The most gratifying thing in this world is to write letters to people who will never read them. I present below three letters that I wrote- at different points of time, in different situations – and never posted. I must warn you that the length of this post might be overwhelming.
To D,
Of all the times I have spent with you, the image that stands out most clearly in my mind is the one with you wearing thick glasses and staring at me distastefully across the school van. You did not conceal the fact that you disliked me for being so loud, arrogant and boastful. Not that I cared, either. But then, life, in all its innovation, made us very, very good friends.
Both of us would take a good hot water head-bath and come to Maths Tution classes on Sunday afternoons. The smell of the Shikakai from your thick hair, the hot moisture of my own head, the wafting smell of Mrs. Maths Sir’s onion Sambar, would make me invariably drowsy. You would spend half your time pinching me off from sleeping. We would spend the rest of the Sunday laughing our asses off about absolutely unrelated things. There was this one day when I imitated the primate expression on R’s face when Sir asks him a trigonometric equation – you got into such a fit of laughter that you fell off the bicycle and bruised your hands.
You hands – so talented. All those brilliant sketches of people, the mural paintings on the walls of your bedroom, those technical architectural diagrams and that small, confident handwriting in my ‘Memory Book’.
The Sunday afternoon you died, I was making Gulab Jamoon with Aunt V. If it was 6 years ago, we would have been sitting next to each other in the Maths Tution classes.
Monday morning I was informed that you had died in a road accident last afternoon. I read it in a news paper. It told everything - where you lived, where your grand parents lived, the name of the architect firm where you were doing your project, your age, gender, name. Still, as I drove up to your grand parents’ home, I was desperately hoping that I was mistaken. I saw around 30 people silently standing outside your
I saw your body – they had wrapped it in plastic and covered with white cloth. Some lab guy in St. John’s hospital had tried his best to make your face look human after the bus had run over it. I hugged your legs and cried and cried. I never knew I could publicly cry so loud, that I could touch a dead body, that I could create such a scene. Your mother was incessantly talking to herself; your father was his usual silent self – except for the tears, your grand mother sat quietly surrounded by 5 other women – staring into nothing, only murmuring your name now and then.
A white van came, took you and drove off. Giving me only one last glimpse of your small, petite built. I wiped my tears. I took your phone from one of your cousins and transferred all your pictures to my phone through blue tooth. Then, business-like, like that van, I drove off too.
I have not looked at those pictures much. I realised I don’t need them. I try not remembering you, because when I do, I hate the fact that I am alive and you aren’t. I don’t have the bravery to face the hollow you left behind.
To M.P,
You left on a Tuesday evening. You called to say you were leaving, but never called to say you reached the other end. Thereby, you simply walked out of my life. I didn’t resist this walking out – because by then I knew that you were to be let gone. I had bound you long enough.
I wonder why you took to the binding for so long, though. Why, for months and months, did your hear a silly 21 yr old rant on about sillier things? How did I even figure in your general scheme of life? You were such an ambitious person, such an over-achiever, so sure about yourself, so planned out about your whole life – how did you fit a gypsy like me into your otherwise well-structured world?
This day during the world cup when you said that the Brazilian coach was a Chut and I asked you what literally did ‘chut’ mean and you went all red. This day when I started arguing with a junk jeweler boy on Brigade road and you stood next to me, pretending like you did not know who I was. This day when we were having a lunch at Tangerine with an animated hilarious discussion about sex and the whole Kitty Party in the next table went quiet listening to our talk. This day when we watched 300 in Rex without uttering a word to each other throughout the movie. This hot sunny day you came to rescue me when I had no money to buy a CAT application form and no ATM around was working.
Looking back, I feel extremely foolish about myself. That I talked to you so much about myself and never about you. You knew my soul and I din’t even know your favorite color. You were my rock and I was your burden.
There are one million ways to start a conversation with you now, but I won’t. I do deeply miss you at times. But I will not tell that to you, because you will hate it. I will hate it myself. We are the stiff-upper-lip people. I would like to tell you, though, that all that time you were with me hasn’t gone in vain. You did manage to rub some of yourself on me. Looks like I did gather some of your poise and equanimity after all.
If you come to discover how much I have grown since you last knew me, you will think of me somewhat well. (I guess,) You might even remotely, vaguely admire me. As a Friend? Lover? Brother? No Clue. May be years down, I will know you for who you really were.
To (Mrs.) A,
They say you were born again when you gave birth to me. You told me that I troubled you there too, for many painful hours I simply refused to be born. Even though it has been almost 23 years now that I was finally born, I don’t think either of us has cut the placenta that binds you to me and me to you.
During all those turbulent teenage years when I fought with you on a daily basis, I was convinced that you wouldn’t understand me. Ever. I always believed that we were a different generation and we would be different people.
But now, I have discovered a trend. A pattern, if you prefer that word. I see that I am growing into someone pretty much like you. Similar tastes, similar wants and similar troubles. I am also tempted to conclude that I might pick a husband just like the one you picked. I think my daughter will need me and escape me at the same time - the way I do you.
Your life has been drastically different from mine. You roamed woods, villages and fields and ate Brahmin food and studied in scholarships, won academic ranks and married simple. I explored my city and was fed more than I could eat and provided before I demanded anything and will probably marry grand. You are likely to be happy that your daughter is more lucky, educated and liberated than you ever were.
But you are wrong there, mother. Me, my mother, my grand mother, her mother – all of us, we are women. We will never escape the fate that was written for us millions of years before we were born. A co-ed school doesn’t twist the fate. A Gucci bag doesn’t matter. Me using P & G's Whisper Ultra where my grandma used a cotton cloth doesn’t change a thing. We are all bound by our gender. A gender that gives us our unique physical and mental pains. Across the millennia, we have borne it. We have loved our men, in spite of hating them.
I am terrified when you speak of your mother in past tense. I cannot imagine living with the memory of a mother and not a real one. So, I don’t think of a future. I only look forward to being touched by your hands that have been roughed by washing dishes in spite of all of us demanding you hire a maid.
You see, you don’t hug me and touch me the way many other mothers do to their daughters. But when you do, it melts my immature soul.
My question, dear reader, is, what is the whole point?
Posts
