Year: 2010

Dear Pavithri,

I hope all is good and well with you.

This letter is not to inform you that I love you. I do love you, but that is not what this letter is intended to inform you.

It has been a while since we last communicated and maybe you can blame my shyness or perhaps my utter laziness for that. After your last letter, a few years ago, I lay one night in bed thinking about you. I was wondering whether there was some chance that you also loved me. I mean, I never did tell you – excluding that sentence above – and I never did ask. It occurred to me to find a rose, or some type of flower that we find a lovelorn hero or heroine pluck petals off while sitting at a curb on some roadside. It sounds silly, but I wanted to count down “she loves me” and “she loves me not”s until there were no petals left. At least that is how I think it works.

Instead of a flower I used my pillow. It was full of feathers. I pulled out one feather, “she loves me”. And then another, “she loves me not”. So I went until there were no feathers left in the pillow cover. A feather mound had formed on the floor. The last feather was a “she loves me not”. There is still another pillow to go, I thought to myself at that moment. The feather mound grew and the last feather of the second pillow was also a “she loves me not”. Depressed, I went to the store to get more pillows. Oddly enough, it had never occurred to me that I could simply put the feathers back into the pillow cover.

I repeated the “she loves me” and “she loves me not”s with five more pillows. I thought the odds would be good enough with five pillows. It turned out that such was not the case. Each and every one of those pillows ended up with you not loving me. It was at that moment I realized that I could put the feathers back into the pillow covers. I found myself with seven pillows. Five pillows too many. You remember that ashram shala, the one Gupta-ji often volunteered at? I gave them the extra pillows. Every so often, very often, I still counted down “loves me” and “loves me not”s. You know, given the amount of feathers I counted, the odds of not ending up with you loving me is one in millions! And yet still, you loved me not.

I was fed up. I could barely sleep during the nights and it did not get any better during the days. I thought about seeing a psychiatrist but I figured it would be much cheaper to switch to foam pillows. I gave the remaining feather pillows to the ashram shala.

While I could no longer do any count downs, I still could not sleep well at night. So what to do, I thought one night – weeks after switching to the foam pillows. I started to tear out little bits of foam from within the pillow cover. With one bit “she loves me” and “she loves me not” with the other. And so bits of foam were now scattered over my floor. I tried to keep the bits all equally sized as possible, that was the best way of not cheating. Even with my honest attempts I always ended up with “she loves me not”. Depressed again, I put the bits back into the pillow covers and kept repeating the process. Einstein would say that I was insane, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. But mathematically the odds of you loving me were actually increasing. It was only a matter of time.

In the following days I started to realize that I was sleeping much better than before. I wondered and wondered what change could have caused this. All the last bits of foam were still “she loves me not”s. Then it struck me, it was the bits of foam in the pillow cover that gave me a good night’s sleep. As an entire piece the foam was not as comfortable. But once you turned the foam into bits sized like the ones I had, the pillow was extremely comfortable. So if nothing at least I had started to sleep well.

After a few months of resting very well during the nights I thought that perhaps I could start to sell pillows with foam bits. I had no previous experience in this business but I thought, “why not give it a shot?” What did I have to lose, no?

So I registered a business, got in touch with some factories and started to get these pillows made. Business was slow at first, but eventually it picked up. Most of the local bedding stores were ordering my pillows. I was making a good sum of money, so within a few months I left my day job. About a year or so into the whole thing I was considering branching out into different parts of the country. Business was good, but, you know, who talks about pillows?

I had started to talk to distributors across the country but the talks were very preliminary. Just over a cup of chai and some biscuits. Still, I was extremely excited. Knowing that other people were also sleeping well at night made my sleep even better. As I said earlier, what do I know about business? In all that rush and excitement, I had overlooked to actually own the rights to the “bits of foam pillow” idea. So what happened was that the largest bedding company in the country, the one with distribution channels all setup had started to make the foam bit pillows and already sell them! Imagine my shock when I saw these pillows in a store during a business trip.

Eventually even the local stores stopped ordering these pillows from me. I simply could not compete. So I had to close down the business. It broke my heart, but I can still sleep decently well on my pillow. Though some nights are harder than others. An idea is just an idea after all, much for the taking by anyone.

I am out of a job nowadays. I am reluctant to get into any type bedding business, of course. But also I have not been in practice with the skills of my previous day job for a while now. So I expect it will be a while until I secure something. That is how it goes, I suppose. It just happened to have happened. Though I cannot really complain, I made a tidy sum of money with just the pillows.

You had asked me in the last letter about what was going on with me. So this letter is actually to inform you of that.

Do tell me, what is going on with you?

Love,
Siddharth

I will wake up tomorrow in a room with a minimal setup: a bed, two baskets and an ironing board. The bed is great for sleeping at night, of course, but also doubles as a table or general sitting area during the waking hours. Of the baskets, one is for dirty clothes and the other for clean ones. The ironing board is for ironing clothes but will probably have small random items lying upon it from time to time. I will spend my time – hours, days and weeks, perhaps even months – learning a trade. Days and nights will be spent in practice. Have to make a living somehow.

I will learn to play the guitar, spending my day-night cycles practicing till my calluses build. I will then proceed to find a suitable location on the streets. I will set up shop – if you can call it that. A mat and a shawl will do the trick, along with the guitar, of course. Then I will strum away at the strings all my inner rhythms. The town’s people will pass by barely even noticing. I will be alert, noticing their footsteps, their patterns, their expressions and discussions. Eventually they will find a spot on the mat where their coins can rest. Odd at first, I will start to grow on them; they will learn to like me.

Weeks or months will pass by like this until one of the town’s people will start to listen closer. This person will come by repeatedly and observe me closely. One day this person will come with a crowd and yell, “You’re a fraud! You are nothing like the greats that have graced this art!” The crowd – many consisting of those that had started to like me – will chime in in agreement. Having been exposed, I will quickly pack my things into my bag and run as fast as I can. Back in my room, I will lock the door until the crowd (which may have followed me) disperses.

As soon as I can, I will buy a ticket to another town. I will wake up the next day in a room with a minimal setup. It will take me a few seconds before I realize that this is the same room that I went to sleep in the night before. But not the room I slept in the night before that. I will order a set of brass cups and balls along with a dark-brown wooden wand. I will spend hours practicing wand twirls and false transfers. I will buy a mirror so I can see myself perform. I will practice till I fool myself. Until even as I do the trick I am amazed at how it is done. Until I believe in the magic in my hands.

I will then proceed to find a suitable location on the streets. I will setup shop: a table to performs the cups and balls. I will call out to the children and show them some basic tricks. Seeing their joy, a greater crowd will develop. I will then begin the real show. I will perform to a rhythmic beat. Calculating each motion and action. The crowd will respond at all the right moments; they will laugh at all my jokes. Their gasps and claps will flow throughout my performance. When I reveal the lemons and oranges beneath the cups at the end of the show, a wave of silence will strike for a few seconds. Awe and applause will follow. I will send my hat into the crowd for collections. It will be filled to the rim.

Weeks and months will pass by like this. One day, one of the town’s people will scratch their head. “You are an imposter! You are nothing like the great magicians!” the crowd will yell. Having been exposed, I will quickly pack my things into my bag, pick up my table and run as fast as I can. Back in my room, I will lock the door until the crowd disperses. And as soon as I can, I will buy a ticket to another town.

The next morning in the shower, like most mornings, I will transfer into a mode of thought. Where motions and actions dissolve into nothingness and thought is all that remains. I will contemplate upon life: the purpose and the pretenses; the big bang origins and the moments after death; the nothingness of life and the everythingness of living. I will try and make sense of things and be left cold. Then it will hit me. Life is not a dream. Life is just an ongoing story, my story and your story; all our stories intertwined. I’m living mine a town and trade at a time. I will step out of the shower regaining my motions and actions and retaining my thought. I will seek out another trade. Theatre or plumbing, perhaps.

Truth is that I’m a hopeless romantic. I will do this until I have exhausted the combinations of towns and trades I desire. I will skip towns and switch trades until there is nothing left – until there is nothing. I can hear their footsteps. And I can see them now. The town’s people, they are tearing up my pamphlets and booklets as they walk towards me. Probably because I stressed the no-returns policy. They’re coming to tell me that I am not a real writer, and that I am nothing like the greats. I’m going to throw my laptop and portable printer in my bag and make a run for it.

I will wake up tomorrow in a room with a minimal setup, a room in another town.

bawra mann dekhne chala ek sapna