Love letter

Note: My entry for the 'love letter writing' competition here at IIT B.

Dear Prerna,

Don't ask me why I am writing all this. Promise me you won't cry when you read this - you are quite a weakling I know. These are just some things out of the whole world of them that I wanted to tell you. Marriage changes a relationship and in my case, the responsibilities that it brought deprived me of my ability to express a feeling - a feeling which was so close to me yet I never noticed. Let it flow today...

I clearly remember the day I first saw you at your dance performance in Mumbai. I saw the grace in your arms and my breath rhythmically swayed to each move of yours. Your face glowed like a princess with the blissful ecstasy of your dance that melted on it. You were burning down like a candle and spreading the glow all around you. I could clearly see that it was your soul guiding your body into the dance. I may have never admitted it but it was at that very moment that I fell in love with you.

On our trip to Delhi, as the cycle-rickshaw took us down the narrow lanes, I looked at you, huddled up to me. My hand moved to the other side of your shoulder. Our eyes met and I felt my breath against yours. I breathed out and without my knowledge, my breath took the form of the sound, "Marry me." A drop of tear shined on your cheek. You smiled only to push it down to your chin. The world had condensed in that one point for me - the tear where you, me and our love had converged.

On our honeymoon, I remember walking on the beach barefeet, your hand on mine. I held your thumb with my hand and slowly tickled your palm. You giggled as you ran further. I saw your feet leaving those footprints behind. Something was amiss. I turned back and saw OUR footprints on the sand. I froze as I saw the waves fading away the footprints, one lash at a time. I turned back again and saw you standing there, your hands folded and a question mark on your face. I ran to you like a pilgrim craving for his God and hugged you. You rested your head on my chest and my heart felt the touch of the very person it was beating for.

Prerna, for the last one year of our marriage, I have religiously bid you goodbye with a 'love you'. Trust me, I have never felt it so strongly as I do at this moment. You are the woman who stood by me during my times good and bad. You are the woman who looks into my eyes and my lows convulge into positivity and strength. I never noticed it until now - but each time I am low, I do remember your eyes and the love in them that is my biggest strength. Today I know why a wife is a husband's better half and that is because she is that half of the man that lies under the layer of his mere body. She is closely connected to his soul.

When my body sees danger at this moment, it calls out to my soul - it calls out to you. Prerna, I am trapped here. I am trapped at the Taj. Only some time ago, I saw fire leaping out of the window of some other room here. That very moment, I saw your eyes smiling at me.

What life could not make realize, the thought of death did. The love that stayed dormant gushed out like the wave that wiped our footprints at the beach. The love that expressed itself through a tear in your eye in Delhi expressed itself through another in mine.

I don't know what's happening here. I don't care. I want to see your eyes again. I want to go back to you and tell you .. that I love you...