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.

Letter to Pillow

Hello,

I was jealous of you the first time when BRC mentioned that she wanted to be you in her next lifetime, while I could only think of being an athlete. I had the best laugh in a long time and the most brutal appreciation for her. She said to be you is to relax not just the night, but the whole day through.

True. What must your life be like? Everyone has a chosen you -- hard, soft, medium, side. I love you in the afternoon nap I steal on winter afternoons, you basked in veranda sunlight and me in rice, fish and an orange thereafter. Unlike what she reduced you to, I on the contrary think you have a very active life -- especially one where you are sometimes the solitary testimony to sultry intimacy. Your friend, the bed-sheet likes a bath more often than you rendering you sole witness to soul touch. Active also when you muffle the agonizing tears of gloomy nights and failed knights. It must be painful for you to be suddenly wrung into a capsule, expecting to behave like an absorbent habitat. Or when you are playfully hit across the room by indecisive adults who decide to behave juvenile. Yes, you are rather active.

You contribute in physical pain and cure psychological ones. At best you provide the pedestal for temporary forgetfulness, from either. But I was thinking, do you yearn for your chosen one too -- the head whose rest completes you, the shoulder whose curves cover you, or, those arms that pull you sideways and cuddle you into a woolball? Do you wish to share a story together?

You have made me very comfortable all my life, and in you I find a resort I do not occasionally in a friend sometimes. That was just one instance of me being jealous of you making it into BRC's imagination so powerfully. Refuse me the clothes you dislike next time I down them on you thoughtlessly. Refuse me the lack of attention I pay when I am unmindful and bring close a not-chosen one. You know I would listen.

Wishing you dreams,

K.

Letter to Chhuti II

Dearest Chhuti,

I am fervently hoping that I get to meet you this Sunday since tomorrow is a working day, again. One of no work that cannot be done at ease. The world moves this way Chhuti, it has to compress things to an extreme pressure point to illustrate that it too is -- an entity we need to carry on shoulders till it freezes, and freezes the heart too. It believes in burdening us. In the span of the whole day, which felt like Happy Diwali, with many noises from authoritative voices, again for nothing but a lack they must themselves have, we teachers just skipped the fact that it was Chidren's Day. Your day.

I got a Chhuti when I was a part of the children gang too. I get one no more. That is how I measure age I guess. With or without you. It was so good to be you. Offering smiles to others, holding hands and playing games on outdoor fields, marking an era of friendly banter. Everything is calculated now -- steps, speech, stance -- everything. I have been thinking of you since the last couple of hours as I was hoping to meet you tomorrow. But now, it ain't possible.

So we have this written conversation instead, the shortcut to you. I am blessed till I believe in this time-out, with you. You must be commanding your mother for a milkshake now, or simply refusing things her way. You must be chattering away now, irrelevant to time or place. You must have made the best of your day, by doing nothing worldly productive but by simply being yourself. I wish to melt in that flavour too, and pull all other ingredients in that buttery world along. I wish for everyone around to imbibe the joy.

But that is not to be, Chhuti. Everyone around is complaining that you aren't around. Everyone succumbs to the sadness of losing out a childhood. Of ice candies and pickles on paper and fancy chewies. I hope you had all of it today, or Lays and Coke and Five Star and one cartoon character running into the other. Through your bubble I see the world so differently, so diluted.

But, bubbles burst...

K.

Letter to Newspaper

And here we are, writing one to you, after all that genuine hatred and gradual dismissive attitude later. It is memorable how our relationship began. Back in class two, when someone got the chance to read her poem out to the entire class. That is when I came to know you exist. Yes, my parents have too, always, somehow, shunned you -- we have never been much of a well-read family. I had returned home from school and asked my mother why couldn't my name come in the newspaper? She laughed and said that well, definitely I needed to write for that. And so, even without changing out of my uniform, I wrote The Talkative Girl. She was taken aback, it was complete with rhymes and the shizz. We sent it to The Assam Tribune and it not just got published, but was accompanied by a wonderful illustration which increased its readership. And at school and in my class I became quite a name. Class two.

So you found a place in my almirah which held all my junk favourites -- diaries, notebooks, colours, pieces of paper, files --till a great age. But I still couldn't make myself commit to a daily dose of you. At one point, once in Calcutta and with Dadubhai, I forced myself to read through Calcutta Times for all the gossip, and sometimes look through the sports page. At the one relation which held me for about five years, the household had four newspapers coming in -- Anandabazar Patrika, The Times of India, Economic Times and Bartaman. You were the bigger and heavier attention receiver in the meager mornings. You were the bigger and heavier space consumer of my colour-keeping area. You were simply more important. You educated, you made them aware, conscious, updated and fed on their habits. You did everything possible that I couldn't. I hated you.

I hate you still. You spoil mornings with sadness and anxiety, and sensationalize private occasions of public faces and intensely creep into family time. You behave as if not having a relationship with you means the end of the world. I have disowned you happily, and would like to continue it thus. For one month when I had The Statesman I would often form a mishap in my routine because I could not end reading you up. Pending stacks of you choked me. Once the advertisement was out, my first action was to stop having you around.

 

I subscribe to a more spaced out morning with my tea and talks and I am glad you do not inhabit my domestic peace and space. I never made it to the news, perhaps because I was never newspaper material. One day I might be able to convince the world that it can be without you. That day you will know how much I wanted those mornings to work and how much an impediment you were.

Mornings are made in exchanging lines, not in headlines.

K.

Letter to Time

Dear Time,

Yes, it is strange that I can even venture one to you. You, of the supernatural sort. You, surpassing everything's control. You, who mostly ends up being a philosophy beyond anyone's understanding, or on our wrists and walls as a commodity. You are so elusive. You bask in that glory, don't you? The grandiose of silently observing each thing.

Time, you just pass, and move on, right? Like that mountain river, never to return. I realized an era has passed when yesterday I told someone, "tomorrow we can go in my car". My car. That is huge, and quite unbelievable. All my life it has been my father's car, or later, friends' and cousins'. Today, it feels different. Today is that day when I will be able to say, "my car". It feels wiggly. I think of you. How one day my uncle intended to teach me driving and I bumped while reversing. Then another when the man I was to marry had that condition of knowing how to drive. And later, me running hundred and thirty six errands and fulfilling twenty nine duties while I drove around. You registered all of that, didn't you?

In a matter of hours I will have my own car, for the first time. I feel very accomplished, and strangely calm. It is a testimony to the chapters and episodes I have lived, in you. It will be a wheel of stories that would churn out every moment. Keep watching and let me breathe in you. I wish I could be like you -- all-absorbing and all-tolerating.

Till I meet you again, in another letter,

K.

Letter to Engagement Ring

Dear ER,

You are no longer with me tonight, and thank god for that. In your place I have couple of deserving others on the same finger, like a tabulation of the times. The reason I write to you tonight is because there are far too many wedding invitations around, too many to attend. And there are couple of weddings which are almost family. Family. What makes one family? Blood ties, science would say. And engagement? Time-tied, legals would say. I am more family with so many other people than with blood-related ones, and engaged with so many commitments than the one that you could tie me down to.

A little diamond fell off one of my rings in Bhutan. LK was playing carrom shots with the two. It is carefully kept in a folded paper and yet to be put back to its rightful place. The other has a Swarovski crystal missing. And on my finger you are no more. Everything is complete only when there is a sense of loss attached to and with it. I had longed for you to adorn my finger and shunned the designated ring to mark my relationship. And you dotingly did. Like most things I like, you were neat and timeless. You were.

Till you too got entangled in needless agreements which needed to be annulled, and fought over like some Helen of Troy. I write today to tell you why I did not fight for you and gave you up. I do not like quarrels. I do not like unnecessary arguments, and most of all I do not like disharmony. And frankly, it was quite unbelievable that you would be demanded with such passion. It was funny actually. What did they do with you after me? Were you made to adorn the finger which replaced mine? Or sit queasily amidst the tasteless thick collection inside the locker?

I feel bad for you, really. You were so compatible with me that it is hard to imagine you on anyone else. I do not miss you because I trained myself not to think about you, and yes, at the end of the day, you are just an ornament. If I care no more for the engagement you denote, how could I care a bit for you? But, turns out I did, and have. Each little element, living or otherwise, that mattered to me infused my being. I feel like rescuing you from that ugly place you sit in, dark and secure, and put you back to doing what you do best. Ornament. All that glittered was neither gold, nor steel.

From a free house, a free finger,

K. 

Letter to Fear

:) I have been postponing this though you have persistently prevailed on my mind even as I wrote out to others. I delayed, thinking you are not important enough. I delayed, thinking I could do without it. But who was I joking. This is necessary -- not through imaginary conversations, but through something more tangible, if only virtual words. Fear. Fear, fear. You were this fascinating thing from the slam-book times. I would find it very stylish to mention you as an answer to "Your greatest fear". Yes, quite a nyaka I have been. To have "fear" as an answer to it. And, quite impossibly, I did not understand then, how I generously let you in.

You have set in deep today. So deep that I am struggling hard to find one domain of my thought or imagination which is without you. And you have made my head so much your own that my thoughts and actions have your shadow. Graphic shadow. The other day I wrote a letter to Doubt, which was one of those rare moments when I did away with you. Only I know how unlike me it was to frame those sentences of utter optimism. You have rotted that very essence in me. Like an endless tunnel which only lengthens. 

I do not know why I am writing to you. I do not know what I can write to you about. But I can just convey a truth about myself. That place you have made a dark mess out of, used to be fields of wildflowers. Pretty little wildflowers, cottony and fluffy and colourful and capable. There was a smell of happiness which is overpowered by your stench of fear. Fear of the inevitable, fear of the apparent. That place, though pretty much here seems a place of yesterday, a part of history where I did not belong. You have captivated my soul so effectively that I cannot even face you, I can only strategise to run away from you -- with you catching up fast. Vicious circle, yes.

I long to visit those fields of wildflowers someday. Run through the yellows and blues and pinks and purples. And drink in life. Without you chasing me down my back, shoulder, neck, head. Or, even if you do, I want to be able to turn around and face you to introduce you to the valley of wildflowers, swaying together in joyous unison. Fear, that is what forms me. I still have a memory of my own. What about you? You are so empty that everything you sit upon has to feed you. Was this conversation a runway too, from which I could not fly away?

I return, wishing one day I would face you.

K.

Letter to my lost Ray-Ban

You must be in Salzburg now, soaking in the musical sunshine, or perhaps in Vienna shopping in Secession buildings, or who knows viewing the sexy Schieles in Leopold Museum. If you are, and are reading this, then hello there. How could you just slip off my head? You, who I had b(r)ought with so much careful attention and acute savings? The day I managed to get my hands, and eyes, on you, I felt nothing short of a Princess. With you I saw my first bit of Europe in Frankfurt and covered my Prague. How could you then desert me in Vienna? I put you on with aplomb, as if you were never meant to be anywhere else. And it was only in the land of Sound of Music that I realized that I don't have you. I had sang god a thousand Do-Re-Mi that morning and the Alps too could do nothing to stop me from crying.

I hope you are with someone who cares for you. Who must be the person who wears you now? For some reason I have a feeling it is a cute boy who plays the western flute and skates unmindfully. Someone who is fair and unreasonably good at his manners. Someone who enjoys the museums, and not computer games, and makes his own meals. Someone who found you, and took you up. Stay with him and set him ablaze with your panache. If you are scratched and not attended to, please forgive him.

As for me, I got another you a month back, this time gifted. It is as special, if not more. And I saw Bhutan through it. The love with which it is given is unparalleled and makes me tolerate wearing lenses. But you, lost one, you were and are different. Putting you on literally meant never to hide, and pronounced the success rate of my patience versus desire. Sometimes I wish for all things lost to have one wish to be fulfilled. That they are given wings with which they can return to their rightful owners. 

 

Or, receive and read such letters of a sense of loss. For now, know that I miss you in Calcutta. At least I can offer a bad consolation to myself saying a part of my self still resides in Europe. Just as a part of my soul lives in Bhutan. Does the cute boy see the world as I did? Do you have problems adjusting? Can you not connect? Do you have a mind of your own?

I should learn to let go...

K.

Letter to Alphabets

Hello, hello.

And here we are, finally. I know you were waiting, and I was too -- for the right moment to arrive when I could write to you. Last night I was at D's in her brand new flat, and had a lovely time with her and her younger son. The walls of her house are a combination of pearl white and soothing lime, and without one speck of dust or dirt. From the moment I entered, I was in love with her walls, and each time I said, "Ma'am I love the colour of your walls", she concluded it for me, "...and my fingers are itching to do something on them". That's Ma'am, my friend, my confidante.

I am now in my room, the walls of which are mostly, strategically covered. The one which is corner empty has patches of fountain pen ink from one day when I was recovering my pen. And as I see them, I miss her walls all the more. I also recount the innumerable times my mother has told this one story to anyone who asks her, "Doesn't she draw/paint?" Here is what she says: "I do not know about drawing or painting or a new term I hear her use 'doodling'. But I do know that if we make a count of the number of times she has written A-B-C-D...we will all jointly lose out to her. From the moment she learnt the twenty six letters, she never knew how to be bored. Once, she had high fever and I took her to the doctor, and as we waited all the magazines in the waiting area got filled with the alphabets. Inside, as the doctor wrote out the prescription, she drowsily in her hot body temperature started shooting a-b-c-d in other extra pages on the doctor's table. My uncle is an artist, and (here she digresses to mention his name to foreground his fame) whenever we went to Calcutta, and Kaku was around, she would go into his room, take his brushes and fill up his costly canvases with the god-forbidden a-b-c-d. Once she extended them from his canvas to the easel on to the floor and went up the wall -- the same a-b-c-d in various designs and in small and big letter combined. Kaku told me she was sick. My other Kaku's daughter is an artist too (mentions her name here), and K especially loved to watch her paint. It was only when Jaya painted that she remained still. All walls of our houses have ever since been painted with customized colours to protect them from her attack of alphabets. I have hit her plenty of times and punished her by squeezing the pencil between her fingers to stop her from doing so, but it was like a disease. Later, in an attempt to protect the walls, we made sure she always moved around with a notebook. Whenever she got bored, or extra mischievous -- to tell you the truth she wasn't really, or sick, we just gave her a scribble-pad and a pencil and she would recover. As she grew up I saw her playing around with alphabets -- on hot-water bags and hand-fans and blanket covers and my legs and her night suits and the table mats and eggs, gourds, pumpkins and doors and jars, you name it, and it had something on it done by K. Mostly she would write a word and design it up. I once asked Jaya about what Kaku told, if K was really sick. She smiled, negated and convinced me that I should never stop her. So I didn't. Now too, open the fridge and the eggs would have a message, or her bottles would have a fish. She has taken onto forms now..." Thus mother ends.

What she didn't know (nor me) was that you were more than merely twenty six letters. I believe I was sick indeed, possessed actually. While other children played with alphabet blocks, I loved the confidence you provided me with, the protection, the friendship. From the walls to the pages and now to this space, you are my one lasting friend and how closely we grew up together.

I write this letter (composed of you, and my feelings) to express my gratitude to you for being in my life; for your presence does not attest me as 'educated' or 'literate', it makes me complete. You are that friend I have always had -- to whom I could run to, unannounced, like a headache. Who gave me the opportunity to vent out my anger, and never complained. Who let me cry in words that I could not cry in pictures. Who was my window to fly away from textbooks and classrooms. Each of you twenty six little soldiers build this armament of life in and around me. Individual lives, and wordy ones. If I am sick in depending on you this heavily, I am happy to be sick. I am grateful. You are the friend who accepted me and my malady.

A friend, like you, I have never had.

K.

 

Letter to Happiness

Hello Happiness,

I am really upset with you today. It might sound juvenile to you but I would ask you, nonetheless. Why don't you come in pairs? Why are you so short-lived, and short-sighted? Do you like putting up the costume of joy sometimes? I had always considered you to be more ethereal, graceful. You see, just coming my way, galloping from the blue moon doesn't make you stay. It made more sense if you touched upon the lives of other people around me, and those I love, to make yourself count. Be accountable for your presence. You can't flutter in one pocket and drain out through the hole in the other.

One cannot be happy just with one's own self, no? This complaint might sound illogical to you, perhaps even immature, but let me assure you, I am completely sane as I type this out and I am even more sincere when I express the grievance. You are not about watching a good-looking movie over cheese popcorn. You are about moonlit mountains. And this letter comes your way because I believe you are capable of more.

This world needs you, more than wants you. Happiness, I know you have been contained to one-liners that explain about you, but I would rather have you in peaceful silences. Explore your potential, look around. Do not be that wave which comes in accidentally and goes away too, leaving the heart destitute. You do not come to all, but to chosen ones -- change that. You can bring life by being, and death by leaving. Yet, you remain as much special, in the end, as was the beginning. A sky would be good, of you. The same sky of night and day, light and shadow -- seen and over us all. 

A sky would be good. Of you.

Awaiting an embrace of togetherness,

K.

Letter to Mr Probable Publisher

Hello Mr Probable Publisher,

It is funny how there is a 'pub' in publisher -- a spiritual haven. Someday you would be the one who would probably publish my unposted letters. Till such time I wish this somehow reaches you, the fantasy of a little girl. Well, to begin with, it was no other little girl but me, and this ain't any story. But I would narrate it like one for you to buy the fact that I can.

There was a girl, dazed all day in the sole attempt to understand why she should do all the things she is made to do all day. She was made to sit, when she would actually slump, in front of a harmonium and practice the ragas. She was given an ugly hair-cut, typical to boys, closely cropped. She was asked to recite tables when she took a bath. And she was made to understand that "come within tenth" makes one the correct sort. Basically, she had innumerable questions in her mind, and most of it had to do with why did she have to study. Till she found recluse in reading. It began one day when she during the vacations after having done her favourite bit of covering and labelling new copies and old text books -- which were usually hand-downs from someone her mother would know whose daughter would be a senior -- flipped through some stories in the English Book which were interesting. Perhaps it was The Selfish Giant. And with Wilde she encountered her wild side of running away to lands where trespassers were not necessarily prosecuted.

In such books which transported her away from the classroom and strict teachers, she would read things backwards into the jacket -- ISBN no., try to figure out the barcode, and that wonderful page of publisher, printer, price, place and cover designer. She would often desire for her name to be there as author. Author of what, she didn't know, but just someone who gave birth to that story-child. She would long for it, unendingly, unerringly.

Over a period of time she became 'big', and had as a profession the business of education, and came to hate that very page which made up for exasperating bibliographical arrangements. Till one day where she decided to do away with the business bit of writing and write from within the soul, selflessly. It came easy to her -- she typed and clicked on the 'publish button' and things were categorically authorized to her. She was not addicted to it, but in a way it was addictive too.

Mr Probable Publisher, you do understand the power of 'publishing', don't you? Which is why I wouldn't go on to engage in the ceremonious explanation of the same. Let us just say it was a dream for a little girl to see her name on that page of a book and she is today content, virtually. Mr Publisher, would you, after having read this elaborately intense narrative, please turn the virtual to real? I know it has been ages that anyone has written to you, in such a manner. I think, only for this reason, if not the entire epic above, you owe me one.

Thank you Mr Publisher. (I really don't think there is a space for 'Probable' anymore.)

Regards,
K.

Letter to Sonali Chander

Indeed, weird it is -- that we have exchanged mails earlier, and yet, here I am blogging about you in a letter. But that is how it will be -- me believing you will have heard. Hi Sonali. I returned from college today (as a teacher, not a student), and was glad to steal a nap of half an hour at 5pm. When I woke up it was 7 30pm. Like some weird time-traveller, I was transported to about ten years back when NDTV 24*7 came into being and like Sarabhai vs Sarabhai on Star One, my sports appetite was solely fed by you.

The one thing I have always desired is a decent height. We played volleyball when in school and I was feared in my paara for my left hand held cricketing shots (at IPL's rate I would be as unpredictable as Gayle), but I always wished to play basketball from which I was cancelled at the sight of my height. With that insult in my heart, and a crush for Jonty Rhodes, and the opportunity to be with N, I started playing -- a lot of cricket, and badminton. And because I hated studying and loved watching TV, I took this opportunity to catch up on new ads in the context of watching ODIs. That is how we grew. With the rise of Dravid and Ganguly, the gradual demise of the monstrous Sri Lankan team, THE racey-pacey Pakistan team, and the loyalty for South Africa. And Boom Boom Becker.

I came to Calcutta and things changed. ODIs gave away to a more encompassing knowledge of sports. And a lot of tennis watching. What prompted it, however, was your reporting. You were crisp, smart and did not elongate in an opinionated manner. You just presented. Internet was still catching up, rather slowly, hence swallowing your stats as biblical words were the only resource. Today, I hardly miss a Grand Slam (or an ATP featuring Federer upwards of a fourth round), test matches featuring South Africa, and a lot of random Badminton and Olympics diving. In fact I watch a lot of random Real Madrid football matches online, whatever catches fancy. Somewhere the responsibility of filtering has thus streamed from you to myself. It is convenient but not exactly desired. Today made me realize how much I miss the slot of 7 30pm. You even made golf sound happening.

Sports is a great leveller. Last night we inaugurated our season two of paara baddy. That one and half hour of outdoor activity was anxiety-free, physically exhausting yet rejuvenating, and very very intense. I sweated, went out of breath and lived. In my next life I will be an athlete, a professional athlete, for sure. By 30, I will have played to earn, and then play-acted in endorsements to earn further. It would be such an honour to be covered by you, then. As you are no where around in the scene today (at least of the little that I watch of news now), I understand of the many little things that made me a me, you were one. One never knows how!

Wishing for you to return to the scene (especially to see you report on the downfall of Indian cricket),

Kents.

De/Composition

What You Brought Upon Me:

Once A Beautiful Everyday

Now A Turbulent Sea

P A R T - T I M E   L O V E

Letter to N, A Chapter

N,

I wish I could take your sexy name in the sexy way you liked to be called. Somethings cannot be built back even when equipped with the best of expressions and the choicest of words. Like a memory of you, or a story around you. Or the exact accumulation of feelings including that of guilt, of a very premature first kiss. You were always this charming little bastard, slithering your way into multiple hearts and lips maybe. And your English, god your English. Listening to your many misadventures felt like drinking down a smooth shot of scotch. No teacher at that point had that gripping effect on me like you slimy little creature did.

Where are you today? Do you have your dad's RayBan which I sat upon and broke? How many women did you bed by now? How much do you dope? How many buckets do you down? Do you remember us and the excitement we shared? How did you manage slick answers to questions like "When is your birthday?" -- "When is SRK's birthday? One day after that." How can one forget that? How does one undo little moments of yesterday?

The whole of today went without a thought of you. In fact I have been working twice as hard to plan my next travel. Yet, at the end of the day, beside my espresso vodka, here you are. Just this overpowering memory. As you must be partying with twenty somethings, into the night, I spend it here thinking about good times. Childish ones. Lovely ones.

Damn you bastard. I miss you. There has been no one like you.

K. 

Letter to SRK

A 'dear' doesn't suffice to encapsulate exactly how dear you are to me. So I would do away with it. I already feel I am writing to someone I know well -- a celebrity, but my own. How many times in life can you do that? Hi :)

As the facebook feed becomes active with wishes for you, and my mother calls me (from the other room) to inform me to watch a certain channel on which they are showing you, and my aunt puts up a status in honour of your birthday (yes SRK, generations love you), I sit here, typing out to you. I had decided last night I would wish you in this manner. You have been a part of my growing up and that necessitates this piece. I do not remember how I looked when I bring back the oldest memory I have of you. I remember the room in which the TV was, and you in a mop of hair covering your temple. I did not know it was Circus my mother was watching. 

Next I know we were in a different town, and one of my young aunts was excited about this new boy called Shah Rukh Khan who featured in this movie called Deewana. Yes, rather likeable. I had come to Calcutta for the winter vacation and heard my grandmother tell my mother to go watch Darr in the theatres. We watched it in VCR. What a movie! What shirts you wore! And thus it began. The typical childhood crush developing into 'my favourite hero' and generating a reverence which accepts all your flaws but denies anyone undermining your efforts.

Through school I kept hearing so many people saying I looked like you with that crop on my temple and the Baazigaar carbon frames. At college friends mentioned our smiles were similar. At home the only time there was peace over TV between my mother and me was when you were in it. The opening of your arms in gorgeous locales, your intimacy with Karan and Farah (interesting how I thought of those two names over Kajol and Juhi), your easy dance moves and your association with YRF and Dharma Production similar movies did nothing to deter my love for you.

Over a period of time you became more of a brother for me. Haha, true. I love the fact that my mother's almirah has a photograph of me, and one (cheap postcard types in a blood red shirt) of you. There is no lust I harbour for you the way I have always had for say a Fardeen Khan (let us not go there). You are just there. In cricket and advertisements and talk-shows and amazing self-appraisal documentaries and the way you speak, it is discernible that you are a man of extreme clarity over anything else. That time when KKR won and you were banned from entering the Mumbai Cricket Ground, what you spoke was uncontaminated radiance. The business man in you is so accurate, it is inspiring. You are the teacher I never had. If that makes my life one with a lack, I would care a fig. For, more than theorems and formulas I remember your "Agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaho toh saari qayaanat tumhe usse milani ki saazish karti hai", and your "hum ek bar jeete hain ek bar marte hain...(total shit the rest of it)", and "zindagi mein kuchh banna ho, kuch haasil karna ho, hamesha apni dil ki suno...". Teacher par excellence. Of how to convince with the power of stereoptypical mesmerizing articulation.

'Sattar Minute' from Chak De India, and the train shot in Swades, KKHH and Kabhi Haa Kabhi Naa -- you have weaved a pattern of happiness in my life. That day when I happened to be in City Centre waywardly and was blocked out of the blue from going out, it was astounding for me to soak in the pleasure of seeing you in person. The extended smiles of our family when your songs pop in from somewhere is a true family-moment. I adore sudden sights of you on hoardings feeling it is a luck factor for me. And though I would never use a Navratan Tel endorsed by you, the first car I am buying (which comes in this week) has a little to do with your Hyundai promotions. 

Happy Birthday Shah Rukh. God bless you with more intelligence and more charm. I may not have seen Happy New Year yet, but I do know why you wear the Ray Ban day in and day out. It's ok to age. It cannot wrinkle the exuberance of what you are to us, each moment. Happy Birthday again. I wish you more stardom and more oration power.

Love (in all its muchness),

K.

PS: This is one of my favourite Rahuls played by you. Sunshine on a winter afternoon.

H A P P Y  B I R T H D A Y  :)

Letter to Doubt

Dear Doubt,

Since you have decided to make a home out of my head, and are by birth a parasite, I cannot fight you. I thus will make it short and straight. I am tired. Tired of trying to sweep you out, fight you, and of re-resigning. You have brought upon me such a level that sometimes I end up disowning my own head, thinking you are not there, only shortcomings are.

Why? Why did you have to inhabit me? Why was I your soft target? What benefits you from my trying to grope about? Actually, I cannot even question you. You are such an essential part of me. You have broken me apart and made a new me out of you. 

Try and be away once. Give me a chance. A new one. Let us see if we can be without each other. We won't exactly die without the other, you know. Life moves on. And surely, we will too.

Come, let us grow apart,

K.