Now when I think of us, I see you as a petal. Whenever I ran after you, you fluttered away from me. It was only when I gave up & crumbled that you tiptoed back and sat by my side. And then one day, you just disappeared. No words were exchanged. No promise withheld or broken. No leftover illusion of temporariness about your departure. Gone with the change of season, gone with the wind, quite literally.

Nowadays, I keep seeing you everywhere, in abundance & glory, in death & flight. It's a treat to watch & feel grateful for my loss that deservedly, and timely, set you free. What a beautiful loss, this is! Makes me want to thank you for leaving like this, when your departure looks like an arrival — of autumn.

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The Secret Sauce to Building Your Readerbase on YourQuote

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I got your letter yesterday. After waiting for two long years, yesterday, when I finally received your reply to my ask, I didn’t feel like opening it. I kept the sealed envelope on the table next to the oranges. I then peeled the oranges, not the envelope. Oranges that tasted bitter, but still better.

See, the thing is I have been waiting for your words for so long that now I didn’t want to let go of the wait. Wait that is certain is any day better than words that are uncertain.

Maybe I will read and reply after two years. So that at least both of us understand each other’s pain. So that instead of your words showing up at my doorstep, you show up the next time.

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One year ago, in June, when you briefly visited Bengaluru to see me, I handed you the key to my rented flat in Delhi. Your flight was to reach Delhi at 2 am and Noida, where you lived, was not safe at night. My 2BHK was in Saket, relatively safer & well-lit. It was where we first hung out in Jan and ended up dating each other. At 3 am that night, you reached, crashed in my bed & messaged me, ‘I miss you in all your things. The books, guitars, typewriter.’ Two months later, we broke up. We didn’t talk for a few months. I did go back to you in October to urge you to return to where we were, but you’d moved on. I cried but accepted. With grace, I suppose.

Last month, I visited Mumbai, the city where you have moved to now. We were meeting after six months. You took me out for dinner. We met like old friends, taking jibes at each other, talking of old memories & new relationships, of big cities & small towns, of Mumbai-Delhi-Bangalore. Before leaving, you handed me the key to my Delhi house, saying, ‘I don’t need it anymore. I’m sorry I forgot to give it to you in October.’

I took the key & left, not informing you that even I didn’t need it anymore, unlike in Oct. I had moved on, too.

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Fan swirls above me. A thin layer of blanket, hands and feet outside, mouth veiled, nose jutting out, eyes stuck on to the compose screen watching me type whatever I’m doing, feeling. My mind, a storm.

Ten days since we talked, since I heard your voice or read your words or received a photograph in my inbox. Your ‘last seen’ dangling at 1 April, since you hid behind this long Vipassana course. I feel like a guest in my own house, the only sense of your presence being your favourite book, Buddha in the Attic, in my messy bed. I finished it at last. I miss you terribly. I thought I wouldn’t. I didn’t so far, but I do. Now that you’re about to return, I miss you all the more. I miss those sunflowers, those quick-witted replies, that obsessive love for plants and a clean bed. I miss you in whole and entirety. The curls, those big hands, the waist to hold on to and eyes to wade into. The tattoo that holds a poem someone wrote for you, the notebook that holds a poem you wrote for me, the way you looked when you emerged in the yellow dress that we bought, the onions you chopped and the uttapams we made. I miss everything.

I miss your silence. This silence, without you, is too silent.

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THE INTERMISSION

Sometimes, I take the bus to the airport
to stand in front of the arrival gate and
wait. I scan the faces, one after the other,
and reject: no, this one isn’t you, this one
doesn’t have the same curls, this one lacks
your gait, this one’s attire is too flashy,
this one can’t seem to wait. In between
two flights, there always seems to be that
half an hour, when the arrival gate turns mum,
when I hear no advancing footsteps come.
I call that the intermission — when the waiting
chauffeurs scramble towards the loo & I stay put,
steadfast, not daring to move. Not daring to cross
the departure gate on way to the loo, not daring
to once again — right there — stumble into you.

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You’re at my place when you put your playlist on my speakers. I listen in. Light piano, or dance beats. Women artistes. Girl in Spain. Falling in love. You and I. Songs that I have never heard before. Songs that introduce you to me.

So far, over months, we have only met or spent time together at my place. As you live with your parents. Faraway from here.

I know it’s late, but please, don’t stop the music. I sense this is the closest to what being at your place would feel like. Let it be what it is: my place, a little bit of yours.

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Balcony Letter #95

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Balcony Letter #90

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Yesterday I wrote a letter to my team providing a brief history of the past six months, the half-year that passed. You urged me to send you a letter too containing the brief history of us in those months.

January started with memories of our travel together in December. Central India. February was spent in you finally deciding to quit your unfulfilling job, and taking a break. Coming to me, that is. March was when you arrived, stayed & left. We travelled. East coast. You clicking pictures of me blabber, I clicking pictures of you sipping tea. Sea & buses. Dosa & sambhar. April you went to Rajasthan for Vipassana, I flew home. Travel but not together. Silence, unhelpful. May was for your interviews and my work. The end had you. I was in Delhi, the hot sultry unwelcoming city, from late May to early June. We were together without a conversation. You & I fanning my sweat. Unmemorable. Restless, we both longed for home. June, we waited for your job. In Bengaluru. Finalised! NCR, not Bengaluru. :(

The half- year is over. It’s July. The average shelf-life of your relationships has been crossed. Either now this relationship starts, or it is yet to begin. Let’s see. You arrive tomorrow.

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