It had been two years since He left Vrindavan. Diwali
was two days away. She decides to write a letter to him. A monthly ritual.
She begins writing
thus:
Dearest,
The town is adorned like a bride.
I miss your presence by my side.
Why doesn’t the festivity animate me anymore?
Is this stoicism a fallout of betrayal?
Whose? Yours or Mine?
Or is it just a part of evolution?
The luminosity that drenches the houses and streets
evades my heart.
Not even a jot of it can I feel touching me.
An uncanny darkness has settled in the heart. And it
refuses to diffuse.
Every day is the same. So is every night.
Nothing seems to make sense without you.
How meaningless and dry it all is.
Such a powerful desiccant reason is.
You were my end and the means—the pivot of my very
existence.
Everything seems disarrayed now. Vague and bland.
For whom do I preen?
Whom do I sing for?
They look at me with a cynical eye. Not their fault
entirely.
I fail to understand their gaiety. They fail to
understand mine.
She folds the letter neatly and steps out of the house,
careful not to be seen. This letter, too, was to meet with the fate of every
other she had been writing for the past two years.
Upon reaching the banks of Yamuna, with moist eyes, she
kisses the letter and sets it adrift.
