The Messiah Of Regrets

Thump! A stack of the daily letters stood before me with a challenging look. Yet another boring day!

I liked to call myself “the messiah of chahalpur”. After all, I delivered letters that contained greetings, agreements, gossip, friendship, hatred and who knows, maybe love? That got me started. 

Watching Abdul go by on his ambassador was the next best thing of being at the post office. He was a renowned doctor in the whole of the city. People would gather at his clinic from far, like devotees on a pilgrimage. Sometimes I would dream about him and get carried away so much that I would miss the lunch bell and then the dogs would have a feast later that day.

It was rather a dulling day and the sky was a rosy hue as if it was blushing.

It was then that I noticed the letter.

To,

Dr. Abdul Sheikh

Slightly surprised i scanned the envelope for the sender’s name. In drawly handwriting was written:

From,

Begum Jaan

Kashipur

Ha! So this is it. Rumour had it that Abdul was seeing a girl from another town and nobody knew the name or whereabouts of the lucky damsel.

Making sure that no-one was looking, I slightly tore open the envelope and read:

Alas! My dear. My life rests on your hands. Everyone tells me you are the best and I have no doubt. If only I could come and meet you…

I closed it with a spurt of jealousy. I simply couldn’t read the rest of it. I closed it carefully and slipped it into my desk. 

No luck there begum, not if I could stop it, I thought.

Months passed and every time I hid the letters, that were starting to come more often than earlier, conscience pricked me but the mere thought of losing Abdul overshadowed it. 

Later that month we received our promotions and people celebrated. Strangely, I no longer felt the pleasure and satisfaction of it. Not even vada-pavs could make me feel better. It was only after I sent the mother some money that I slept that day. Mother, being a renowned poet, did not earn much money. Sometimes I think of art as insensitive and extremely ignorant of money matters.

Later that month, I got a call from kashipur that my ailing mother had passed away. We finished the customary rituals later that day.

Burdened with a mop and a heavy heart I was cleaning the forgotten kitchen in my mother’s house when I overheard an old friend of mother’s saying, “she did not want her disease to be a public affair, in fact, I doubt she would have told her daughter about such a disease. She even signed her letters to the practitioner with a different name…some name like…”



Begum Jaan, I recalled bitterly

She sighed, ”I always told her that letters were not to be trusted.”