Nothing but Words

Dear Aradhana,

It’s been a long time since I have managed to write to you. I am doing fine and after a brief struggle everything finally seems to be falling in place. It is really tempting for me at this point in time to say that I love you, but frankly speaking, I don’t. I am sorry Aradhana but right now I am in a place in life where I cannot use this four letter word loosely. I hope you will understand. You really are very special to me and there is no point in writing or feeling the kind of things you wrote. Hope to hear more from you soon.

Abhay Mathur

Dear Abhay,

I owe you an apology for overreacting the way I did. I completely understand that the circumstances that surround you do restrict the room for such indulgence. I guess I will always be the callous girl who craves for way too much attention. I have no qualms about saying that I love you and that I always will. At the same time it is selfish of me to expect you to reciprocate my feelings. Things were very different before you went away and I still tend to latch on to those memories. Silly me! Don’t worry about me. I will make my peace with this one way or the other. It is good to hear that you are finally finding your feet at Harvard. You are destined for bigger things in life. Write back if you want to.

Aradhana Sharma

Dear Aradhana,

Your last mail was very disconcerting. I am not myopic enough to overlook the obviousness of what you were trying to tell me. What you do not understand is that things are different here. Back in Kolkata I was a different person altogether. I was disillusioned and was being pulled in a thousand different directions from inside. Here in Harvard I can finally see what I want to do in life. My dad has slogged away his entire life to get me where I am today. So my first priority is obviously to make something of myself first. I hope you appreciate this. We were great together and hopefully in the future we can carry forward from where we left off. Right now that future is distant. Things here are fine. How is work? Keep replying.

Abhay Mathur

Dear Abhay,

I have always taken a certain degree of pride in my inherent composure but you are really pushing me to my tipping point. First you disappear for 8 months without a trace and then after my repeated mails you write to me one fine day to tell me that you do not love me. I completely appreciate your need to make something of yourself but before you went away I was a part of that future. Now it is shrouded in the ambiguity of distance. Right now I feel immensely stupid for having tried to cajole you into giving “us” another chance. i will not use the usual cheesy lines and accuse you of being selfish or insensitive and just a plain arrogant bastard. All I can tell you Mr. Mathur at this point in time is that I always thought that we will end up together but now I am mighty glad that we never will. Please don’t write back

Aradhana Sharma

Mr. Mathur read these words and felt a little moist at the base of his eyelids. His male ego had always hindered the process of crying but this was overwhelming. “After all these years it comes to this?” he thought to himself. He took off his spectacles and wiped the tears. He knew he had to be strong. He did not know why though because all reasons of existence had somehow faded away. He leaned back on his chair and closed his eyes. A dull throbbing pain was drumming away inside his head. He did not bother though because considering the situation he was in he thought that a headache is equivalent to a Christmas gala. Aradhana was a girl who truly cared and thus he just could not let her go. He just had to write to her and let her know that even he meant well and that things really were different. But he could not tell her everything that happened. She really would be devastated.

Mr. Mathur shrugged off all the melancholy and sat up to reply to Aradhana’s mail with all the vigour that his sixty year old body allowed him. Before he started typing he glanced at the smiling face of a young man in the picture frame in front of him and broke down completely. He was sobbing like a petulant child. This was completely understandable because it really isn’t easy for a father to continue to keep the appearances of a son who had died eight months ago in an air crash; on his way to temples of higher education. Mr. Raghavendra Mathur sat up and with tears dripping on the key board wrote…

Dear Aradhana,

This is my last mail to you. I really hope that you understand that……