Letter to a Mean Woman

Since I will never have the guts to exercise my Right to Freedom of Speech, since I am too used to my lifestyle right now and can only think upwards, and since anonymity is the only way I can guarantee my safety, I write you this. Not for you to ever read (for you do not have the depth, or skill, to understand), but for others who read to know that people like you exist. And it has to be a letter, because sadly (or, conveniently) I cannot express myself best otherwise.

Madam Mean Woman, you deserve no greeting. Absolutely none. All you do deserve is pounds of pity. I have lived quite a life believe me, full of people, and none I have known so far sits so pretty on sadness as you do. And in the process you are permeating the sadness through the contours of all those who come in your contact. You may be an exceptional professional, but you fail as an individual because you are minus on being human. Being strict, Madam, is not an act of dedication towards duty. Being irrational, uncompromising and most of all, being someone everyone is to be afraid of, are qualities of a failed leader. Right, I am laughing. This feels good. I can imagine you screaming, barking, behaving like the Red Queen should you chance upon this. I am laughing even more, Madam. You see I can well assume that you do not know who the Red Queen is.

Here, I have to deviate to wish and be grateful that Lewis Caroll was born today. If not for him, nonsense like yours could never have been tolerated. Your helps, with their distorted egos and deformed sensibilities, are as funny as your are. And funny is the kind word I can use thanks to Caroll. Have you heard of Alice in Wonderland, Madam? I hadn't until this moment thought I would ever live it in real time. But, thanks to you, I am. By the way, it is my due responsibility to inform you that Caroll is the author of that book.

Watch the movie, Madam, and follow the fate of the Red Queen. It is powerfully pathetic. I am in no way wishing that for you. On the contrary, I pray for your peace and wisdom everyday, without fail, you need it. I have found this exceptional way to vent out my sadness, my anger, my frustration, and an impeccable belief to perfect myself in all areas you might catch a flaw in. Thank you for that. You have, in effect, done more good to me than you can imagine. I am twenty thousand leagues more patient, and tolerant around the world nine times and still, because I am human, have this slip of a letter.

Madam, I wish you a life, a bit of love and a lot of learning. Honestly. There's more brushing needed to your degrees and dictates.

All the Best,

Anonymous.

Letter to God

Respected God,

I have written you innumerable letters through various stages of life, and perhaps that is one of the key reasons I believe that consistency is a subdued part of me, still. Hi. I have had this urge to write to you since I met A, last Friday. I have had this need to speak to you out of sheer disbelief, and I have had to tell you that in spite of me not knowing whether I believe in you or not, I know you are. Perhaps you are the name of goodness that should prevail in each heart, in a more pronounced way.

A is the most competitive person I have ever come across. A is the most conscious child I have ever befriended. And, A is the one who moves me most with things she knows not. A is simply special. And this is why I had to get back to you. Children are the best things in this world. I know earlier I wrote to someone else that writing instruments are. Oh, by the way, you must be knowing of all the letters I write to whoever, and whatever they contain? No problem. In a span of being with her for about five hours I feel my life has changed, expanded and become enriched. Her curious questions, her imaginative answers, her logical associations and her deepest ("What is the meaning of 'deepest' K?") wish -- swells my soul.

Should she befriend Chhuti, which she will, it would be a blast. Should she befriend Chinky, it would be a blessing. I thank you profusely for giving her the parents she has, and the privileges she is growing up with, for many like her are without. Yet, the challenges faced by A-privileged, is not too different from a child without it. Her smile, her voice, her confidence shakes me up. There is life in her very being and I pray to you to bless her royally.

Initially I was a little hurt at you, slightly offended, that you could do this to children. But with more hours I understand why you do what you do. What you do is sad beyond justification, but I also seem to learn about purpose with each step that A takes. And that puts me to shame about how I am wasting my life, my moments, purposelessly. 

To better upon how you brought me as into this world, that is human. That is A.

I will take A to A+,

K.

Letter to Hospital

It is fascinating to conclude that even though you are often life-saving, you are never dear. So, now that I have visited three hospitals over the last four-five days, I had to write a letter to you. Hospital. I used to wonder what was the difference between a hospital and a nursing home when I had to be admitted in one. Having learnt it, I observed no one cared much, so I address you both as one entity. And the first thing which comes to my mind is your smell. No, not the smell of disease, or cleanliness, or of white silences, but more likely a smell of sadness. You most certainly know that smell, don't you? If you could travel and visit a cinema-hall, you would know the difference. That place smells of joy. While you smell exactly the opposite.

Your smell brings back memories. Memories which are often unhappy. Memories of suffering over victory. Tons of people infest you, I know, and I feel for you. We have this tendency to dislike you, yet alone you stand, strong enough to hold each of our hands, and lead us in, with promises to let us go at your earliest. But that stay is so deranged in nature that it overthrows your concern. As I was walking in and out of you last night, and all of today, I was reminded of how the patients believe in you, and how like a maze they feel trapped, and yet they have no choice but you.

Through floors you house sickness, and offer promises. And once in a lifetime a fire breaks and all hell sets loose. Is it in you to arouse such thoughts? Intensely negative thoughts? Am I complaining too much, where I should actually be grateful? Yes, I am. I am sorry. For, I am really thankful for the way you undertake the responsibility of cure and care of my loved ones and provide a sense of belief, however distant, that even if monetarily drained, health will be regained. I like the way you stand strong, and white. And this time not the white of silence, but the white of faith. I like it that you are there, for me, to hold someone's hand when I am too weak to hold or face it.

On many occasions I have felt like screaming at you because of the gap you starkly present between the moneyed and the not, but then, even religious institutions do, as do educational ones. At least you save the life of the privileged, while the others waste it with a paint of vanity all over their soul. Yes, you are not a dear, but you are revered. I write to you today out of a simple compulsion I feel to thank you. At this given moment my aunt (aged 70 plus) and my friend (aged 6 and half) are in residence with you. Two different you, yet two very same you -- with that sad smell, your hopeful hand holding.

 I feel like giving you a hug, a lasting one. Will you take it?

K.

Letter to Keyboard

Dearest,

I do not quite know when I grew a liking for you. Writing instruments and base have always been my favourite things in the world -- pencil, pen, paper, crayons, any kind of colours, chalks, markers, sand on a beach, dust on anything wooden, fog on a window, water on table -- they are just incredibly inconspicuous friends of mine. No, inconspiculously incredible friends. It was quite obvious thus that I when I was first exposed to you, on a dusty system at my grandfather's office which had MS Word, I took this instant attachment towards you. I then returned to school to discover that a 'computer' in the computer class was more than Run-Commands. I was secretly angry at the teacher for not teaching us the glory of Word and the multiple things we could do on it, with you.

Years later, while in the Library attempting to refer, or study, or at home aspiring to master some other fancy software, I would (and still do) end up opening a new Word Document and compulsively touch you, to create worlds of words. You -- you are that instrument which enables me to as quickly decipher all that takes shape in my mind. You are that being I seek a rescue in when I want to be violent and when I want to pacify too. You allow me to be random, and beautiful. You make me feel useless and happy. You are my dichotometer. While my fountain pens help me doodle, you cure me with what I want to write.

I love it how you convey that you have a mind of your own and how you must take to my fingers else you refuse to yield, much akin to a wand in the hands of a wrong magician. Keyboard, you are my murder weapon whenever boredom attacks. You are my piano that creates melody and my drum on to which I beat my heart out. You are my playground where I return time and again with or without a game on my mind. It is just a nice place to be, isn't it?

As I was looking all over for replies, I notice how you have been mildly wailing to fetch my attention towards you. Sorry I didn't earlier write to you. Sorry again that I did not look after you well for patches of time. Please don't create a wall of sentiment between us which will be difficult to break, for with you is the only way I know to break, bend and or make.

Let me love you back to me,

K.

Of Replies

Not unlike God's Grand Plan, one Little Thing happened to me earlier this week. A little bird, an Idea, whispered right into my heart, and touched my soul. Like the essence of a holiday I have not, its warmth reached me like a much awaited dusk after a long, tiring day. This is what the bird chirped:

"Hi, K."

Me: Hi.

I: You have been good, right? Writing? Blogging?

Me: I guess so.

I: Why did you stop?

Me: Pause.

I: Ok, did you stop because of why I think you stopped?

Me: Shrug. And, that would be?

I: You shall have it!

 

At this point I was supremely shocked at what was just granted to me, in spite of me not knowing if I had gathered why I had stopped writing. But I have a feeling, a faith, I did.

 

Not unlike Potter's owl-post which hurls itself through blocked letter-boxes and reaches right where it should, I am expecting Replies.

From all those I have so long written letters to. And now that I have documented this belief, I feel strangely happy. I know it that the wait is not too long. Tomorrow will be beautiful. Tomorrow I have been promised the beginning of a Series of Replies.

Letter to Self II

Dearest K,

It has been a good five days running swiftly into the end of sixth day that you have not blogged, and having not done so, I know how you have suffered each moment. I felt you having this innate urge to write everything out and apart. I saw you ideate what I believe is a fantastic thing, and I am irritated that you needed the consent of others to believe firmly in it. Last year has been what it has been. A lesson, an adventure. And I think somewhere you have come to understand that you are more suited to doing other things than the ones that you do reasonably well. You have filled your life with complains and I know how  tired you are of it. I appreciate you having put up a note to on the wall opposite in your staffroom cubicle which says, "Happiness is a Habit".

I want you to understand that taking a stand does not necessarily mean to fight. You must assert yourself, for, in doing so you will retain your self-respect which is essential if you think you respect others. K, write, for if you suppress that one thing which helps you breathe, you aren't really living. Life is too full of complaints anyway, isn't it? The mornings are early, the hours are packed, the day follows the clogged roads and roles.

Amidst it all, the nearest you are to living is when you write, so there is absolutely no point enforcing a stoppage on yourself, K. You have done decently as a teacher too, and listen well for people who like to hurl a word or two, at or not at you.  It is time you start being clear about what you like and focus on that. So, let me stop the small talk and make it simple too, write.

Right, write.

K.

Letter to 2014

When all one does half a year is write letters, regularly, how can she not write one to you, 2014? Hi. I knew this was due since the last couple of days. I knew I was risking my reputation when I began scribbling one to you while at work, and I knew I really intended to write a heartfelt one to you, when I didn't just compose one last evening, in between thirty seven odd jobs and forty three plans gelled into one. It was nice that the plans that had to work out, did. What I did scribble were events I remembered since January, and yes, what a surprise.

Last 31st I drank myself alone to blackout and the 1st was of puke, cramps and unbearable sadness. All I made sure for this 31st was I would not be drinking alone, or drinking like a sponge -- emptying bottles in endless agony. I won. But that was what happened on the last day of December. Let me take you on a ride back to where we began. We kicked off the year literally unable to kick off habits and hangover. And then the jingbang of the two mothers, twins, their two friends, the sister, and me, we set off for Sunderbans. And what a wonderful trip, that. We returned to the general motion of life overhauled by paints and repairs of my room to say a 'Yes!' to R when she asked me if I would come along to Darjeeling with her. That was one of the most impromptu decisions of my life. I knew I had to make it to the mountains to build you up around me in a beautiful way. We went, just the two of us and had a wonderful time in the cold with the Sleeping Gods and the scrambled eggs and the Old Monk. And I completed one chapter of my thesis.

Once back, you greeted me with the monotoneity of train tracks and the revival of disappointments, in things cluttered around the personal and the professional. I carried on. I promised myself I would have my own car by the time you end, and would do it even if I am in no better job. The jingbang, minus the mother and increased by the aunt and her two daughters went to Darjeeling in May, and it was pristine. Tripping with the clouds. Driving in the rain. The sense of familiarity spread across the unknown. It was a strange trip. It followed what one says about the mountains -- you take time to take that first step, but once you do, there is no looking back.

Having returned I plunged into getting busy. I was facing interviews in Bombay and went to Delhi with a change of career in mind. I returned to more interviews and the rigor. It was sultry, the heat. It was sad, the monsoon. Especially after one has had a very memorable spring. In passing of minutes into hours into seasons I landed up with the job which offered me socio-economic stability. And drowned me in depression.

Here, I took up blogging and Buddhism. The harmony of these notes fluttered around my heart and pacified the constant chirp of the caged, clocked bird. I flew with the words. And took off to the mountains in Bhutan in October -- safely attesting it as the best trip of my life. I had never for once imagined that it would turn out to be the best. It was with a friend who is completely different from me -- a vegetarian, teetotaler, studious, workaholic. Yet, there was peace like that of a Yin-Yang. We shared serene excitement and happiness. I think that is quite rare.

Things were changing in me. I facilitated towards the buying of my first car 'without a single penny off my old parents or my new job'. I loved it. And I kept writing. Till one day, a gentleman publisher offered me what would be the most surprising offer of my life. He wanted to publish the compiled letters. Suddenly, all the heartbreak, and the ruining of peace and the disaster of career took a back seat. I was mighty surprised with the consistent good reviews I was receiving for my letters. I was unfolding my other potentials and I am glad the prayers winged me. I made more friends. And I became a better daughter to my parents -- now that is a joy that is unparalleled, that which no one before you could give me.

December was all about I's wedding and reliving the year with old flames, seeking for new. It was about knowing and wanting to know more. And last night, I stuck to the promise I had made on the first day, I did not drink alone. I drank responsibly and drove back too. I loved this new me. From beneath the petals you have uncovered this fruitful, passionate, better me. I feel good about myself even though I am still severely underconfident, and aggressively passive. But for every wall that appears inside my head, I have words to break it apart.

You may not have given me that one thing I really, really wanted, but you gave me a thousand other things to be happy about. You gave me a me to face. Thank you!

Two thousand and fourteen kisses,

K.