Letter To Janhvi

Janhvi;

I am at my window in solitude in this night of full moon. To my loneliness, the moon has the same fate in the sky. I am daydreaming in this lit night.

The moon makes me feel that you are standing there in the sky, clad in the silvery-white frock you wore on your birthday tonight. The moon seems dim before you. When you smiled today, Ah…. My heart swelled with the light waves. I lost my appetite seeing your pearly teeth. You have stepped down to my Sankhapur village as an angel form the moon region.

I never like the chirping of girls’ without reason. But, as you laugh, thousand birds sing raga of love. It seems the dead serpent-like stream of the Sankh river swells with singing streams of nectar. Your lips sway like petals of rose. Who has crafted you with chisel and hammer over sleepless nights? In the same manner, perhaps, I am drafting this letter awake in this bright moonlit night.

The river is shallow with water from the feet to maximum up to the knee. It has mirrored the moon on it. As I plunge my feet in the water, the moon started distorting but walked along with me. In my imagination, the river asked me, “Hey, where are you on in clandestine?” I observed silence. It pleaded, “Please, tell me what is cooking in you.” I said, “I am going to date my Chandini.” It laughed sarcastically. Said, “Wash your face and see yourself once in this water.”

Janhvi, if you remember, you had also once said the same, to wash my mouth and see the face in the mirror. Of course, you said this about me to your friends. My sister Mini was there, she heard that. Mini was insulted as you compared me with an ape. If you remember Mini skirmished on this issue. She remarked before me that you are a bad girl and advised me to avoid you. I was silent, reactionless; otherwise, she would have read my mind. But I felt bad, although I agreed with your propositions. Yes, I look like nothing better than an ape.

My complexion is dark, extra dark. Skin is oily as if it would produce a bottle of oil if squeezed. Eyes have shrunk into the cavity of the skull. The same is the condition of my cheeks. The zygomatic bones have projected outward like the handle of a cycle. The mustache below the nose has grown erratically and asymmetrically, as my eyebrows. I look horrid, hideous. The mirror could never present me as a handsome prince, in whatever way I pampered it. I was hurt with your remarks, still, I loved your beauty. I like whatever you say. I like it when you dislike me, hate me. Hey, I am not kidding, this is true, moon promise.

I am aware that God has not made you for me. Still, I am happy with him as he has crafted the cosmic beauty in you. I am happy with him as he has crafted me in ugliness. What a striking contrast! Had there been no new moon, the full moon would have been meaningless. You are the bright light of the full moon. I am the deep darkness of the new moon. We are contrasting, yet complementary to each other.

I know you could not recognize me. I was sitting in the same batch at the end of the row, purposefully covering my head with a towel. You served me Poori, vegetables, and sweets. I was watching your skin tone, finger; stone fitted bangles, puppet-like colored nails. The beauty of each was incomparable with the other. My stomach got filled with these spectacular feasts to the eyes. What else would I have eaten! You shouted, “Hey, glutton, you have not eaten the poori I gave you before, yet demanding more! First, you finish all these, and then only I’ll give you more.” I could not control my laugh, some brimmed out of my mouth. Then you scolded me, "Why are you laughing like a horse, who are you?"

He who has been fed with the divinity of your beauty, what food would he require more? I was unwilling to return after the feast. But I had to. On my way, the same river met me, the same sands. My bare feet pressed the soft and cold sands. I rolled there for some time. My dear river asked me, “Why are you so happy dear?”

I consider my sis Mini as a small girl. She opined that you are not a good girl. You are in an affair with and dating Alok in secret. Some people had even seen you embracing him, clinging around his neck and kissing him.

Every evening you become a hot cake of discussion on the sands of this river among the poor chaps of Baurisahi in whom there are gushes of adrenaline. They go mad with your beauty but talk badly of you. We all are dwarfs and you are unimaginably remote to us in the sky as a full moon in full glory. They never forget to envy Alok and wish harm to him. I remain silent, controlling the bewilderment of pain. My heart breaks into million pieces and I see you in each piece. I feel like burning to ashes, but my love for you cools down me instantly. I love this feeling and want to cherish it. You are not made for me, but certainly, I am made as an admirer and worshipper of you.

A secret affair has progressed, that neither Mini nor others know. But you know it. Will you tell me what it was? You hurt me with your words that my face is like that of a monkey’s. You expected to full stop my love for you with this. But barely could it happen. You are aware that I am the person who was the messenger between you and Alok in the brewing love story.

While receiving Alok's love letter from me, you touched me for the first time. Ah...! I remember the touch and the moment. Shall remember forever. I experience your touch when I remember the moment.

You are my full moon. Carefully I entered into the shallow water in order not to disturb the reflection of the moon on the river. I wish you to be in wellness forever. The river understood my feelings and laughed.

I know, we all are temporary like dry leaves in the gush, you, me, Alok and my poor boys of Baurisahi. At certain end and turn of life, we will depart from each other. But the realization that I will depart from you breaks my heart. I feel like crying at the loudest of my voice. I don’t know how to face the moment.

The moon is floating alone in the sky. Lovely night. I will never forget it. I am daydreaming in this night. How strange! This is too poetic. A poet is all-powerful, could daydream in the night, talk to a river, pluck the moon and play with. I am not a poet, but the moment of my transmutation into a poet is somewhere near. Poems are clotting inside me as clotted blood in my veins waiting to burst at any moment. I will compose poems on you. I will make use of this wonderful night to the maximum possible end.

My dear river asked me, “Are you going back? How long you will cheat and torture yourself?” It advised me, “If you love her, open your mind before her without fear of rejection. At best she would hurt saying monkey-faced.” To its conviction, it said, “I know, you would even not deny taking the incarnation of a monkey if she wishes so before you.”

I was standing clueless. Many thoughts, many sights flashed in my mind. I was thinking to take a u-turn to you, vomit the truths hidden in me. I remember one of my teachers in the school remarked many-a-times, “Billu is good for nothing.” His forecast was that Billu would never pass the schools in this birth. He foresaw Billu wearing a lungi, chewing tobacco, rusting on the roadside in a shop and asking the school going children to solve the whole-square of the unknown variables, a and b. 

But I proved him wrong. I saw you in those days and committed myself to be around you like your shadow. A fail in the school examination was enough for me. But, I passed and also passed the college under your inspiration. I have no talent of my own. I don't demand any credit. I know you are not aware of this truth.

As I plunge my legs in water for a return journey to your village, to you, a crocodile caught me. The night had something else in its treasure for me.

I asked the same question to Alok, “Where are you on in this night of mystery?” Fragrant in lavender, he was in suit-boot with a bunch of white roses for you. Everything was for you. He would wish you, you would gather him in your arms, stand in rapture and a long kiss would connect both of you. Moment of moments would pass like a dream.

Alok caught my hands in his. I could see glistening drops of tear in the corners of his eyes in the moonlight. Chocked with gratitude, he said, “Billu, my friend, I don’t know how to repay your debt.” I smiled at him. "Hey, why are you crying? She is all yours. I pray for both of you." Again in the lighter vein, I told him, "Promise, you will treat me free of cost and give me medicines at free when you become a doctor."

I bid farewell to Alok. He melted in the moonlight across the river.

Then I bid farewell to the river. Before that, I opened the letter I had drafted for you with relentless labor of days and nights. That was an ode of my love. But I could never dare to reach that to you. I am sure I would never have done so.

Now like a bonded labor I am drafting another letter in this moonlit night, in solitude near the window of my thatched house in the hamlet of the untouchables of Sankhapur village, Baurisahi. I know the fate of this letter shall never be better than its predecessor. This is an address-less letter. It will reach nowhere. The moon in the sky is the witness to everything.

After getting through the entrance examination, Alok has taken admission in a medical college. A few years after he will be a doctor. He is damn handsome, well-groomed and the only son of a respectable family. He loves you immensely, so you do to him. I don't find any reason to stand rotten in between two hearts in love.

After Alok took adieu, I stood there to find my identity. I could not discover any identity. So I brought the letter out of my pocket and threw that into the river.