A NEW SEASON
15 April 2009
Hi Ash,
I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am so sorry. It should have been on 14th but today’s 15th. Yeah, I know it’s my fault & no excuses for the delay. But some things are totally unpredictable & power supply in Kolkata is one among them. I hope you understand that & forgive my misdemeanor (plzzzz).
So, how’s life, Ash? Hope it’s stirring with loads of fun & frolic. As for me, it’s the usual boring stuff – studies & wandering here & there aimlessly in the city. I don’t know why but there’s this restlessness in me, an innate incapability to stay still. Rather I should say, I am happiest in transit. I am a person who believes in the constancy of change.
From change I remember, just the other day, I happened to notice the mango tree by the side of my house. The new red leaves were peeping out of the group of old green leaves. The fragrant white blossoms quivered in the morning breeze as the harbinger of a new season. The cuckoo cooed in its sweet tone hailing the advent of a new season. The season of dry leaves is over. The long summers have commenced.
Summers, for me, have always been associated with the month long vacations spent in the village with my grandparents. The idle mornings & the calm evenings of the rural milieu were what I always identified with the summer season. Have you ever been to a village, Ash? If you have then you’ll definitely know what I am talking about. Getting up early in the morning with the chirrup of the sparrows, frolicking & bathing in the river with your friends, the afternoon siestas in the cool breeze under the tamarind tree in the village orchard, playing gilli-danda in the evenings, herding the cows to their sheds when they return from the meadows at the cow-dust time (that’s what the villagers call it - Godhuli) & spending the night listening to tales of far-away countries from Grandma. These are my memories linked with the summers. How strange it is that sometimes just an inconsequential perception can shove in a torrent of hidden memories from the deepest corners of our mind, isn’t it?
Well, the past month, for me, was spent in thoughts and contemplation. I don’t know why these days I am feeling an uncanny sense of uneasiness. A dark mood of foreboding has, as if, engulfed me. Perhaps, I am too worried about my future. As if I have to reach somewhere & I couldn’t make out the way through the darkness that encircles me. Life, it seems, has reached a standstill. I desperately want it to move somewhere, to reach out for something, but I can’t make that happen. Many questions come into my mind. Like, what has the future in store for me? What do I want from my life? Why am I leading a life of so full of clichés? Why am I doing the things that I do? Even sometimes, what do I expect from you? Why the hell do I keep writing these letters to you? It becomes so frustrating at times.
The reason, I surmise, owes to my expectations. Perhaps, I expect too much from everybody & everything. It’s a fact that when we expect something & the outcome turns out to be just the opposite, we tend to get frustrated. So the solution, I think, is to stop expecting anything. Let life run its own course & let it unfold the magic within it, slowly & steadily by itself. Or maybe, it’s all just a passing phase that will fade away with time.
I have also thought a lot about you, the past month. You were always before my eyes irrespective of whether they were open or closed. I slept with my eyes open & remained awake in my sleeps. I had heard that this happens in love; but, I am experiencing it for the first time.
I still remember the first day I saw you. A radiant face, a twinkle in the eyes, a flashy smile – there was an inherent charm in you. Who had even the slightest idea that in such a small span of time, you’ll become inevitable for me?
Love is a strange thing. But love at first sight is stranger. How can we fall in love with someone whom we have never met before? How can we desire someone with whom we haven’t talked even once? Love at first sight, it is called. It takes nine months to bring forth a human life. But a human heart takes only an instant to born. It happens in the instant when one falls in love.
Sometimes I think, of all the people in the world, why I fell in love with you, Ash. What was that in you, which was missing in others? What did my heart find in you, that it couldn’t in others? Was it fate or just a coincidence? The agnostic that I am, it’s a little hard for me to believe that it was the former.
It is not falling in love that is hard to believe; but it’s the spontaneity associated that defies explanation. Perhaps because, I think, there are very few relations in my life that are spontaneous. I’ve always been very specific about who I want to be my friends & who not. I always chose my friends after much consideration. Since I invest too much into them, I have very few friends. But they are dearer to me than my life. I live for them & I’m ready to do anything for them. But with you, it was different. For the first time in my life, I wanted to live & perhaps, even die, for a person whom I didn’t even know well enough.
Hitherto, my existence had been an endless succession of hours, days, weeks & years lived for others. The whole story of my life till now is more a story of the trials & tribulations of the supporting characters than that of the protagonist. Leading this life of others, my own self, my identity – I’d lost it somewhere along the way. There’s no word ‘I’ the dictionary of my life. What was left of me was a dummy, who danced to other people’s whims & fancies. The life that I was leading, it was the zenith of my miseries. Sometimes I used to think, was it really worth it? Was I right when I obliterated my own self for other people?
But why am I telling you all this, right? Because you’re the one who is responsible for my resurrection. This life of wretchedness, that I was leading, I don’t know if ever I’d have brought it to a conclusion. But the moment you came into my life, everything changed in a moment. As if some little sprite had swiveled her magic wand, and transformed me into something alive.
People say love has the power to change. I’ve felt the change. In a splitsecond, my life was heaved into two parts. The first one, before you; the other, after you. The first where I just survived, and the second where I have started living. Survive & Live – maybe, they are just words to you; but for me, they describe my life – in concise. You don’t know how nice it feels to be alive, to be able to breathe again. There stretched an ominous gloom far & wide, when it appeared as if there was no salvation for me, I discovered you. When my soul was fighting, perhaps its last battle, against a melancholy whose sole objective was to stifle me to death, I found you. You became the herald of a new era of my life. And I am more than thankful to you for that. If there is anything that I can do for you, just tell me. I will do it even if that leads me to my ultimate destruction. It’s the least I can do for you.
You were the best thing that ever happened to me, Ash. Falling in love with you was bliss for me. There’ll always be a place for you in my heart for all my life. And everywhere I am, there you’ll be. Always.
Ash, I write these letters to you with a belief. A belief that you read my letters. That you lend an ear to my never-ending monologue. I have no way to confirm my belief. I do not even know whether you like it or not (my writing letters to you, I mean). Maybe, you straight away delete any mail that has Ascetic Wanderer as its sender. But my heart says no. I don’t know why I’ve this faith. Perhaps it’s your silence that speaks to me. I believe that in your person, I’ve found a friend, a patient listener. And that’s more than enough for me. Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong. If I am right, then keep on your silence; but if I’m wrong, then say so. Just one word & I’ll stop. On this I give my word to you, with all the love that I’ve for you in my heart, that never again will I bother you. I will disappear from your life as silently as I had appeared. At least, I owe you that.
Good-Bye & Take Care.
With lots of love,
Ascetic Wanderer
P.S. I was just listening to a song when two lines caught my attention. It was as if my heart was speaking them. Perhaps you’d have heard the song. Here are the lines –
Pyar tumhein kitna karte hain, tum yeh samajh nahi paaoge
Jab hum na honge piharwaa, bolo tab kya aaoge…
Till next time, bye.
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