Love-Letter (II)

My own Chitraang,

Since we never get around to talking like lovers do, I ask you, like a curious outsider, who named you? The two syllables are heavily-laden with a kind of melody that can only be sung by a maestro. But, knowing you, you will pass off my question with a mere smile. Oh, I adore that coyness. Come to think of it, I am quite taken aback by my own forthrightness, in all things concerning you. Interestingly, your names sounds best when Tehzeeb calls you out -- broken, rustic, owned. 

You have never quite understood how much I love you, have you? Yes, to put it plainly, I have. And trust me, it is impossible to try and understand why would I otherwise. In the dusk of the terrace, as I pen down words in your favour, uncertain if I would ever deliver them to you, I wonder, what is it that I want to tell you, why is it that I love you. What is there, such a compulsion? There are two answers -- nothing, and everything.

Cryptic, you must be thinking. But don't you see, it is clarity instead? Is it too much to ask in the one lifetime that we live, that we get to share it with the person we most want to? I look up and with the night is falling all around me, I want to be able to share it with you. I know I must return to my books and I feel a need to ask you of your future plans so that we can plan a time together. I am reminded of my lonely bed and I wish you were in it, beside me. Do I ask for too much? I know I do. In worldly-terms, yes. What with you and Tehzeeb and families and all that. Where is the love there, I wonder. 

And there as I looked up again, I faintly noticed a shooting star (or so I think). To nobody's surprise, my wish was predictable -- you. What do you call this?

Let us choose to call it love and not fight to place unrequitted before it. Should you happen to look beyond, and listen intently, you would find you live a life elsewhere.

In me,

Gauri.