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When a Letter Speaks

7/28/2020

2 Comments

 
I was not unsocial, but I was shy. I looked on with envy as my brother started conversations with friends and strangers alike wherever we went. A wedding, a birthday party, tea and sandwiches with our parents’ numberless friends, whatever. I looked desperately for a familiar face, somebody I could talk to and not look as luckless, friendless as I felt.
 
Then, at my parents’ prodding, I joined a Pen Pal group where members wrote friendly letters to one another. I sent out two brief missives to anonymous members. They hit targets and quickly elicited replies. The first was a boy in Delhi, who wrote at length about things reassuringly familiar to me, cricket and novels. The second was from a kid who didn’t mention a location but poured out an abundant heart on joys and jerks of kid-ship and ended with a brief and informal nickname. I took it to be that of a boy, but mother pointed out the farfetched possibility that it could be the abbreviation of a girl’s name. Both correspondences continued unabated, but the feeling-laden one was no doubt more interesting. We both wrote feelingly, lengthily and with increasing frequency and fervor.

The shock came at the end of four months of animated exchanges. Mother called me to the living room and introduced me to a younger woman, who, she said, was the elder sister of my second correspondent. There, next to her, sat smiling a young girl of my age, in a yellow-white dress, toying with a book – which turned out to be a gift for me. I had admiringly mentioned an up-and-coming author in a letter and she had persuaded her escort to buy his latest novel on the way to my home.
 
An unheralded encounter! That, too, with a thoughtful gift! The cricketer in me mentally labeled it as an Overdrive and I was bowled over. Mother got busy to make a suitable response by giving them tea and snacks, leaving me to the fearsome task of dealing with two unknown women. The elder sister, who had clearly capitulated to an impetuous younger one, was very kind and tried to help two awkward kids initiate a halting chat.
Picture
​I mention this episode from my school days because it echoed years later when I worked for a UN group while my wife, Jane, served as a diplomat. We both traveled, but if I went to Switzerland, her work took her to Egypt; at the least, when I rushed to Thailand, she hurried to Singapore. We spent so much time apart that, in the absence of WhatsApp and Skype, we had to write copiously to each other to stay in touch. We needed to write, and we wanted to write. The letters were a vibrant link that made two lonely people, at two ends of the earth, feel that we weren’t quite lost in the overwhelming tide of distractions.
 
But at least we saw the other after a while. My parents lived thousands of miles away, almost in another planet, and it was impossible to visit them in the initial years. Father wrote a beautiful firm hand and his letters – though he was too diffident to speak his heart – conveyed his longing to see me. In the pain of finding my feet in an alien world, away from all relatives and long-term friends, those letters became my timely assurance that his affection was both profuse and perennial.
 
Then came the unexpected and devastating blow: in a bungled surgery, he died suddenly. Unknowing, I was traveling for work and came to know days later, after the last rites were over. Thus began a new epistolary episode with my mother. While my brothers took care of her immediate needs, I began writing regular letters from wherever my missions took me. These were not postcards, but long, detailed letters every other day telling her whatever was happening with me and my family. I wanted her to feel that she was a part of my family and could participate in every one of our decisions and choices. I told her whatever I saw in different cities, whatever we bought or did in Washington, whatever new words the baby was babbling. Often the days were packed with visits and meetings, and I would struggle sleepily at night to update my reportage and make sure that mother knew exactly what was happening in my life.
 
I told her what was happening in my work, what I had achieved and where I had flubbed. I told her of new friends I had gained and old friends I had lost. I described the color of the new curtains we had acquired and the metallic-gray look of the new car. I spoke of the Bedouin camps I had visited and said I would like to show her those. I wrote of the royal gardens and said I would love to take her there too. I narrated the naughty things my little daughter did each day and said how much I needed her to keep the child in line. I wrote detailed, descriptive letters, the best I could write, to make her feel near me, share my joys and regrets, become an intrinsic part of my life, and know for sure that she wasn’t alone, but close to me, however remote I seemed. I wanted her to sense that I was in touching distance.
 
Three years later, I was working in the Abu Dhabi emirate and I finally persuaded mother to visit me. A thinner woman, her hair turning gray, she was now getting adjusted harrowingly to her widowhood, and could at last bear to speak quietly of the murky days when she lived from hour to hour – and did not know how to live through those hours. Then, unexpectedly, she turned to me and said something that suddenly made my midnight toil over long letters all quite worthwhile.
 
“I did not know then how I could continue to live, but your letters kept coming,” she said and paused. “I read them. I re-read them, again and again. They were my lifeline.”
2 Comments
SOMA DUTTA
7/29/2020 23:30:50

সেই ছোট্ট মেয়েটির সাথে দেখা কি আপনাদের পার্কসার্কাস বাড়িতে হয়েছিল।

আপনার লেখাটা আমার ছোটবেলাকে মনে করালো।
আমি ছোটবেলায় অনেক কথা বলতাম বলে আমাকে অনেক পোস্টকার্ড কিনে দেওয়া হতো যাতে আমি চিঠি লিখতে পারি।

যাদের বাগান সুন্দর লাগত তাদেরকেই আমি চিঠি লিখতাম তাদের বাড়ির বাগানে ঢোকার জন্য।

বড় বয়েসে যখন নিয়মিত হাঁটা শুরু করলাম তখনও আমি চিঠি লেখা আবার শুরু করলাম বাগানের যত্ন নেওয়া মানুষদের সাথে।

স্মৃতি রোমন্থন করানোর জন্য ধন্যবাদ।

Reply
Manish Nandy
9/30/2020 16:13:15

সোমা, আমি অত্যন্ত অসতর্ক ব্যক্তি, নেহাত লজ্জার সঙ্গে স্বীকার করতে হচ্ছে। কেন জানি না, তোমার মন্তব্য আগে আমার চোখ এড়িয়ে গিয়েছিল। আজ আমি যখন যাত্রাপথে ও নিতান্তই ব্যস্ত, তখনই আশ্চর্যভাবে তোমার মন্তব্য নজরে এল। না, মেয়েটির সঙ্গে যখন পরিচয় হয় তখন আমরা কলেজ স্ট্রিটে থাকতাম, একটা বিরাট বাড়িতে, খোলামেলা একটা ফ্ল্যাটে। তোমার মত আমিও অনেক চিঠি লিখতাম, ওই আঙ্গিকটা তখন -- আর এখনও -- আমার বিশেষ প্রিয়। তবে সময়ের অভাবে চিঠির দৈর্ঘ্য সঙ্কুচিত হয়েছে এবং হাতে লেখার অভ্যাস প্রায় ইতিহাস-ভুক্ত। ভবিষ্যতে আমার লেখাগুলি পড়ো এবং সময় পেলে তোমার অভিমত জানিও। এবারের মত সেগুলিও খুবই মূল্যবান হবে। মণীশ।।

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    Manish Nandy

    Writer, Speaker, Consultant
    Earlier: Diplomat, Executive


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