Chapter Nine
Sureva Bhalekar
St. Mary’s Ladies Hostel
Charni Road, Bombay
February 1983
Vasudha Patil
Garware Ladies Hostel
Fergusson College, Pune
Dear Vasu,
I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits.
I cannot believe you sent me a woolen blanket. How could you? I’ve asked you before to stop sending me things and you promised to listen. I thought we kept our promises. And if that’s not enough reason, here are some more reasons why you shouldn’t have:
1) Weather. Bombay is only cold for three days in a year. If that. Pune is cold all winter. Which is why Appa-saheb acquired the blanket for you.
2) Space. Bombay has no space, ergo the hostel dorms are tiny. I share one cupboard with seven girls. Now I have the blanket and I don’t have any place to put it.
3) Economics (and Nutrition). You know I don’t have the money to send it back to you. You too should not be spending so much money sending me packages. The laadoos were delicious (but unnecessary). Your aie sends you the laadoos because your blood sugar drops when you don’t eat. You live by yourself now. You have to be the one to take care of yourself. Our aies and I cannot be the ones doing that anymore. What if you have a hypoglycemic episode? Do any of your friends know what to do when you black out?
Now on to other things:
1) Debt. What will happen when Appa-saheb finds out that you no longer have the blanket? Your father is already paying for my college and has paid for my entire education. I cannot take more charity from your family. You know I have to return it all someday and I will, but if you keep adding to it, it’s going to keep getting harder to repay the debt. And until I’ve repaid it we can never be equals. I understand the village girls in your college who are scared to talk to you because they know who your father is. I wish I didn’t understand them, but I do.
2) Health. I wish you’d send me photos instead of laadoos. I wish the photos I sent didn’t make you sad. I wish we weren’t miles apart, but the photos are my way of removing the distance that separates us. Stop sending me money for film and save it for a camera. And, yes, Varsha is my friend but that’s not why she’s in the photos. It’s because the photographs come from her camera. She just makes duplicate copies and lets us pay for them when her uncle’s photo studio in King’s Circle processes them. Also, the term “friendship” is what we call in light theory a spectrum: every component of the beam is not equal. Some parts of the spectrum are brilliant, blinding, can vaporize you with their intensity. Others simply exist to make the brilliant parts bearable.
3) Education. I know you don’t enjoy studies. But you are cleverer than anyone I know. It’s in everything you do. You have this ability, Vasu, to understand and to grasp things even those who claim to be scholars can’t. People like me, we can fill our heads with facts and hopefully someday that can help us fix material things. We might make things that make the world easier to live in, but people like you create a world that’s better for us to live in. You see people. You don’t believe what you’re told about them, about how you should feel about others and about yourself. I know that causes you pain, but you have the courage to do it despite that. If there’s anyone who isn’t in a prison it’s you because your mind is free and it’s untrainable, unchainable, unmoldable. If I may dare to speak the truth, I find that terrifying. I lie awake some nights thinking about things you say and I’m afraid of what could happen if someone found out that you can think like that, in ways that could destroy the world it’s taken them millennia to build and keep in their control.
You think I’m the brave one. But I’m a coward. I’m terrified of them finding out all that you hold inside you. And yet I want everyone to know all the things that seem so naturally possible inside your mind no matter how hard they try to snuff them out.
Don’t let them see, Vasu. Protect yourself. For me if not for yourself. Because I cannot live in a world where you’ve been hurt.
(Sorry, I digressed from the subtopic of Education. But the words just wouldn’t stop. I should white them out but I can’t.)
4) Music. I’m sending you the name and address of a certain Mrs. Ashatai Athavale. She is a music teacher who runs a music school out of her home on Prabhat Road. She’s Varsha’s sister and she can be trusted. She teaches several girls whose parents do not want them to learn music and is discreet about it. I’ve also included a telephone number. If you decide to telephone her, remember to use a public phone booth. If you use the hostel phone, the number will show up on the phone bill that will be sent to your parents.
Please go to her, Vasu. She is expecting you. Please keep singing. When you sing, the world makes sense.
5) Miscellaneous. You’re obviously worried about the ring. I wish you hadn’t given it to me. It belonged to your grandmother and if Appa-saheb and your aie found out that you had parted with it they would be hurt. If my aie found out, she would kill me. As it is, she feels buried under the weight of everything your family has done for us. If they hadn’t taken her in and given her a job when she was eighteen and still wet from bearing me, she wouldn’t have been able to feed us.
You know how afraid my aie was of me coming to Bombay to study. She’s been waiting for something disastrous to happen. Can you imagine what will happen if she finds out I’m studying to be an engineer and not a teacher, as she thinks I’m doing? To her even me becoming a teacher feels like I’m reaching past the limits of our station in society as she sees it. She thinks I should respect those boundaries. To her my taking the ring would be stealing. She’d think I’ve taken advantage of you, been greedy. (Have I?) But yes, I do wear it. And everything falls in place for me too when I think of you wearing yours. Sometimes I feel like we are the same person. But how is it possible to miss someone so much if they are part of you?
Why is it that I start to write a letter promising myself that I will fill you in on the things happening in my life but by the time I’m done, I’ve become a newer version of myself?
Next time I’ll stick to the subtopics, I promise.
Please care for yourself for me.
Yours lovingly,
Your friend,
Suru