Unaccustomed Earth

Reading Hema and Kaushik for a second time was an equally enigmatic
experience, perhaps more. I didn't want it to get over, I read slowly,
delicately taking in each word, literally drowning in the anecdote. How can
someone write so so beautifully?

Usually when I read something that touches my heart, I remember you. It was
the same this time as well. All of it. How softly you used to speak, how
delicately you used to take care of me. You used to be like a warm quilt,
and you always seemed such an inseparable part of my life, of me. The pain,
the blankness gradually seeped in. The sense of loss of both Hema and
Kaushik had to be borne only by me, for you are nowhere now. For once I
felt, it's me who ought to die. Like Kaushik. To give you a stress free
life. But then I told myself, that I am imagining the stress. You must have
conveniently forgotten me. It is but my wishful thinking that if we met some
years later, we'd rediscover each other like them. We won't. That's the
truth.

The morning had dulled the pain. It was just a throbbing sensation, once in
a while. I was no more ready to think about the futility of my life, for yet
another time. Instead I remembered him. In a way I hadn't done for a long
time. More than 15 years. I remembered that reckless self confidence, that
magnetism. You cannot be a Kaushik. You cannot be heartless even outwardly.
He can be. Inside he might be like warm honey, outside he can be rough. How
rough, I know.

I can't trust people anymore. I am losing all my faith. At the same time, I feel this inexplicable surge of affection and protection for a girl in my team, who is expecting. I picture Rupai. Had I been able to save him, he'd be 4 years now. In school, writing abc. And I live on. I keep having one birthday after another. I have an existance because Rupai didn't hold on to me. He will never come back. I shall also wither away.