Intimate ink and strong bonds!

I like to time travel whenever I doubt my existence. Whenever I want to see myself as a whole again, to feel enriched by what I had seen, felt, heard and gone through. Last night, I found myself time-travelling again, going through my memory box, memory folder, memory albums, memory books, just a lot of memories from times long gone.

Like an artist,

I held this and that,

One by one,

Sometimes eyes closed,

Sometimes dazed,

Sometimes moist,

Sometimes sparkling,

Attempting to recreate the past,

Nostalgic

Smile on the lips

Bittersweet pain in the heart

Silence

Magic

There were several goodbye letters which burdened my heart with sadness but there was one letter. One letter that grabbed my attention and had me linger for just a little bit longer. A happy one. A one full of love.

What do you want from Mauritius? My friend asked me.

A love letter

A love letter?

Yes, written on a piece of paper by a stranger.

No questions were asked.

And, I forgot about my strange wish.

My dear friend returned from her trip and we arranged a time to meet. She bought a beautifully painted dodo with our names written on the back. And, she went back into her bag and got something else out for me.

“Here, you go!”  She handed me this carefully folded letter

“You actually got me this?” It was hard for me to contain my excitement.

My first love letter

I am a hopeless romantic.

Near a large body of water, my eyes always search for that bottle with a message from far far away written by an equal, equal in feeling the feelings of love.

I believe in a very different form of love. A love that is beyond self, beyond boundaries, a love that has no endings, a love that is unrequited, passionate, consuming, dangerous and incomprehensible. For that reason, Rumi and Tabriz, Layla and Majnu, Heer and Ranjha, Mirza and Sahiba, Othello and Desdemona, Romeo and Juliet – these tragic yet powerful love stories resonate with me much more than any that reach union in the end.

This particular love letter had me going about my beliefs in love but it also had me thinking about the kind of friendship that I had with this special friend who fulfilled my strange desire of reading my very own love letter.

I realised that she never questions my eccentric personality, never judges me and is always there.

One very important dialogue between Sam and Frodo came to my mind.

“Come, Mr Frodo!’ he cried.

‘I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

Of course! I was not carrying any ring of power but my brain was still drawing parallels, “I can’t write one for you, but I will get you one!” 😀

I am lucky to have her in my life and this love letter is a testimony of the bond of friendship that we share.

Thank you Kuljeet, for fanning my flames.