Letters from Dalhousie to Tulsipur

Part 10- Anirudh and Bondita

My darling Bondita,

It may seem funny for you that, I am writing a letter to you, Even when we are sharing the same roof after such a long hiatus due to my mistakes.

I don't know, why are we so uncomfortable to stare at each other, while living in the same house but comfortable writing our feelings to each other so frankly.

We have shared our deepest emotions on papers. Just like your first letter that I had gotten accidentally.

Do you remember, my Bondita?

Do you know Bondita, the joy i felt after seeing you face to face, after an eternity. I was looking at you after such a long time. You have learned to carry yourself so elegantly.

You don't walk these days but you glide seamlessly now a days. The Bondita that used to run in the Haveli, with her infectious laugh forcing everyone to smile along with her forgetting their gloom has become this epitome of grace that only smiles politely at everyone.

I don't know why, but I miss that girl more than I love this one.

I feel that, you've grown up more sooner than I anticipated. But wasn't this version of you was something that I wanted always?

I wanted you out of the traditions that were forcing you to become this wife of mine, whose world only revolved around me. But, now that you've done exactly that, I am lost, Bondita.

I feel like a sailor of a large fleet, who has lost his route in the middle of the sea.

I miss that Bondita, who used to talk with me for at least an hour every day.

Ever since you've come back, it has always been me, who has put the effort in conversing with you. You seem to not want anything to do with me.

I am losing my hope.

Please prove me wrong and come meet me in the study tonight.

Apne (My) Bondita ke Patibabu.

Bondita read the letter with a tense expression on her face.

Has she gone overboard with the plan?

Did her efforts to make him see her as an indifferent wife made it impossible for them to reunite? Did he no longer want her as his wife?

She was sitting in her bed reading the letter and felt a sense of dread settle in her stomach.

She immediately opened the locked door of her room and walked to the study of Anirudh. She didn't care, what look she was sporting at that moment. She didn't care that she wasn't wearing her blouse, wrapping her saree in such a way that the blouse wasn't necessary to sleep comfortably at night.

She had her wet hair spread all over her shoulders and her cotton saree sticking to her body like another skin due to her nightly bathing ritual.