The Wrong Trade

Dated : 5th April, 2010

June,

I am sorry for the way things turned out for us. I will never find a
woman like you, and my dishonesty in not being frank to you has caused
you intolerable pain. When I had left Calcutta I was in love with you
and I had thought in a year or two I would find a place in this world.
I would put my talents to test and I would make a career and then I
can ask for your hand. But that never happened. I never started in my
career and after a year into recession I came to know that if any
trainee engineer would be fired then my name is in top of that list.

In this kind of a situation had I been the old Akash you had come to
know and love I would have stood up and fought back. But this new me
started finding fault in everybody, accusing others, bitching about my
own friends to buy a place in this company. I lost my self esteem, and
started selling out my people down the river, first I started with my
friends and then with my close friends. I have become a deplorable
human being who knows no low to stoop down to. My backbone is now a
jelly. I even started making random friends to see if i cn start anew
with a new career.

Among all this mess I saw that you still love me, and you are ready to
come to Bombay to stay with me. I thought maybe this is a good sign
and maybe I am getting the last straw to resurrect myself. But then I
realized I am no longer good for you. I tried to make things difficult
for you so that you finally give up your plans to come to Bombay.
Because as long as you are away you would not have to rest your eye on
the mess Akash is right now. I had always believed that love for
others stem from the love for own-self. Since the source had died up
the river has also been dead long since.

Still when you came the old emotions in me welled up and I could not
tell dare to tell you the truth because you seemed like the Manna the
Beduine waits for. In the meanwhile I pulled up another sham for my
parents, called them up showed them the new car. So they got an idea
that I am doing well and hence would be less worried about me. So I am
fooling my parents and you. In the deepest nooks of my heart I always
a place which is sacred for you, there is limitless affection for you
as well as devotion. That is why i tried so hard to keep you
integrated to my life. The bed I sleep on has the bedsheet chosen by
you, the breakfast is generally the one you had shown me to prepare. I
was doing all that so that I can carry you with me in the corner in my
heart which i still believe is pure. I would lose you because I cannot
allow you in my ship which is taking in water too fast. But I know
that when I will close my eyes my eyes will close to the fond the
memories of having you by my side, working on my laptop, dressing for
me in front of my almirah. I have kept a few of your stuff well hidden
in my room so that you would not be able to find them. I want to keep
them as your fond memory.

I know words and action cannot be enough to palliate your pain, but it
is best that I release you from my miasmic world. A tumor like me has
to be chopped off before it causes your death.

Thank you for trying so much to bring me back to life, but I have been
long dead, June. You deserve a lot more than a scoundrel like me.

Loved you a lot shona,

Goodbye,

Akash

I know this letter meant nothing. May be Akash loved someone once-a girl..Varada. Only who's thoughts can free him of his guilt, I take it. Happens to everyone, I guess, but it didn't mean he should have fooled me.Lied to me. And insulted me. The wounds will take time to heal, the love will perish to ashes, but I wish it didn't turn out this way. To me, he was probably the first one, who meant so much to me-but I lived a dream, it was never really me.

I seek the need for detachment from most things. I wish I could just weep. I close my eyes, and my whole 22 years pass by me, like series of events that changed me in every step. I wish so many things didn't happen, but they did. I realize we all are in a eternal, endless chase...you, I will always want someone, who doesn't probably need us. I look back, think of men who came and went...and wonder how many times I really have been in love. Yes with Arjyo, but that was an unsure feeling. Jesse. And one last time I guess was with Akash.

As I sit idle once again in my lab and glance at the coverpage of this book, "Foreigner", I feel somewhere I can correlate myself to it.I feel this detachment, this crisis, and a note of irony that runs along this twenty years' story. I close my eyes, and think of the blue eyed boy I cuddled up and made love to by the lake, under the starry sky and tried to run away to some other world. But the escape was so transitory. I remember telling my story to a stranger over five glasses of alcohol, confessing my guilt, wishing someone would forgive me.But my sins stayed. And I remember holding on to Akash and asking him not to leave me. Looking for my last shelter I had gone to him.To be liberated of all the pain, guilt, and scars, and be like everyone else.But he left.I dealt the wrong trade.Then and now I close my eyes, wishing it's a nightmare, and there would be sun again, amidst the perpetual cloudy sky over my head. And he would come back, and this time mean those words of love. But I know that's unreal, movie-ish. For those few moments of happiness, I have suffered a irreplaceable loss.

To love, is to invite others to break your heart. Can I love again? I don't know. Did I ever love? May be, once or twice.But may be love is not the answer I am looking for, I was just following the wrong clue. Cause, for years now I have searched the shores of the world and I haven't found that precious shell. So, may be I need to look for something else.