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.