Embedded Files
Here are the complete list of entries we received on Valentines' Day as part of LitC Letterbox(d) event.
Spread the love around!!!
Entry 1:
To Roll No. 2311003,
I see you and I wonder, how someone's eyes, gestures and touch can hold and convey so much love and kindness.
Whether I am happy or sad or angry - I see your eyes, always with infinite love, looking at me - like I am the reason your heart beats. And trust me, you are the best thing that has happened to me too.
All this time with you, and now I can't tell where I end and you start or where you end and I start.
Happy Valentine's my love ❤️ ❤️. I know we'll find each other in every lifetime we exist.
- Your not-so-secret Admirer
ehehehehe
"Whether you're the best football player on the field or you tore your meniscus so hard that you can barely play?
...I'll still cheer the loudest for you!!!"
"Whether your guitar gently weeps or rocks the whole stage?
...I'll be your biggest fan!!!."
"Even if the whole world turns left and you turn right?
...I'll accompany you for the rest of our lives."
Entry 2:
Utopia
I had a dream
Where u were a butterfly
Fluttering over a grassy meadow
Or sometimes a little lamb
Frolicking in the sunlight
Trying to chase the flies.
A world without stress
A world without dilemma
A world where you could be truly you
And I would be sitting back with my legs crossed
Watching you run all day
Without a thing to worry about
A world where it would rain but u won't get wet
A world where u get wet but don't catch a cold.
U age away yet you don't grow old
U only grow wiser, stop being a miser.
U grow your own crops without getting your hands dirty,
Where every day feels like a birthday party.
U go on and on and on, and u just be.
The perfect iteration of the matrix
Progressing perpetually towards infinity.
Entry 3:
Perhaps it was in the canteen that I first saw you. Yes, it must have been there. More than a year ago now. Time has a peculiar way of dissolving into fog when one tries to trace the origin of a feeling.
You were walking with your two companions, as you always do, calm, composed, carrying yourself with a grace that did not demand attention and yet commanded it entirely. There was that subtle smile resting upon your face, as though the world had told you a secret and you had decided to forgive it. Dressed in lighter shades, always light. White. Lavender. Are those your chosen colors, or have I only imagined them so because they suit you too well?
I do not know if you ever noticed me. I doubt it. And yet I always noticed you. I waited, though I pretended not to. Our timings rarely conspired in my favor. There were days, many days, when I did not see you at all. Strange how the absence of someone who does not belong to you can still alter the weight of a day.
But when our paths did cross. Ah. When they did.
Our eyes met, if only for a second. Yours behind those thin metal frames that lend you an air of quiet intellect. How fitting. You deal with reactions, with invisible forces that bind and repel. Do you know what reaction occurs in me when your glance lingers for even a breath longer than courtesy demands?
It lasts a second, perhaps two. For me it stretches into something immeasurable. In that suspended moment I have imagined entire conversations that never take place. There is sometimes a faint smile in your eyes. Or is it my desperate invention? Does familiarity grow without words? Can two silences recognize each other?
Months passed. The glances grew gentler. A smile, more certain now. Each time I resolved to remain composed, rational, untouched. And yet, within, something trembled like a flame shielded from wind. Even on the days when work drained me, when research reduced the world to data and deadlines, one glimpse of you restored a strange equilibrium. How absurd that such balance could depend upon so little.
We haven’t had a conversation. Not truly. Now if I were to stand before you, what would I say? I who can argue for hours in seminar rooms fall utterly silent in the presence of your simplicity. Is it fear? Or reverence? Or vulnerability?
There is a peculiar strength in loving from a distance. Yes, I shall call it that, though the word feels both excessive and insufficient. To admire without possession. To watch as one watches a flower bloom in a garden, never daring to pluck it, content only to witness its color, its fragrance, its existence. Is that cowardice, or is it purity?
You, my ‘faith’. My ‘belief’. How fitting that your very essence is ‘trust’ in what cannot be proven. I, who remain unnamed, remain unseen, hold on to that quiet certainty that perhaps you have sensed something too. Or have I merely constructed an entire cathedral of feeling upon a single exchanged smile?
Tell me, if fate allows our paths to cross again, will you grant me that gentle smile once more? Will your eyes, luminous behind their golden frames, linger a fraction longer? Or will you, with a sudden courage that I myself lack, begin a conversation and leave me defenseless in my own silence?
And if that day comes, will I finally speak. Or will I remain, as I am now, your anonymous admirer, sustained by glances and the fragile hope that even the smallest reaction may one day become irreversible.
Entry 4:
A Beautiful Flower
In a lawn somewhere yonder,
lives a flower, quite so tender.
Veiled under the dark starry sky,
it sleeps soundly without a sigh
Then comes a man,
ragged in dirt and grit.
He waters the plant
and then waddles across the street.
As day breaks,
the flower shakes.
The owner strokes her with glee,
and him: the flower loves to see.
By dusk, the flower does wilt.
Its petals rolled,
the stalk a mere stilt,
It lays weak, with its beauty bleak.
As mornings ensue,
it blooms true.
Its radiance grew,
and its aroma anew.
The gardener walks in once more:
to water the roots he cared for.
He cares for the light and soil
to ensure neither blight nor foil
But alas, the plight:
she would never witness his sight.
The man pours in all his work.
only for the owner to
snatch and shark.
The heavens played a great joke:
one man toils
and the flower smiles
for another folk.
The man’s confounded
with his thoughts hounded
to never see the beauty
that he once founded.
And so, the tale’s left unsaid—
of the flower loved, but wrongly wed.
— An original by Rurushu
Entry 5:
An Ode to Friday Night Screenings
Do I really like movies? I will never know.
Moments are often thrust upon our dreary existences, often triggering a rapid infusion of Euphoria,
like a fish finding water - immersion rooted in belonging
I find myself struggling to keep on this facade that I adore so much that I believe it to be what I am —
a corruption of self in pursuit of belonging my lack of vocabularity just a nasty little detail that peeks out of my clumsily constructed image. As I dig deeper in search of the right words, the right thoughts, I sometimes stumble upon my very real roots. They are all twisted and hard to unravel. So intermingled with everybody else’s. I probably won’t be able to discipline them into chastity, for they are as twisted as I am, classic chicken and egg.
As I lose myself trying to interpret this mess, I can’t help but cling on to what I have.
Amongst the old plywood seats, scattered bits of powdered snacks and the multitude of things and people misplaced in space and time, I find myself at ease. I like it.
I do not know if I love movies. I do enjoy the screenings, nevertheless.
Entry 6:
Seek the Demise
When the sun finally sets on everything we know,
And the world begins its slow, quiet demise,
Do not look to the horizon for a saviour -
XXXX, seek your eyes with your own eyes.
Yes just find your own eyes - I again emphasize.
Peel back the layers of the boy the world sees,
The laughter, the tea, the strength and the sighs,
Look into the dark where the "butterscotch" melts,
And seek your eyes with your own eyes.
You will find a reflection you didn't expect,
A ghost of a person who followed the prize,
Who traded the peace for the scent of your skin -
Just seek your eyes with your own eyes.
I am the one who watch you in silence,
The one who loved you beneath the skies,
If you want to know if this love is immense,
Just seek your eyes in your own demise.
You will find me there.
In front of you.
Always.
Love you.
XXXX XXXX
Entry 7:
I’m addicted to you in a quiet, consuming way. My mind feels lighter as it is constantly being flooded by thoughts of you, and no matter how much your essence fills my heart, it never quite feels like enough.
I want to be next to you, to study your face like the piece of art it is, taking in every twitch of the eyelash, every yawn, every flicker of emotion in those mystical eyes of yours. Being with you feels like home. Being with you feels like ocean waves soothing my legs on a hot afternoon, like a fire crackling softly on a cold, dark evening, like being enveloped in a warm hug that, without words, says everything will be alright.
Words can truly do you no justice, but they’re the best I can do to try and show how much you mean to me. You’re my North Star, the anchor to my ship, and the hand I know will always be holding mine through thick and thin. You’re more than anything I could ever wish, and I’m grateful for that every day.
Entry 8:
Have you ever wondered how it feels to be scolded by your own daughter? I bet you haven't. Well that’s exactly how I feel every time you roll your eyes at me. Who said Valentine's day was only about lovers? And who defined love anyways? Does it come in different shapes and sizes? If it's just a biochemical reaction, there must be spectral differences as well.
I don't know what this is and I don't want to analyze it either. I have broken my heart into so many pieces that I forgot to count and can I expect someone to pick up the pieces after me?
All I wanted to talk my heart out, hoping to find at least one alien intercepting my call. Was that too much to ask? I guess the teachers didn't label me as a talkative child on the first day of my school for nothing.
Entry 9:
Just like any other Bengali, I have ultimately turned to “Kobiguru” to begin my writing journey on this Valentine’s Day. This day is a momentous one for every man and woman on every corner of the Earth. On this day, everyone expresses their love in their own way towards a person, an object, their honor also faith; everyone does so with an intention to address this bond with dignity and affection, and I am no exception to this. By the laws of nature, love has entered my life as well. However, my love is an abstract one, and it has a flavor quite different from the worldly love one talk about. Sitting in that throne within my heart is “Mathematics”.
My reason for saying this is that the word is a mouthful. Nevertheless, where and how my love stems from is a hard sort of thing to remember. Yet, as I move upstream through the river of memory, as far as I can recall, I met my “mamotamoyir” in eighth grade. Though her face was familiar to me since much longer; it was not yet time for me to properly get acquainted with my beloved. To those who turn up their noses in fear and flinch at the mere mention of the name “Mathematics”, I dedicate to them a proverb: “If you love water, then water will also love you.” So, if you try to set aside your irrational fear, and make her your own with great affection and care; you ought to find that there’s not a friend more pure and eternal than her. Now, let’s go back to my story. In grade eight…
I could give her the recognition she needed by taking pure science. In the meantime, I have realized that in these two years, math has begun to love me quite as well. Not only that, from dusk till dawn, she surrounded me like a vigilant sentinel; she understands that her beloved can slip away. Though we have our own quarrels, I used to curse at my beloved when I couldn’t crack her indefinite integrals. That shy girl would listen to my ramblings, silently. A moment later, with the magic touch of her affectionate embrace, the math problem would become as easy as child’s play. After passing HS, I thought our bond would come to an eventual end, but my beloved has not let go of me till today.
Five more years have passed, and all this while, along with knowledge and love, there has been an exchange of love and tenderness between us. Slowly she moved from being my ‘beloved’ to being on the seat of my ‘mother’ and as to when that happened, I remained oblivious. So, I have remained on about my musings. I would like to say that my love for her is like ‘goro-mosi’ - it’s everlasting. Even in death, not a single bit of rust shall touch it. All the while having my own mother, mathematics has become my second mother and today both of them are synonymous and ‘one’ to me. They are all my strength, affection, love and wisdom. I bow down to the holy feet of Bhagabana Shri Ramakrishna to pray that my love remain unbreakable.
By Udayshankar Rath
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