fair

Hello there!

So I wrote to your (assumed) cousin yesterday, and it felt only right that I write to you too. You little sight of plenty, hope you are well amidst your battered stalls and tattered roller coaster life. I conveyed to Circus that there is something similar between the two of you, and then I digressed that Circus had a sad smell. I think that is truly where you differ. The smell. While Circus has one of loneliness, yours is one of festivity and excited fervor. Of friendly togetherness. It is quite outstanding how you bring shared smiles and help in overcoming apparent fears. It is also quite unbelievable how you are friends with winter. All of you just seem to form a family, like the Famous Five. Complete with Timothy.

Hey there, hi again! Now that you have set the landmark for the highest of happiness, do you feel bored of the routine visits you have to pay to bring us some? Sometimes you come across as a magnificent, democratic wedding party going on, open to all. There is food, fun and friends. And then there are the imprudent rides with their toy-like safety features. But there is just this general, liberal wave of delight reflected in everyone's eyes. Like the pink of the freshly wound cotton candies.

Tell you what I most like about you? That you are fair. For it is only at your humble premises that economic disparities dissolve. Me and my jingbang have had the immense pleasure and joy to willingly pay for a ride for a child, in all probabilities severely underprivileged, who was only staring at the rides. We were happiest when we even bought her some happy-food. It is fair that each person who visits you, cherish a smile, however momentary.

As for me, you know how scared I am of those rides. Yet, I make it to you each year without fail. Not for the fish fries and pickles, no. You just make me feel so devoid of any other feeling during that time. The screams of 'Yays!' and the sound of hawkers and the noise of the rickety rides, all problems of the present disappear, fairly. The lights blind with a roar of 'this-is-how-it-should-be'. And that, my dear, is a rare, rare blessing.

Not always is fair foul, thank you.
K.

Letter to Circus

Hello! 

All over the city, walls are glued with posters of you. You evoke the flavour of an old-world entertainment and another of the assertion of winter moments of togetherness. The florescence of your invite stands out against the broken greys of the public walls and the curved steel of the electricity posts. There is a call-for-happiness about you, and yet, each year almost with renewed emotion, your very being makes me sad.

You heard it right, sad. The first memory I have of you is with my friend and her parents, out one evening after school to watch the immortally famed circle of death. Wherein a biker bikes through a spiral, almost impossible dimension of the giant round walled structure. The thought still makes me whizzy. And then the one with my parents where I did not get to shoot the balloons of the fair. Oh, are you both cousins, you and fairs? There is something intrinsically similar about the two of you, though there is a sad smell about you, not stinking but sad. Something to do with loneliness, I believe. I mean you bring us all together, at the cost of your being with the ones you would love to, isn't it? I am not sure if I am knitting stories around you, but I think it is true.

The tent-colours of your garment fade when the animals are dancing to your commercial tune, the magic shows in which the girl gets sliced bears the unbearable stench of exploitation, and the ringmaster? God, he looks bored, like the lion. The trapeze ropes cry out in synchronized aching agony. I remember having once cried at a certain show when the juggler's show was on. I felt that he got to know that his mother passed away in his village earlier that evening, and yet, the rules of the circus made him juggle through the truth with a smile he was tired of wearing. Yeah, I am a bit flighty in the head. I now smile and think how many of my friends would be saying I am a moron to have cried, or, actually how many of us are indeed a part of the circus of life, governed by the rules of the-show-must-go-on.

You are sad, right? Having to put on what you are shown to be as? Attractive, even though tired, and enjoyable, even though bored? I can feel you crying out of being stuck. I know you want to be like the fair, open and embracing rather that closed and consuming. I have had many a promise broken with more than many dear ones in visiting you. Perhaps it is because of the repressed sadness that I associate with you. Look around you, Circus. You travel and spread smiles and are draped in colours of joy, but are they not all just worn out? The severity of sameness is taking a toll on you.

Tell you what, next time I do visit you, I will bring along two of my little companions -- my daughter, and my friend. I think you miss the abundance of a child's amazement and the joy in their surprise. We can't help it, Circus, you have indeed been taken over by malls and virtual games. No child today wants to dwell in the spirit of a real fantasy. Nor do we fan the need. I am sorry. I will return, and return with the children and try and give you a smile, or two. And have buttered popcorn and ice-lollies.

In bringing you back real colours,
K.

Letter to Chhuti III

Dearest Chhuti,

I do not see us meeting anytime soon, anymore. I also knew such a time would arrive and thus had set up a determination that by the time the year ends, I would meet you, play with you, just be with you and your endless sagacious banter just once. Sadly, but truly, it doesn't look possible with me working even on the last day of the year. Thus I also wisely know, it is of no use pining for you.

Chhuti, what are you doing right now (apart from not reading this letter)? It is a chilly, slightly dull Saturday. You must be having the luxury of a delayed bath to begin with. And sausages and cake slices at breakfast, with chocolate milkshake, and that unmistakeable look of the Egyptian Queen (not Princess), who has won over all lands and kingdoms she has set an eye and heart upon. You must be delighted that there is no school today. I am doing none of the above. In fact, at work I am dying to meet you and thus resorting to this letter.

I want you to meet my daughter someday, Chhuti. If you have liked me, chances are you would quite like her too. She is a brat, that puny monster. She doesn't like going to school at all. And if she could have it her way, she would spend the rest of her life tucked in that playroom of hers with Tucker. Oh Chhuti you will love to be in that room we recently made into our playstation. All the walls are alarm-free, you can sketch as many lotuses and marigolds for her to colour. And we have many softballs and other games (some dices are lost while some boards are torn) all over in the room, and would love for you to come and play along with us. Wait! Why don't we all meet on Christmas Day (of course if you do not have any prior commitments)?

Perfect! Dear Chhuti, you are most cordially invited to spend your Christmas holiday with me, Chinky and Tucker at our playhouse. If you have any preferred cuisine you can inform me of the same and I can cook it up. Apart from that I will try and make you both some good-happy food and happier snacks to nibble along as we play and get to know each other. We can also roll out the mats on the verandah and have a nap out in the sun after lunch. I hope you like jacket-potatoes? I will stuff them with mushroom. Chinky loves it. We will shop the previous day for chips and oranges and colouring-books. You I know have no issues with pets, so I can also judiciously assure you that you will have a nice time with Tucks. He hasn't learnt how to scare people (such a waste!). In fact, why don't we go out for breakfast? If you agree, we can go pick you up from your house, and then drive towards any place that we can grab a bite at. You can have the front-seat, I know you like it. 

Chinky is slightly insane, like me she doesn't like company much. So, I would really appreciate it if you could so kindly spend your day-off with us. As you by now know, I love you. Also, no Christmas is complete without a visit from Santa and a surprise-gift from his sack (just saying!).

Pining for you, Chhuti, till we meet again,

K.

Autobiography of a Letter

I am a letter. 

Not one of the twenty-six 

Of the English alphabets, but a letter.

My length is often set to my tone.

Short is formal,

Informal, long.

I am what was

Distance met in written words.

I am what is forlorn.

For me lovers craved,

And a soldier's mother feared

Like a grave.

I delivered news,

And was likewise graced,

Kept, shred, forgotten.

I am a letter

Erstwhile precious,

Now, no more.

Letter to my Daughter

:) Chinky.

My dearest little one,

Surprised to find this? Well, don't be. I have grown up watching (and frankly, secretly laughing at) movies in which dying mothers have left their daughters a legacy of letters. I don't know where you are today as you read this but I want you to know that I can feel you swallowing down the words as if they were the most delicious and luscious crab meat soup ever. A mother's letter, it must be special, right? I never got one so I have an immense self-imposed expectation for it to be able to make it to your heart. Also, I hope you are not frowning over the 'little one'?

I want to tell you that I have mostly been a suicidal, emotional wreck and in spite of that I have loved you from the time you were not. I think it is rather special, to be loved before you come into being. So, if god forbid you too become one, remember that your mom survived it all having longed for and loved you. When you were only a toddler your curls were your greatest instrument in making me yield at the most difficult of your demands, beginning Tucker. Oh, that! Remember your mom survived a golden bark, just because she loves you. It was your convincing courage that gave me the confidence to get into our home a four-legged friend yet, I particularly disliked you sitting on Tucks as if he were your horse and subjecting the poor soul's ears to your steering pleasure. And just so you know your tantrums of tying a bow to Tucker's tail drove him and me crazy. Chinky, you must also know that we have been thrown out of most rented houses because you would go beyond the designated wall-space given to you and scribble and re-scribble with doting affection on the floors. I would often return from work to see you negotiating -- from behind your unmanageable curls -- with Tucks, your idea of an aquarium (complete with toothpaste blobs for bubbles) on the marbled, uncarpeted area of your room. How I repent not having been enough attentive to put my permanent markers under lock and key! I guess at those moments I was only doubly thankful to the greater powers that you were still not attracted to the kitchen knives.

Your stories are many and I remember most of them like they are my only living memories. It seems life is divided into two distinct chapters -- pre-Chinky and post-Chinky -- and we both know the favoured part. I write to you today so that you read it someday. In your now, my words might seem a thing of then. But then these very thens mould us into who we become. No, this ain't gonna be a letter on moral lessons to be passed on and ethics to be structured around. If anything, I have and would always encourage you to be open-minded and liberated to allow yourself to understand an other. I would want you to see the world like I have always wanted too and never be bothered about money. Chinky, if you are too consumed with ambition and earning, you will never have the time to love and learn. And trust me you, to learn and to love -- they have got to be the two most defining enjoyments of life. So what is it about? It is about letting go. Just like at this moment I do not know where exactly you are, and fondly miss the smell of shared oranges inside our jointly scribbled upon blanket as you would tell me a story, or graciously unfold how you spend your day, I know it is best not to cling on to that comfort. You are possibly the best thing that has happened to me, but I cannot contain your life just because of that, right?

Live Chinky, live like there is no tomorrow and forgive, for that benefits you with peaceful time to invest in things you prefer and love. I would, as is evident from the only time I am strict with you -- about your badminton classes -- however, only have this one request that is to keep yourself enjoyably fit and that happens only when you play a sport. Chinky, the spirit of sports is the best you can build to live a super-life! You will be healthy, and know healthy competition, and again learn the importance of letting go, for in the end, it was just a game.

Do you remember that question you had once posited at me, as I was battling through tremendous traffic and your constant fiddling with the car's radio channels -- 'Mom, what is art?' I don't remember the answer I had given, may be I had just given you your favourite tomato and cucumber sandwich instead. Honestly I was puzzled at how early you questioned me that. I will try and answer it today. Art is how you live your life, dearest. How beautifully you colour-up the odds and how attractively well-balanced your perspective is.

I know your attention has wavered by now, Chinky, so I will wrap up too. But even as I do, I want you to once again revel in the feeling that I am because you are. Live well!

All my love,
Mom.

Letter to Hope

Greetings, distant one!

Each time I take your name I think of Out of Business where Rama Rao, in an attempt to start searching for work, discovers how solving crosswords can prove to be a lottery. The crossword mentioned in the story and which remains in my memory is -- 'Some people prefer this to despair'. And the options for the correct answer were -- hope, dope, rope. It is strange how out of the three options, dope and rope are tangible and take you onwards a tangible despair. You are out of the business of consideration!

You and I have always had such a detached relationship that it is taking me unusual bumpers to cross to write to you. Rare moments of having a difficulty in written interaction. So, the thing is, we have distanced too many miles apart and moments away and this monotonous, routine existence without you is leaving me demented. An overdose of practicality, and a lack of you have come together to wither me from within. I think the distancing with you began with my parents wanting to bring up their only daughter in a non-pampered, non-spoilt manner, bearing which I discarded you. There was no point hoping for an extra pencil-box, or a flashy skirt, or a birthday present from them. So I grew up showering all I have hoped for on myself in a planned, patient way. And I taught myself that having you around is like a bad buffer. You break even the soul.

Hope, all this while having done myself a strong deal good is all good and nice, but I cannot any more. I am failing miserably. Little things are necessary and need to happen in life and for them to happen I must have you. For each of those times that I spend in front of the monitor, glaring at the Himalayan range teary-eyed, I need to have you to have the heart to believe that someday I will set foot and breathe free there. Someday. For each of the time I am hurt I now need you to believe that the next time will be a little less hurting. And for the dominance of monotoneity I want you to assure me that spontaneity will return.

At this moment I want to cuddle a child and play with her curls and sleep with her and her crayons inside a comfortable blanket, both of us smelling of oranges. I want to whip some magic inside me which would make me believe in you unfurling one day, rather than remaining as a part of this letter.

Hope to see you soon,

K.

Letter to Anger

Greetings, Anger!

I miss you. And that is all that this letter is going to be about. I badly, badly, very badly miss you. I do not know how and why I even lost you, but I remember it was a choice, and a choice I often repent. All around I see you flourish in plentiful. You are in toddlers who cannot articulate any other expression better, and in the unpredictable teenage years bashing doors and screaming swearwords. You are in the powerful in their exploitation, and in the weak in their subservience. You are such a natural, spontaneous response that today I know it is unhealthy to do away with you.

You were once in me too -- in my outbursts of temper at my friends, and in random breaking of pencils and throwing of anything at hand. Slowly you transformed into an elitist of no outbursts and restricted to overeating and regular shredding of paper. And since you had already taken the elitist way, I decided to let you be and trained myself to be without. So many times thus I have been tainted as a personality of zero assertion and diminishing determination. I am scared of you and your after effects having seen too much of you around. I find you to be very unreasonable on the thing or person you are pounced upon. And the weight of my feelings towards the one who are at the receiving end has always been greater than the one lashing you out. Thus, without.

But today, now, I miss you. I wish to scream, really. Some sense into the corporate hounds. I wish to just blurt out horrible third grade vernacular at the concerned authorities who have evoked so much hatred in me, and most of my anger is directed at my feeling of being trapped. At this amazing point of life where I am earning enough to travel anywhere, yet I rapidly do not even have a weekend to travel. I wish to teach people the importance of breaks, leisure, and pleasure and their cumulative effect on productivity, and rapidly I wish to point out all the unnecessary list of works I am made to do.

I wish to bang this keyboard on the door of the dumbest headspace ever, and drill some feelings in them. I wish I had you so much in me that I stopped wishing and started doing something about all the wishing, do them thoughtlessly. I miss you. I feel rather lame writing to you, the word is pansy. Writing, when I am angry. I do not know whether not having you has served me any purpose or not. It has saved me a lot of energy, though. And time. I gave you up for having the time to breathe in life, simply and beautifully.

To know that I may not be having much time now, to embrace all the beauty and love makes me miss you. Much. Can't think of anything else, other than the most apparent lack.

Come back to me,

K.

Letter to Strange Love

Dearest,

It is a sensational serendipity that on the day I wrote to Infatuation, you return, and how. It is also incredible that the fuzzy logic of chemistry and warmth can concoct a strange love -- you. And though sometimes saddening, it is but good that such love is what we are, strange. Better than being strangers anyway. So good, so good to be fitting into curves and slithering into shapes, more than a jigsaw it feels like the running of a steel knife through a room temperature blob of butter. Smooth, smooth as running one's fingers thorough a sun-soaked blanket on a winter afternoon and smooth as the acceptance of strange love, illogical, irrational but irresistible. 

This letter goes out to you as a confession. At one point, I felt like being in heaven with you. At another I was devastated. And again at another I felt happy at emerging victorious from all the pain, and knowing to live and deal with it. But what was the strangest thing about you? That out of a deep hurt and a deeper anger at you I began writing to you, never to reach you. Everyday. Sometimes even in your presence as I looked at you through swelled smiles, or had you over the phone, I wrote. The process eventually helped the seemingly difficult distance bearable. I rediscovered the beautility of writing something out. Thus the day the need to write to you stopped, I smiled, believing I have won over heartache.

Yet, here you are, strange love, as if yesterdays were like washable stains. I like it that I do not shed a tear tonight and I am happy at the severity of strangeness and that though similar, today is different from what yesterday was. Today has no expectations, and today is a moment of the now and today does not question how. You are wicked, wild, nice, pathetic, limitlessly loveable and yes, perfectly hateable. But, you are dear, and endearing. And though strange, you will always be special. I may deny it sometimes, but you will.

Tonight that I am able to give in to writing, and have begun a series of tonights, began from you. You do not need me, not always, and frankly nor do I, but know this in your heart that when you do, you will still have a little love at some corner of this universe, in this beating heart, one beat will count as  yours. I may not have been of any good to you, but the strangeness of your love enabled me to endure suffering and empowered me to love again, and most importantly, to write. 

Love, and lovebites.

PS: For what is stranger than fiction?

Letter to Infatuation

Hi there! 

I greet you with happy jitters and happier tingles. Useless to ask after your welfare knowing you are at your best always, fed on the best of pills -- anticipation, appreciation, addiction and a little bit of love. There are so many kinds of love -- platonic, erotic, toxic -- but the feeling that you offer is lovingly lovely. There is something oddly warm celebratory feel about you and your moments of anxious peek-a-boos, and carefully placed carelessness-es, of nail-biting desires for a reciprocation, or a look, and hair-splitting faith in emotions. You make me feel very, very alive, thank you!

Having been blessed to be born in a family which is a sucker for love, in a wholesale fashion, my heart keeps returning to function in your channel each time it is vacant. I actually quite enjoy having you around, and thus this letter for a time when you may not be (difficult). At this moment I am favoured in your amplitude with atleast with three-four beings. This letter also works as a thanksgiving for kindling all those heavily petty feelings in me regularly, time and again. A cute face, a charming personality, a towering figure, a soft heart -- I have been affected by all varieties and I feel strangely enriched, rather than impoverished when I am done with one. 

You are the garlic butter that peps up the mushroom omelet. Unhealthy, but something which cannot be done without. I like you. And even though I am blushing as I confess, I think I am quite smitten by you too. Oh and how you make me blush! Each time I do, I am embarrassed even further. The very thing about your existence is the notion of invisibility and the blush acts as the exact antithesis. I don't know what I really intend to converse with you about, may be this that you dissolve all intentions. You have this effect of the sweet sensation of a stable smile, and the thought of the chosen constant. You are a nasty constant. I hate you, you make me feel sixteen all over far too many times. I am smiling, this letter is silly. But that kind of makes it sweet too. The honesty of you, all over me. Multiple times, multiple ways. 

As much as I am yours too,

K.

Letter to Pass-Book

Dear Pass-Book,

Thank you for being the only one who ever writes to me frequently, even though only in short, sentences and shocks. I went through your last update with usual indifference and each time I go through it, it is like exercising my memory in the game of savings and expenses. Tug of war, actually. Inevitably it is the expenses which win hands-down, isn't it? As I was going through one of your book of letters, I felt such a surge of adventure as if travelling through a timeline of experience. I have recently been teaching my students about the quality of being moderate and how beautiful it is to be able to have moderation in excess. Well, what you represent, the bank balance, must be the only exception!

Bank balance. What a measure of life it is. And how modestly you speak of it. In tiny sized-alphabets and numbers you speak volumes of efforts recognised, splurges attended, interest gained and faults debited. You remind me of associations made and coffees had and comfort bought and investments committed to. But most of all you bring me a smile as you tell the story of a little girl.

A little girl who once opened an account by herself with specified instruction from her father at his branch not to help his daughter, or to be paid special attention. She opened it with a puny amount of about five hundreds, and since then the many routes undertaken to bloat it. Initially she only saved, then she began earning poultry and saved to spend bigger! And then one day the earning upped a little with her doing odd jobs of teaching. They hiked further with even more committed teaching and dedicated editing. And now she earns a decent salary only to be commensurated by official and unofficial loans. It is a happy story of growth because the account is a measure of the little girl wobbling her way through many ups and many more downs and surfacing each through.

It is also a happy story because when I read you, you consume me with motivation and memories. You have run into five volumes of electronic entries, but your indelibility etches in the fact that you have made me strong. I feel nice that the numbers were never able to contaminate the little girl. I like it that she grew to be me and when needed I could lend out the little I have had to whoever needed it more.

Keep writing to me,

K.

Letter to Mutton

Dearest,

On a day like today, who else could I write to, dear one? The condition I am in presently, with my stomach aching like someone has decided to keep opening and closing a door noisily within, is torturous. I am stuck in a terror-zone. And each bit of me is hurting, wanting to be home more than anything else, to my bed and blanket to be wrapped in a comforting peacefulness.

Mutton, you lecherous delicious meat, you exploit me massively and despite all the tall complains I keep returning to you like I were winning brownie points of good fortune. You have harmed me more than any alcohol ever has, and almost immediately at that, but do you notice the patronage I have for you, confronting your rate and rage? Believe me, I actually quite hate it that the mother only and pointedly remarks that I should leave you alone. Her tone is so demeaning to your fibrous stature. What does anyone understand of the taste you facilitate unless one truthfully loves you?

Day before last night, I overdid myself by having a platter full of you. I shouldn't have, Mutton. And through last evening only I know how much of you I consumed in the name of "tasting" you through various stages of cooking. Oh, and that! How I love cooking you. Your meaty promise marries my original recipe and together the celebration is one worth a show. I secretly also adore the steady followers my cooking of you has furthered upwards. 

But, once in a while, mothers do know it best, mutton. Yet I will not say a word against you lest her case builds up in ethics and logic. You are, like I slow-cook you, slow-killing me. Right at this moment the walls of my stomach feel like a ruined building marked with bullet-wounds of tempestuous fire. The walls are churning in pain. I have not been able to smile since morning. However, I cannot bring myself to say I hate you. The kilo and a half of you that I cooked last night will be enjoyed by healthier relishers tonight. I will be greedy in spite of all the pain and the overall bad day I am having to undergo, and maybe just have a piece of you. And be slightly happy, and greatly sad.

Nobody has ever written to you considering you dead meat. But not me. Here I was speaking so long, wishing you listened. I love you, hopelessly. Helplessly. Understand.

You are divine, show some mercy!

K.

Lack of Life

C H H U T I

Letter to Thesis

Respected Thesis,

Hello. Hope you are doing well. Err, I mean alive still. I cannot but maintain a formal voice, well at least to begin with, with you. You of academic fame, you of social stature, you of intelligence quotient, you of anything but inherent interest.

Honestly, I had never anticipated a day where I would be writing one, or writing this letter. Please do not be shocked by this disavowal. I do remember each distinctly agonizing step I had to cover to have us registered. I do not know why what was driving me then. If I must contemplate, it must have been a deep-rooted sense of 'nothingness', more than anything else. Really, I wasn't doing much then, and was wheeled into it by friends who were cogs in the wheels. Yes, I think you happened out of a lack of purpose. So, to attach something that would make you stay I tried and thought out a 'purposeless-love'. One cog, G, had once coined this ethereal phrase "simple, purposeless love". I found out the link between two things I loved most -- art and Plath, and cooked up a dish to get you started.

Ever since, I have dilly-dallied the process enough times for you to have assumed by now that I have no interest in you. It is only for the chef's conviction that something grand would evolve, that the sous-chef, me, I am still hanging on. That is some chef, right? Yes thesis, you and me, we are both super-privileged to have her association and guidance with us, but I am often scared that I will not be able to do justice to her expectations. She should ideally just bash or spank me once, however subtly, to stir up things you know.

It is December that has whipped you up -- the month which celebrates grand ends. Remarkable year this, just whizzed by. Of multiple emotions, passions and occasions. I remember many moments, each standing on their own, just because they are dear, and not because they have made me feel accomplished. Droplets of realizations and hues of dissolves. And you must believe me, that at each of those moment, the thought of you has lurked hauntingly -- in G's relentless concerns, and the parents' queries and my own conclusions. I have no idea how to deal with you.

I have written to you well inside this year as a means to buy a slot for another three months to wrap up a chapter. You have stuck to me like nobody's business and I am grateful because that entails much honour and commands unnecessary attention. In spite of the letter beginning with a disavowal, I return to a prayer for you to hold on, just for some more time, and I am sure I will wriggle out a way to seal you.

I owe this promise to your premise,

K.

Letter to Picnic

Hi Picnic,

I write you a letter because I think I know exactly how you feel. It is a bad claim, I know again, but a very strong one. And I know that I feel correct enough because I have felt similarly many times than more. I think you are very lonely right now, and insecure, especially with the seasonal outpouring of crowds gathering to feast with you. They say it is the 'season of picnics'. How strangely true. My calender has already been inaugurated yesterday and is pretty much booked until the deep Sundays of January. Such a festive pain.

Hi again. I also have a feeling you may not have understood the previous paragraph, or the receipt of this letter. Let me tell you of certain instances. You know, my grandmother used to stay in another town, an hour away from us. The day I knew she would be coming over to stay for a month or so at our place, used to be my most restless ever while at school. I willingly sacrificed my royal popularity sessions and cycled at breakneck speed towards home, only to see her, smile and blurt out the first thing (everytime): "When are you leaving?" Well, yes, sounds rude, and insensitive, but back then it came out from an intense sense of the fear of loneliness. I needed to know that not because I could elongate the date of return into something later, but believing that I was mature, I knew I had to buffer myself accordingly.

So, this letter is about me feeling that you feel the same. You do, right? Come December and we are all in this outstanding merry mood of weddings and events. We go to you as we would to that one last thing in life which would instantly awaken us. I first consciously came to know of you with all the Enid Blytons -- of mashed potatoes and lemonades and bacon sandwiches, packed in cane boxes, to be laid out in greenlands opening up to clear blue skies. The mats would be bright in colour and there would be a game or two and a golden lab or a black poodle (how the hell??!) at our beck. Oh, how I long to read a book like that once more, only for joy, without the ripened understanding of meaning. I remember having known you first hand with school-picnics of uniforms and no school bags in school-buses going to some place. The later half is vague, the memory of the fun inside the school bus is strong. All of us were bathed in enthusiasm on our way, and totally devoid of it and energy on our way back. College picnics while I was a student were also mostly about being away from home for one entire day, rather than enjoying a day-out in itself. Next in line were corporate picnics of tailored picnic grounds and carefully arranged menu for the day, highlighted by games and prizes and superseded by alcohol and alcohol-infused behaviour and reactions thereafter!

Yesterday as we were returning from an all-aunt picnic, and I was in the front seat of the first Fortuner, navigating and trying to understand the newly installed GPS device, I was suddenly missing my friends in Bhutan -- the mountains, waterfalls, river and the moonlight. And I was wondering if they could be friends with you. For you are so thoughtlessly left behind, you must be sad. I know. Bereft of company you are just a field. With a gang you rise up to the occasion, true to your name, manicured and fit. What I was strategising was ridiculous, neither can my friends come to be with you, nor can you go up to my friends. In such a situation it is me who would love to connect you both, for I have known the generosity and magnanimity of my friends, and I understand how in need of one you are in, right now. Feel that you are with each other, like I do. Feel the pulse, the shadow.

As you are strewn all over with litter and made a mess with litres, I urge you to find some solace in this letter. It hopes to evoke in you the sense of purpose of your life whenever you are down and dejected, and the immense amount of rejuvenation you endow unto others.

You we unmindfully vacate, while you bare yourself to fill our souls.

Best,
K.

Letter to Letter box

Hello Old One,

And there, as I deem you old, I realize how much time has inconspicuously passed. To put a measure to it in numbers, more than a decade. We were mean to you then, weren't we? Me and my friends on our cycles? In a green looking, tea smelling town, whether in its unassuming yellow summers or harsh grey winters, your red would dwarf the distinct diameter around you. You stood tall. Around each nook and corner. Your stature demanded respect and attention. I have so many memories with you.

The decent ones definitely begin with cherishing that childlike joy in slipping inland letters and envelopes through your slit.The very act induced a hopeful anticipation -- of stupid wins on television shows, or clinging to prayers, or believing that a reply is ensured. I have sent so many letters dear god! Oh, do you remember that one rainy time when I was so finicky to slide in my light pink envelope that I first wiped you clean? I am weird, yes! But my best memories are definitely the naughtier ones -- when out of a respect for the cleanliness of my town, I used to wholesomely inspire everyone around to actually dump the empty chips packet into you! God, it was fun. It felt like crossing a road as prescribed in a book, look left, look right, cross. Look left, look right, friend waves a clear and I put the empty chips packet into you. And then I would roll out the stories like a boss. Oh, you surely didn't believe the joy ended there?

The rest of our cycle ride back home, mostly from tutions, would be complete with me narrating, each time with a different dimension, what would you be thinking of us, and what your complaints to the postman be, and how you would one day claw me as I repeated the act and how hurt was your ego. Such tremendous pleasure I derived in this part of the deed. It remains a very, very, very affectionate memory of friendship and storytelling.

Today when I do not see your red pride around most nooks and corners, or see a very weak, rusty dilapidated you, I feel genuinely sad at your state. You were this royal presence -- astoundingly physical. There was something magnificent about you. As I write you this letter, I realize how sad I am to use all the past tenses and how a thing of past your present is. If it can make you feel a little brighter, or if you could blush to bring a bout of red to yourself, know this that to me, an annoyingly naughty teen, you were important. Without you, many stories would go unattended. And to me, a relatively non-annoying adult, you are important, as a memory. One of those rare ones which if I could I would never delete. Or, if I could store a memory elsewhere, I would certainly store yours. It reminds me that there was so much life in me, and you. Your in-animation animated me.

In fond remembrance,
K.

Letter to Winter-Fun

Hey there!

Its been quite sometime that we have spoken, and it is a seasonal blessing to greet you. I see you around often though, in photographs where young people claim you in a caption. I see you in similar pouting faces, with similar straight hairstyles in similar costumes of glitz. I also see how they try to net you in a click, a vain click. You do not seem the same fun I had known. Definitions have not just expanded now, they have changed. You are so full of shimmer that you blind me. I speak to you out of a concern for the celebration of winter and the approaching dates that are to be blocked by party throwers and attenders alike. Me? I am the perennial party pooper, thank you.

You know having you around meant unending giggles in girlish circles of gossip, and planning a picnic and just stealing a nap in the middle of the day on the terrace or the backyard, under the shade, kissed by winter sunshine, surrounded by oranges and their fruity smell soaking it. You meant holidays to enjoy the same, where I would experiment with many fruits and nuts and how I would chop and shape them on a given day to experiment with a daily cuisine. You meant beating the coffee mix till such time that it turned white and the neighbours turned deaf. You meant many postponed birthdays and many cakes to be had generously and an even more elaborate mushroom spread in an omelet already gooey with cheese. Later you grew along to mean raisins in rum and coke and rum and tap water and rum. And rum in coffee. With people I would love to share the entire list with, or by myself. I always had you anyway!

As much as I despise the very thought of going out to seek you in a crowd of unending, unknown faces, I have loved you oftener. I love the feel of going on a drive with only a fistful for an ice-cream in the middle of the night. I have loved you in steaming hot momos and chilled Thums Up in miserable cold Delhi nights and driving back after a cozy dinner only with friends in an overrated Calcutta winter evening. I have embraced you all through in Bhutan in longing whispers and aching sparkle. I had you in my pocket in Assam, always. I thus cannot blame myself when I do not understand how different and deprived this generation is. Of course, they would differ. I can only think of a wild thing like this because there is a nip in the air -- I wish you return to the youth for once, for once in the way you have stayed in me. Would they be able to comprehend the difference? I cannot say. But I wish they know you and then claim to have you in your essence.

In soups and socks, in jars and jackets, in simplicity and eternity.

I love you,

K.

Letter to Sleep

Hello Sleepy,

Very privileged you feel, right, to be tantalizing me with mega-yawns bang in the middle of the day? You are the single most cruel element I have encountered in my life, and not necessarily for my own case. Look all around and every second person complains about a lack of you, becoming reliant on drugs, medicated or otherwise, for a glimpse of you. Well, not exactly a glimpse, but a gallon of you. All my life I have heard my mother trying to teach me about the ethics of quality over quantity. In matters concerning the same, over you, she has had many a fight with her in-laws, who never it seems can have enough of you. I dwell in this in-betweenness.

I really, really love you, like everybody does, but I do not understand the hype attached to you. It is ironic that I am writing to you as I am yawning, mostly because of the effect of the Stemetils I am having. I find it disturbing, embarrassing and very, very nagging. In others, as much as in me -- the act of yawning. Everything in harmony is disrupted with that innocent gape. It is weird.

Creative and critical minds have worked on you, while clever ones have let you work on them. As I battle this insane desire to recline and drown into that realm of temporary distance from the real, I cannot help but laugh at how you must be greeting this letter. Do you yourself sleep? Will you make this letter forget the fact that it is really supposed to visit you? Will you endow a little more of you on everyone now?

Actually I can't even fight you. You are rather cuddly, especially on such lightly chilly afternoons. I long to embrace you between the softness of the blanket and the security of the pillow.

I long to be one with you,
K.

Letter to Blacksheep

Dear Blacksheep, dear dear Blacksheep,

Three months back (since that sounds more intense than ninety days), when I decided to blog-a-day, I had never once fathomed the way I would weave myself in this intricate pattern of delicate dependence. I am extremely delighted to see you grow from an accidental infant to an eager toddler. I am proud as I write you this letter knowing you wil not only read it, but fully understand each word, each meaning intended in it.

Blacksheep, the very act of naming you carefully denotes the disgrace associated with your being. You have however, inverted it. Your competence with regularity stupefies me to an extent that I am inspired. I still cannot bring myself to believe that you are popular, and not infamous; that you are discussed, and not gossiped about and that you are increasingly interesting rather than boring. I cannot believe it yet, yes. Sometimes I ask myself if you are a prodigy. Perhaps.

I wanted to reach out to you tonight because I wanted this landmark of three months to be memorable. And I wanted to express my unbound joy at your contentment of being what you wanted to be. As we get to know nonsense and sense alike, what makes me happiest is that you can differentiate between the two and not pay prodigal attention to either. Yours is to live through your words, live it to the t.

Celebrating the count,
K.

Letter to Malady

It is weird, and nothing else, that you are barely two alphabets different from Melody, setting you both like chalk and cheese. It is also commendable how you come and conquer.

You have had me under your favoured attack all my life, for as long as I can remember. This time too, you coward you, came from the back (literally) and made your way into my spirit. It is unfair, you know. This is where I write to you tonight from. It is unfair that you are so unpronounced in your attack, and so spineless. So spineless that you cling onto the spine.

Quite obviously then, this wouldn't be a long letter. Like the tablets I pop in quick and easy, this too shall be. For each attack you make me undergo, I arise from the suffering. For each time you smile the smile of the victor, I retrieve with the smile of the survivor. For each time my back you bite, I face you. 

Malady, you have weaved a way into my life, but you are not preferred. I couldn't have said it straighter, simpler.

Go away.

K.

Letter to Television

Beloved TV,

Hi! I am extremely ashamed for the delay in writing to you, especially when I have had people literally complain about the relationship you and I share. You were my world of escape from studies, the world of advertisements and cricket, and later the world of everything good a life can possibly entail. You introduced me Wimbledon and The Sarabhais. You have been that compulsive habit of mine to switch on once I entered a room, and flick through the channels.

They say peace can be found at arbitrary places like riverside, seaside, mountainside, shopping mall, bank passbooks, in a child's smile, at the Himalayas, or other possible places like a loved one's arm and at death. I found and keep finding a lot of peace in my loo and by having my own you. It is true, isn't it, that mightiest of warfare have taken place over sharing you? Being wise about the same, one of my initial investments was you. Gosh, was I happy. And peaceful.

My mother no longer complains that she has to live through the same image of two men in white shorts hitting a tennis ball, or that of chunks of meat being marinated and cooked in 'foreign accents'. My father does not become grumpier for having to miss news. I devour you in my preferred way, all the time. I have been. Just the reassuring wallop of accustomed dialogues, or the almost visible wafts of delicious smells off you, made me feel at home, at large.

This year has been different though, sorry. There were bouts of my return to you in the usual unusual routine, but yes, sorry, they were just bouts. I owe you this apology since months now. I have been neglecting you miserably and even neglecting the dust that has layered your screen on which I sometimes finger an alphabet or two. I do not fiddle with the two remotes anymore and they in return, have begun malfunctioning. But what could I do? Too many things took me away from you. No, no, I won't mention them as a pretext of appealing for forgiveness, for I deserve none. You are a life-giver, and I misbehaved in the worst manner possible, by robbing life from you. You should kill me, or I could voluntarily hang myself in shame.

Though you are silent, I know you feel disowned and detached. Though you do not complain, I understand your need for my time and attention. This letter hopes to pacify you and offer you a promise that from the coming year I would try and return to your loving embrace of peace. I have made similar promises to my thesis and my heart and I have no inkling how I would be able to cope up with as many promises, but you can feel safer than the rest because to fulfill my promise to you I do not have 'miles to go before I sleep'.

Infatuated still,

K.

Letter to Calender

Dear Calender,

Of the many enchanting fascinations I have had all my life, one is definitely for you. From the time you adorned the walls through beautiful images -- yes they were more important than the day and dates -- till when I started making my own or collecting special ones, you have always been a dear one. The image of the three leaves placed to form a Ganesha is my earliest reminiscence. Then there was that one time when I made six pages of you, two months each of fond moments, and finally getting those fabulous Satyajit Ray posters and Sandesh covers and of course, my aunt's precious gallery publications. People often say I am an elitist because I have a slightly upside nose to reject 'normal' calenders for extraordinary ones. But then, people also say I am uppity because I write with a fountain pen, sorry, only with a fountain pen, and value my watches as I would regard my children. Big deal. I do not believe in the pride of carrying a fancy mobile phone, or participating in the invisible competition of 'who is most upgraded'. I save exclusively to buy precious ink bottles and a variety of paper from all over the world, and can let go of a fragrance for that. Sorry, I digressed.

I respect your being neatly divided from macro unto micro. And I love garlanding the absolutely unmissable dates on you. So, exactly how happening is your life, with daily dates? Three sixty five -- that is an incredible number, you know, for anything! But, guess what? I am about to give you formidable contest. The last seventy five odd days have been some of the most special in recent times ever. Each day is a date, with all those little incredible things that make my heart beat each precious second. It is more exciting than disco lights and clinks of glasses. And more than anything I love commemorating each of those dates with you.

You are splendid, with your stoic nature with which you casually remind of the greater demon called time, and you are even more splendid when I go back your pages to travel through a timeline lived, which can never be altered. It is one of those travels that you never long to return to, but when you do you are greeted with unexpected newness.

My work-station would be empty without you, yet I refuse to cater to any random variation of you. You I wake up to, how can I not have someone I would like to? Though dated, you are limitless, not outdated.

Grateful for your extensive availability,
K.

Letter to Mirror

Dearest,

Remember the four times I have come in close contact, each time having an abiding relationship with you? First at the house where I allowed the impressions to infuse with my image -- I allowed you to be surrounded by film posters, and ornamented you with stickers and cheap one-liners -- quite a juvenile I was, wanting to be what others would like to see. That was the time I did not even care to linger the extra minute at you, I just saw a person there, smiling, busy, outgoing, practically problem-free. I took you for granted, knowing you would show me all I wanted to see. Sorry, the dust began gathering then, I know. And off I went.

I then met a different you, showing a different me. A me I could not recognize, but could identify; someone with whom I could not identify with. There were things you reflected about me then -- dutifully beautifully groomed, tolerant and bored. I stuck on you couple of quotes then, doodled some faces for further dimension and let the dust grow. And then I left you.

To get a slab of you on a pillar which exhibited determination and belief. You stood by me, new -- unpolished and edgy but showing a very untarnished image. Your newness enamored me with one. I would die to meet you amidst clouds of confusion and become someone different enough to please you. But I knew you were reflecting someone only to appease me. I abandoned you too.

And returned to the first mirror. Only to realize before searching for someone there, how dirty, dusty and scratchy you looked. As if you have had several histories. I replaced you. We share those histories and have risen still. What comes through is a clean, polished, slightly diffident but severely aware me. You aren't silver, but very exact. I love it how you deem me important now, to appear nice but accept my un-niceties. Today, in you I see a multitude of images of emotions, and each of which I understand. You externalize my deepest core.

I kept coming back to you each time, for surety, in spite of all the truths you hurt me with. Do you see me or show me?

I give you all of me, "Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike",
K.

Letter to an Ex-Husband

You deserve one, you do. To begin with I would like to indicate that in greeting you I did not have the desired 'Dear'. Many other things are essentially dearer than you, yes -- the fridge, the pen, the dash, the alphabets, this blogspace -- way dearer, today. Once I had thought otherwise. I wanted to believe that you are greater than all things that beget my love, my appreciation. I was wrong, and I am glad. What makes me feel even more lavish is prefixing that puny "an" before what you are reduced to. Why I still had this need to write to you? Because just the other day (very casually), someone expressed a desire to marry me because of what I write. It was the same with you, don't you remember? You 'fell in love with my mind'. This same mind. Perhaps you couldn't fathom its immense potential. To be honest, nor could, or have I.

You deserve this letter today not because there is a list of pungent remarks I want to launch at you, no. I felt the need to express that you have done very well in life to suit your standards and that of your expectations', but you couldn't suit mine being a daddy. I detested you calling me Bou. I wish you were friendlier with me, not bossier. I wish you let me breathe rather than choke me with colours and ideas of a 'good life'. Actually, I do not wish. That would mean being with you to suit your needs, all the time. Catering to your temper, your socio-corporate image and your designed breakfast would often make me feel pukish. I have learnt a lot from you, as you would point out, you discovered my skill in chopping, and nurtured my knack in doodling, but the seminal enlightenment I have today is to be a little less trusting, thank you.

I understand, you still love me and would have wanted more of me in your life as the ideal wife who drives and cooks and teaches in a college and drinks and is a mother to two and decently presentable. I understand you were shocked with the dignified silence with which I carried out the annulment of our legal-bound relationship. What I could never understand was did you ever care to know what I wanted out of us? Yes, that was different in you and me. You wanted something out of me, while I expected something of us. You could never accommodate that thought. Assumed 'perfection' was your middle name, right? I hope you have got a prettier, homelier, effective wife, catering to all your needs without ever raising a question. That would really make you happy. Yes, I do hope you are happy because there is nothing I would gain from you being distraught anymore. I hope you have a daughter, who gets you as a friendlier father than a father figure. Children appreciate that.

As for me? I really cannot understand why I am about to post this letter publicly, or why I needed to speak out. I just wish for you to know that I am happier today, freer. I drive, travel, cook, doodle, smile because I feel like it all. Yet, I cannot disagree that we have not had our shared happy moments. There were. But without you, the mountains look better.

And that is how we live,
Kents.

Letter to Undo Button

Hi there!

There is a world I write to, and then there is you. The magnanimous one. The one who entertains possibilities. Of returns. Of many, many returns. Till one is content with the altered alternative. How on earth are you so forgiving, so adaptive? Are you of this earth at all? To undo is to remain unaffected. How does one stay so unassuming? We grew up learning something completely different about you, "what is done cannot be undone", but today you prove all of that completely wrong. Life's greatest lesson comes off you -- to move on -- sometimes with willing forgiveness, and on other times with wishful forgetfulness.

I hope this letter finds you in the best of your spirit. I hope you feel stable with the constancy of my faith in moving on. I hope you find your perfect match in Redo.  I would, if I could, undo my destiny, not my past. But in life, you are not a button. You are a hit-you-on-your-face therapy. I would bargain with God and be born to the Royalty. I would undo my many mediocrities and excel singularly in something specific. I would undo all those moments where I lost my heart, or control over it.

But you are clever, and quick-witted. You float about virtually, giving only an illusion of reality. Like memories.

Someday I would touch you,

K.

Letter to Reply

Dear little rare thing Reply,

You are the dapper example of crossing the thin line from confidence to over it. Such unusual flair you have in making one long for you. Such understated arrogance. I have not met you in eons. I do not think you are coming my way anytime soon too. In fact, I am in the process of curbing my desire to ever set hand on you. In life I have met many brats -- talented, haughty, opinionated -- and another set just spoilt into one. You could easily fit into both, you beautiful brat.

Do you think if I stop waiting for you and myself send me a reply, it would be creepy? No, I am not seeking a permission, I was just loud thinking. Would it really be too wild of me to be lost in the wilderness of the multiple shades of disorganised disorder? I can actually already visualize it, quite, "Dear K, There are wallpapers that crawl out of walls into the mind, and then there is a you that crawls back into the wall...".

Yes, a bit creepy. May be I should try just for the sake of measuring the insane depth of insanity. Why do you procrastinate? You do realize that one day you would become extinct, don't you? On that given day, even I will not be able to revive you. My honest exercise would be remarked as an absurd attempt. I could help you here with what you could come back to me. Come back to me first in the form of negating all the accusations I have been hurling at you.

Come back to me, either in handwritten nostalgia or electronic expertise.

If you are, Reply,

K.