The Secret Letter

A possessive book lover who never lends his books to anyone and keeps his books as clean as possible. He never even underlines a word that he likes. A huge collection of thrilling love stories, crime

  

09 September 2022

5:00 am

Ambar is wide awake. A 50-year-old man does not need an alarm to wake up in the morning, the habit of fulfilling responsibilities wakes him up. He shuts the alarm, get up and turns to look at his wife, who is still sleeping, Asha Shukla. He smiles and leaves for washroom. Ambar cares quite a lot about Asha, maybe that’s why he handles kitchen utensils in slow motion to maintain pin drop silence. He didn’t want to wake her up with irritating noise of kitchen. All tea ingredients and half spoon of coffee powder to make a caffeine loaded drink. His favorite cup, the first thing Asha gifted him, full of his favorite drink. Standing at balcony, scanning horizon for the aurora. The best part of living on the mountains, first rays of sun in mild frost works like bliss, but wait, something is missing, the newspaper is yet to arrive. Mornings without newspaper are incomplete for him. Newspaper until the tea cup is empty.

Time for a morning walk, still careful to make no noise. Locks the main door and leaves for walk, down the lane, near the lake. Old friends, good laughter, few exercises and almost 5000 steps of walk before he returns.

Good morning Mrs Shukla, Ambar wishes her the moment he enters home.

I have told you a thousand times to clean off the kitchen top after using, is what he receives in return.

Okay, Ashu, will remember it from tomorrow. He replied knowing that he won’t remember.

At least find a new reply, she said from kitchen.

A cute smile was his reply without any word.

This little cute fight is also a daily routine of Ambar and Asha.

 

Breakfast is ready, Asha shouted expecting a reply from somewhere from the house.

Aaayyyaaaa, was reply from the roof where he was putting the clothes to dry.

 

Poha, Ambar rubbed his palms in excitement and served himself a plate full of it.

Asha poured tea in cups with a smile.

This is what keeps a marriage alive. As long as one tries to keep other happy nothing can come in-between a relationship. The vows make one a part of the other and if one knows how to keep the other half happy, no pressure will be strong enough to break this relationship. It is as simple as that, just keep on oath.

 

What was I saying… Asha starting a conversation.

Hmm, Ambar replied.

Diwali is on its way, we need to start cleaning the house.

Yeah! sure.

I know you will need a lot of time to clean your ‘Paradise’ and you won’t let me touch anything there. So first you clean your space then we will do rest of the house together.

He already knew this was coming. He suggested, why don’t we clean house first and then I will do my Paradise.

No, she ordered straightly.

We have more than a month left. He tried postponing this cleaning task.

I said na, you will need a lot of time. You will start cleaning tomorrow and that’s final. She ordered.

A long exhale before he said, okay.

 

 

 

10 September 2022

10:00 am

He went to his Paradise. Pulled gates to open. Welcome to Paradise, a big shelf on his left with a sliding glass door full of novels and books of different genres. Most of them are books by Indian writers. This is one of his ways to express patriotism. On his right, three huge rectangular-shaped ledges adorned with liquor bottles. Every bottle is of a different shape. Bottles in the top ledge were empty, the middle ones were half filled and the last ledge bottles were sealed to age. Don’t confuse it as a personal bar, this is just a collection. An only a glass window in front of the gate, a small table after the window, and a single convertible sofa. This is Ambar’s own Paradise. His attachment with these two has a meaning. Since his college days, books and liquor are his media to escape reality. He believes, through reading, you take some time to live someone else's life to forget your sorrow and liquor helps you bring out your true animal. But escaping reality through the book made him a possessive book lover. He never lends his books to anyone, not even to Asha. He says, if anyone wants to read any book from my collection, can only read it in Paradise and not anywhere outside. His attachment to his books didn’t even allow him to underline or highlight any word or phrase that he likes. He kept his books as clean as possible. The only time he let the ink touch his books would be when he finishes a book to write his name on the first page. Every book in his collection has his name and the book without his name is yet to be read. On the other side, liquor bottles describe their past. Empty bottles, half-filled bottles, and sealed bottles sum up to make number in hundreds. Ambar is not a regular drinker, he drinks when either he is too happy or too sad, and he keeps the bottles to relive his past happiness and grief. 

Praising his years of love and time incarnated as books and bottles. Ambar starts unloading bottles from ledges to clean everything. He knew his plan, clean bottles first, then the table and sofa then the bookshelf, and lastly, wipe the floor. The three ledges took not more than an hour. 

Ambar extolling about his collection to himself, moved to wipe the table and clean the sofa.  Here comes his favorite part of this cleaning session. He slid the glass door to have a clear view of his book; he had a smile on his face, and at his eye level, he reserved a shelf block for his favorite writer’s book; it had around 25 books, and all had his name. Took out the books and put them on the table. He looked at those books like those were his kids. The reader’s urge to go through all the books once again pushed him to sit down on the sofa. A stack of 25 books. He withdrew one book and groped all over it, opened it and an irritating anger equipped his face when he saw a bold ‘1’ written on the very first page. His eyebrows shrink-en in, but he calmed himself down with every turning page. His face started turning red again when he noticed a line highlighted. He picked another book, and it had ‘4’ on the first page. He flipped it quickly and it only raised his anger as he saw another highlighted line. Another book, another number, and another line either highlighted or underlined. This peaked his annoyance.

 

He wanted to scream and ask Asha if she had done it, but he knew Asha will never do this. He took a few deep breaths to calm down. Went downstairs to grab a water bottle, poured it into a glass, and gulped it down in one go. Walked to Asha’s room and peeped in to see Asha busy with someone on a phone call. He turned, picked up the water bottle, and went straight to his Paradise. Sat on the sofa when the numbers on the first pages flashed. The mysteries he had been reading for so many years had made him a detective somewhere. Today the same detective is looking for clues in his best-loved books. He quickly began to arrange books in numerical order and got himself a pen and paper. Little did he know that the stories he used to read would become a part of the same story. He penned down all the highlighted and underlined words and lines to make a long note. He didn’t care about the context while writing, but once he was done writing, he picked up those couple of pages and thought, what is this and who did this?

Asha walked in. Hmm, it’s a good way to clean. She said in a teasing voice. 

Ambar inverted and tried not to disclose what was happening. He just smiled.

I knew you will start reading it all over again. She revealed her prediction.

Okay, I will try finishing this before the day ends. He said. 

Tell me if you need any help, Asha asked.

I will call you if I need. Ambar replied with a smile on his lips and a question mark on his forehead.

Asha smiled and left. Ambar turned back to gaze at this two-page long note. He was unsure if he was ready to absorb its content.

 

 

An enthusiastic and sweet girl who was about to encounter a new phase of life. College. I was always curious to know about college life and now that I am going to live it myself, butterflies-butterflies. No boundaries, no boring dress, no heavy bags and no worries. College has magic to turn your school memories upside down. Too many friends of same and opposite gender. 1^st year of college passed like a gust of wind. My college days, which were supposed to teach me a bit more about life, taught me something that no one had in their syllabus.

2^nd year of my graduation when I met a man much older than me, he was in his initial year of masters. What provokes feeling in a girl for a guy? Intelligence…

Intelligence attracts like no other thing. It was just another college seminar when he showed off his intelligence or that’s what it sounded to me. I had a blushing smile throughout the seminar and that blush turned into nervousness when he asked me about his speech after seminar. I clumsily dropped my bag, he helped me pick it up and I left hurriedly. His charm was too hard to resist, and his seniority or maybe intelligence acted like magnet. Soon he proposed me and I couldn’t deny. We were cooking a secret relationship under the nose of our batch-mates. Precisely, he was the first man ever I opened with. And with ‘opened’ I literally mean opening everything.  His confident eyes convinced my innocence for almost everything. My probity made me dream our future of togetherness. I accepted his every request like a ritual. 

 

When two opposite genders meet, they create a life. The power of being able to create lives is a boon that God granted us. I created a life too, but at an unexpected time. His charm, his level of authority, his domination on me persuaded me to commit the process of creating life. He took me to his friends’ home, undressed me, penetrated me, planted his seed in me. I was in pain but my mind decided against protesting as I kept saying to myself “This is Love”.

When I was in his arms under sheets, naked, I asked him if he will marry me?

He answered positively with sheer confidence. I was more than happy, I conquered this life.

 

Everything went right unless I skipped my periods. I told him, he suggested me to take a pregnancy test. I was happy again with a name of pregnancy only.

I was going to be a mother, the butterflies in my stomach came out as tears. Test came positive but he reacted negative. He asked me to abort this life in me, I again convinced myself saying “This is love”.

Before we could celebrate 2 years of our relationship, I have had 4 abortions already. He knew I was innocent and he took advantage of it. Every time I asked him when will he marry me? He said ‘soon’.

His invisible ‘soon’ assured me more than his visible ‘betrayal’ could. My vision of love through the glasses of naivete couldn’t see his lust. 

He left on my fifth pregnancy, I realized my mistake. I had no options left rather than abortion, but this abortion destroyed my uterus and my faith.

 

Then you, a man of honour, married me, a living dead. You didn’t jump on me in the first night. You waited for my consent. We were in a marriage, we shared everything but I couldn’t share my recent past because I was ashamed of it. You did everything, you put in every ounce of your effort to make things normal with me. And I failed to register your efforts. I am sorry.

 

After years when I allowed myself to step out of my past to accept you, you welcomed me, you were happy with my smile. You made me believe in love again, but that happiness stayed for a while only. When we shared our bodies, the flashbacks reminded me, I am infertile. I cannot conceive. This realization made me ask you, what if I am infertile? Your answer had me in tears. ‘I will still be with you, still love you.’ was your answer.

 

Today, on our 7^th wedding anniversary,

14 June 2010

I have the worst gift (infertility) a wife can give to her husband and I know you will have the best gift (acceptance) a husband can gift to his wife.

I cannot conceive, I cannot be a mother.

And I don’t have the courage to stand in front of you and tell you the story behind it. That’s why I am writing this letter. I can’t see you break.

I love you

Asha…Your Asha

 

Ambar found himself in tears. Asha cried too.

Ambar ran downstairs and hugged her tight.

 

Author's Note

Hello Readers, I don't know if you will feel the same that I felt during writing this story, although I have tried my best to make you feel. But even if I have failed to impress you. Please let me know. HAPPY READING.

Reviews

[Lucky]

This story is really touching. When I was reading it I began to spin this as an animation in my mind. This is really a very touching story and gives a lesson to those D-list people who reject women because they can't become mother. At last I wanna say that use inverted commas to separate dialogue as I was confused a little between narrative and conversation.

[Harsh Kumar Chaudhary]

I'm glad that you liked it and Thankyou, I will surely keep that in mind.