A Wasted Attempt

I have friends, and they can all be counted using my two hands. So when one of the few flies off to a different country, it brings out a strange nostalgia. It also gives me a chance to pen a letter, go to the post office and buy a stamp. All rare things, I can tell you. 

So here is a first attempt to a very old friend, one who has been an enthusiastic mate and shared many a crazed & fanatic fandom. 

***

Dear Vinay,

What you are now reading is a culmination of a vague idea seeded many months ago, when it first started sinking that we would no longer share the same city as our home. I wish I could be there when you first slit the envelope, see the first expressions which flit across your face when you begin reading. Or am I being arrogant in assuming that a written letter is welcome? As you know, words and writings are an almost forgotten art, and if people who profess a love towards it do not try and create, we deserve lost legacies, don’t you think?
Actually, you might not and I might be presuming too much. But I am determined that you should be bombarded with letters from your homeland, in my handwriting, flaying you with the bourgeois details of my life . If you deign to reply in kind, I wonder whose letters will be better. Knowing you, you over-talented bastard, it would in all probability be yours. But at least I can say that I tried.

I have a picture in my mind, a cliched one with soft sunlight. You are sitting under a tree (or if it is more practical, I suppose you are allowed to find a balcony with an impossibly comfortable couch and tea in your hand), a blissful smile and this letter in your hand, college backpack strewn carelessly across the grass. So, if you are reading this anywhere which isn’t remotely similar, I command you at once to do your part and go find yourself a cozy nook to fulfill my impractical imaginings. Because that is what a letter should be. Deliciously rambling and long winded. Unhurried with long, beautiful sentences which bring comfort from a familiar voice. (I am indomitably convinced that mine is all that)

Now that I have begun putting ink on paper, I begin to see why so few people write anymore. Well, intentions and all are fine, I suppose, but what do I write about? The number of times I hit the snooze button this morning? The white strand of hair that I spotted while brushing my teeth and the maddening panic attack which ensued? Or perhaps how the 13 kadabus I ate that day (No, you did not make a mistake in reading that. I really ate 13 kadabus in a single day and didn’t stop until the next) have now firmly lodged in my ass, thighs and legs and point blankly refuse to melt? No, no. I am being unfair. You are my friend, not my diary and should be spared the emotional turmoil which PMS entails. That’s absolutely right. I blame PMS.

Oh dear God, Vinay, this is actually turning into a diary and doesn’t even resemble the letter I had in mind. You know the one I spoke about. Beautiful sentences and comfort and all that.

Yes, right. I’ll get on with that. Which now brings me back to the original question before the embarrassing detour. What do I write about? Maybe I should tell you about the book that I am reading now (Because, as you know, there is no other more worthwhile thing I do than read. I am still unemployed, if you are wondering).

Its a book called Gerald’s Game, by Stephen King. And what a book it is.
A married couple is about to embark on a little bondage, all in an attempt to revive the husband’s waning interest in the wife and performing after more than a decade of marriage. So the book opens with the wife tied to the bed with handcuffs and the husband approaching her, all eager. She has second thoughts at the last minute and cries off the whole kinky thing. The husband pretends he doesn’t understand her refusal, and continues his gradual approach, with the proverbial leer in his eyes. The wife, realizing what her husband intends to do, kicks him in the you-know-what. Which in turn sets off a heart attack (He is middle aged, aroused and over weight), which in turn leads to his falling and hitting his head. He is dead in a matter of minutes. And while all this happens, the wife is still hand cuffed to the bed, unclothed, with a centre seat view to her husband’s chain reaction death. What follows is a literary fest of conversations by voices in the wife’s head which reveals a childhood trauma previously ignored by the wife (Hence the voices in her head). Oh, in an interesting aside, a starved dog comes into their bedroom after smelling the blood and starts eating parts of the husband. Yeah, the wife is still in the bed, what she only needs is popcorn which she can’t eat due to being handcuffed. Ah! The beauty of gore. I am still reading, and I advise you to hold on and not be too desperate to know how it all ends. I promise most ardently that I will reveal all in my next letter.

Before I end, I am obligated to ask how you are. You are setting up a new home and having never done that, I am insatiably curious. How did you feel when you saw the land of your home fade away from the plane’s window? How did you feel when you landed in a strange country and saw only unfamiliar and different faces? Is the air different? What did you do when you first open your new door? Are you missing India? Is it all you thought it would be? Or something more and less at the same time? What was your first meal there? Did you cook? Did you find it difficult to understand them at first, to decipher their accent? Have you made friends and if yes, who are they?

Well, I think you got the general idea. I want to know even the tiniest of things and the mightiest of tidings from your new life. I am thinking that it is a pity that men do not have PMS.
I am signing off Vinay, with a warning that you will be getting more of these, and it will not matter if you do not write back yourself. I enjoy this and am already rethinking my decision that you should not be my diary. There is some merit in the idea.

Wait, do you think this is good enough to be published as a blog?

Till the next time I see a new white hair,

Your friend from a previous home,

Deepthi.

***

Note: This was actually written as is and posted to Indiana, USA. But it seems that I overestimated India Post’s capabilities rather drastically, and as it happens, it became a lost letter. A sad, unfulfilled and unread letter, never to reach its destination. And since I am absolutely determined to not waste my letter-writing efforts, I am posting it here. After-all, I would not want Vinay to miss my dry wit.