Tere Khat...love letters

Jinko duniya ki nigahon se chhupaye rakha…

Jinko ek umr kaleje se lagaye rakha….

Deen jinko jinhain eeman banaye rakha….

Teri khushboo main base khaat main jalata kaise….

Pyar main doobe hue khat main jalata kaise….

This song played over and over on the music player. This was one of her favorites and he thought it was it was too depressing. “Ghazals are for alcoholics…” he would mock her, to which she always responded saying one day I’ll make you like them.

Today, he was listening to it over and over again, just wishing she was here to see him. And also wishing he had one more chance of seeing her. He wanted to hold her one more time and tell her how much he truly loved her. If only he could hear her voice, even if it was a nag, just one more time. He wanted to tell her all those things that he had never said to her. In all the years he had known her, as a friend, a lover and a wife, he never expressed his true feelings to her ever.

She was an incorrigible romantic, crazy about candle light dinners, moonlit walks, holding hands, talking sweet nothings for hours, romantic movies and songs made her cry and reading love stories was her favorite pastime. He was the exact opposite, very athletic, loved outdoor activities, very eccentric needed his space and time, very ambitious and workaholic, hated romantic novels and could never understand why she cried buckets when Leonardo Di Caprio dies in Titanic or why she even liked him. And why she cried while reading PS, I Love You. He could never understand why she would want to spend hours on the phone talking sweet nothings whenever she was away. And why she would get angry if he didn’t respond to her lovey-dovey text messages during office hours. And why would she get angry at him if she felt he wasn’t saying what he really wanted to.

Caught in the daily rut of making a career and earning money he had put his personal life sort of on hold. After a long hectic day at work when he would come back with plans of reading something or working more and would always tell himself after I finish this or after I accomplish this I would spend time with her or I would buy her a gift or I would take her for a holiday. And each day when he returned home he was greeted by her with open arms, she would hug him, kiss him and he would back off saying let’s keep this for the weekend. He did this not because he didn’t want to love her, he was just postponing it to a weekend or some day when he would be free of all the worries. He always wanted to things to be planned, so he would plan his days, his work and his love. There was a time for everything, and she was his wife after all, she’s always there, so why special planning for it. 

“We’re always together sweetheart, then why should we do special things; each day is special isn’t it…”

In the initial years she thought he was being unreasonable and would argue this with him. But then eventually she made peace with it. She would just tell him this time that we’re missing out would never come back. Each time you don’t tell me that you love me when you feel like saying it, would never come back.

That evening, when she called him like always before boarding her flight, he yelled at her saying he was busy and she can message whatever she wanted to say. One more time his words made her cry and she just wrote “I will always love you….”

This was her last message, her flight crashed right after takeoff. And guess what, he got to know of the crash after three hours from the evening news. There were numerous missed calls on his phone, which he ignored while working. It was her office people trying to contact him and tell him about what had happened. He couldn’t believe what he heard. For the next few hours he just sat in his corner office alone, almost dazed reading the last message she had sent.

Today, he’s performed her last rites. The crash was bad, so not much was left of the bodies found. Now he’s back, in the house they made together, with her pictures all around. From the picture of their first kiss to this day; she had captured just about every moment and put them all around the house. She was all around her, talking non-stop, nagging him for something or other, yelling for no reasons, singing loudly or just cursing the whole world for not working according to her whims.

He opened her cupboard, her clothes had her smell, and he held them all close to himself, he didn’t cry. He couldn’t bring himself to believe that she’s gone. He was ‘comfortably numb’. He won’t see her again, ever. He took out all her stuff and spread it out on the bed, he favorite shoes, clothes everything had a story. And then he found a box. It was a nice velvet box; hand decorated and had his name on it. He opened it and there were letters. Lots of them all addressed to him.

He was surprised to see them, coz she had never given him any of them; in fact she never even mentioned them. He sat down reading them one after the other. They were written on days they had arguments and she wrote what she felt; on days, she was very happy wanted share it with him but he was busy; on days, they were away; on days, they didn’t get time to share feelings. Some were written in the middle of the night when she woke up after a bad dream and didn’t want to disturb him. Today he realized what she did when she locked herself up each time they had an argument or she was upset about anything. She had poured her heart out in these letters.

It took him two days to finish years of letters. The sense of loss was hitting him with each word she wrote. And he remembered each time they hurt each other on petty things, how many times he didn’t tell her he loved her when he should have. How many times she felt sorry but didn’t say it. How many times they missed out on beautiful moments in life because they were busy.