An Old Man's letter

This is not the first of the string of the letters I have written for you, written to you. Nor is it any different in its content. If I carefully search the stack of papers lying in the drawers , I am sure I would find at least a thousand of them gathering dust in there and aging. Nothing has changed. This boy is same and the girl is same. Perhaps there is a gradation based on the “yellowish” tinge on these letters that has intensifed over the years. Some letters are more brittle and too old to last another sad season. From each issues the same smell of young love. The same old lines, oozing of boyish restlessness and ready-to-take-world-by-storm dreams fill all of them. What should set this one apart is perhaps the way of narration. I am not so young now. Back then, I didn’t find it necessary to jot how I caught a glimpse of you and how you never left me from there. You followed me everywhere. In my dreams, in my wide-eyed meetings, in my games, in my tense moments of truth and lies. Practically everywhere. Like half of my colleagues, even I found you in school. One thing about school romances. They always stay green in your memories. Now, when I lay my back on my Lazyboy and see my grandson hovering around the house , pestering his mom for pocket money or her persuading him to eat at least something, I relive all my moments. Even I was a tough child to tend to. I never found anything too sumptuos and hid the pieces of bread in the crevices of the sofa. I am sorry. Back then I never maintained a notebook… I didn’t have the faintest idea that some 30 years hence , an old man would sit in his courtyard and reminesce. I don’t remember the date. But the scene is vivid to this day. You, like all those Hollywood sweeties, entered the room with an air of nervousness. I was biting my nails and foolishly looking here and there. Call it chance or a boy’s knack of spotting lovelies, I spotted you. My eyes followed you all the way and they did that pretty fearlessly. But once you took your seat and got settled, you too looked around , only to meet my whacky-onlooker’s eyes. But I just couldn’t get them off you. I nearly got myself killed.

It has been years and I haven’t heard a single sentence , no not even a broken one, addressed to me. When we bumped across each other, I was too afraid to begin the proceedings. I have a feeling you were no less uncomfortable. Why is it the most difficult to talk when you know all you have got to do is just start with a “hello”? Some say that “sorry” is the hardest word. My money is on “Hi” and “hello”s.

And now you have been silenced forever. I can’t even eavesdrop your silent conversations with yourself. I would make an exit without a single syllable of yours to treasure. Between you and me , lies a big fat book. Blank pages are all that exist. Thoughts and murmurs , raring and crying loud to be written upon these pages. But who would write them? You are dead. And even I am on my way to funeral.

I know , these letters , are all that this world would know about us. And one day, even these would succumb to the moths. But what can we do? Sometimes, silence is not very golden.

I am ending my cameo tonight. Enough of this yearning. Enough of pain and just too much of waiting. I hope, that one day when someone stumbles upon this letter, he would know that being silent is not always the right thing to do. He would make a dash to his love and let her know. Good-bye, World. I am done.