12/28/2014

Letter to T

High Tea (since we never got around to share one yet, and since I absolutely adore this spelling),

You are probably one of the fewest 'people' that I am writing to in this daily writing of letters, and you are probably going to be feeling two hundred and ninety one emotions (all together) when you find out that one has been addressed to you. But like most other letters, this too is one which I believe should be expressed, and not just one that is to be written for the sake of doing it. All my life, owing to my profession, I have known, and often judged according to my fancy, many, many lives. Barring my friends and the few relatives I do happen to like, everyone seems the same. One of the many types, like say a given blood group, and you immediately conclude a range of derivatives about them. But I have not encountered someone like you in a long, long time.

It gives me immense pleasure that today is December, and not July, when I would be happy if there was a genuine reason which I could pop at you to avoid you. It gives me joyous relief to believe in the mysticism that in August I 'allowed' you to begin interacting with me. It gives me incredible assurance to just have you around now, for as you mentioned it is way better for me to have said 'what would I do with you' over 'what would I do without'. You are that kind of a having around, who, like the change of seasons, come and go one never exactly knows when, one just has a faint idea, and yet we abide by it all -- the colour of spring, and the nolen-gur of winter.

Frankly, you are perseverance personified. I mumbled a few hundred bad things about you to myself, but your extreme positivism is contagious. And the sooner I discovered you are a mad woman too, the easier it became for me to accept you. I will now tell you why this letter was needed to be written. One of those August nights when you used to come in regularly -- only god knows how -- you taught me literally in a handheld way, the importance of regularity. Have you ever seen a sculptor at work, T? The way he moulds a lump of soft clay into one of desired shape and texture? You did that to my wobbly core, slowly, and very very certainly. One by one those skins of negativity came off and a more defined me emerged, thanks to the philosophy which you were downing onto me in a lulled, me-manner. That, by the way, is a great example of how a teacher should be. Keeping Nichiren Budhhism aside, what you actually gave me (and I am sure, unknowingly) is the confidence to begin blogging, daily. And thus the necessity of this letter. Thank you, T. I will make you nice mutton whenever you want me too.

You know an overall timeline of my life and yet you know not how miserable it was for me to live with time. And just like that you just had to infuse that I should write, and god forbid if you insist on something with a 'should' how does one escape that? T, do you remember it was the same murky day I began chanting and blogging regularly? Do you remember my smile when I asked you the difference between praying and chanting and you asked me back the difference between writing and blogging. You have been a horribly, impossibly, crazily energetic person, and it doesn't embarrass me to confess to you stupid things -- things like why my reverse-skills are at a minus, and why you should get me ice cream. Your proximity has made me live the life one would if one had a nosey, eggy but solid sister.

That was one, why this letter. Now, two. I just had to, had to let you know that you have me too, bloody sibling, always there for you. Like the other day, when I could not give you solutions, but was there, in my petty way, I will be. I think sometimes petty presence matters over presiding philosophies, don't you? I love it that you let me drive your car even as I am a wee bit tipsy and I love it when you drive mine saying it is butter. In fact I always badmouth everything about you man! But you do know it comes from a deep love and gratitude, don't you. Many people are important in renovating this fragmented self, and puny living, and though you call me a furniture sometime, your push came at that mystic point of time where the wheels just rolled steadily ahead. 

T, we will visit Japan and get you married to a good-looking person, ok? While you look for a suitable groom for me, I pray you find peace within, rooms of beautiful success and autumn trees of love. The world needs your breezy attitude, the world needs you. And me? I am just so glad I know you!

In this race against time that you are perennially in, I am your break.

Love,
K.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

let me share with you something interesting I learnt while living in Beijing. This is Chinese Mystic from Tang Dynasty :
The first cup moistens my lips and throat.
The second shatters my loneliness.
The third causes the wrongs of life to fade gently from my recollection.
The fourth purifies my soul.
The fifth lifts me to the realms of the unwinking gods

Unknown said...

This is a famous Chinese saying on High Tea ... where people drink more than cuppa :)

Cheap Thrills

Irrespective of the gruelling and gut-wrenching angst I feel about the condition of the wage-earners, now, more than ever, I cannot but be ...