Love-Letter (XL)

Agastya,

How is it that we have never mailed each other? Finding you on a matrimonial website and selecting you after all eliminations, did lead us to those hours of g-talk. The chats that never mustered in us the courage to come out of. We are still left trapped there. Go back, and you will find us, discovering each other, the novelty -- oddly charming and now, the nostalgia -- strangely comforting. You were impressed with me having detected that your real name was not Agastya. I too was impressed with myself for being correct about a judgement, after a long time. It was cute though, how we continued our chats as Agastya and Radha. 

You never found out my real name. Perhaps that is why I never mailed you. There are high chances that you may not open this mail because the sender's name might sound unfamiliar to you. Last evening my aunt gifted me a Gucci Envy. I had asked for a Lanvin Vetyver. It is not distantly near to the fragrance I prefer, but I will wear it. And that is when I thought of you. And your fetish for perfumes. I have hardly come across a person as indulgent in the olfactory as you had been. Your favourite was, wait, what was it, something from YSL, right? Kouros, if I am not mistaken.

As I sit in taking in myself the sharpness of Envy, I think of you. I went through our chats. You were excited because I loved Tarantino, while I was overwhelmed that you heard of Joan Baez. Together we had a mighty laugh over emoticons of how I am scared of dogs, and you have a Rottweiler. What fragrance are you wearing right now? Something woody? Or citrussy, now that it is almost summer? But then, how does it matter? You will neither smell my envy, nor I inhale your disappointment. The smells clashed in imagination. But they did not die.

Hence, I sometimes wear a floral tribute to our 'brief relationship', while you must be battling the sweat in a limey, forest fragrance. It is good we decided to not forge further. The beautiful sensation of lovely smells faded over the drab currency clash. How different can the same Tarantino-Baez person become just because she is comfortably well off? How could you ask of spending habits when you yourself, as evident, spent a fortune on all those fragrances?

I stopped because a certain stench of dishonesty alluded from your very association, thereon. By the way, I never lied about being Radha. It is my pet name. For those fragrant chats, thank you, Agastya.

They do not smell the same now.

Leila.