From: Kamal E Y [email protected] >

To: Sabrina [email protected] >

Sent: 27 December, 1999 04:35 PM

Subject: Re: happy again!

Dear,

I didn't threaten you. What I said was just a phrase in our language. It means "when I say the truth, you don't believe." There was no real blood in it. There is no need to feel guilt.

I can argue with you against all the statements you have written. But now, since we will be meeting very soon, I don't want to create any arguments between us.

I waited till 12 o'clock and was sure that you won't call. I didn't keep my lines busy. If you got a busy tone that maybe because of some other reason. After 12 o'clock, I went to take Ojas's luggage and brought him to my house. (I had written that, right?) I washed my clothes and then we played cards till night. It was Ojas's treat and so I didn't come back to check mails.

I didn't tell you that I don't want you to be happy. What I told is if you ever feel sad, you should let me know. And it seems you are determined to keep your bitterness to yourself. And you say that because it is your personal problem. Fine, but my idea of love is to share and face all problems together. You asked me if you shoot someone, will I be able to accept the guilt and punishment. There is no need for a question like that. I will do everything to get you out. There is no point in saying "I killed them" because nobody is going to believe it. But I will be there to defend your any action be it good or bad. There is no need for doubt in that.

You asked me how you can satisfy me if you don't have any tears to offer. You don't have to. If you don't have any tears, no one will be happier than me. But you insist on keeping your sorrows to yourself, even if you are sad. This is not independence. Is it? It is something else.

You are living in a modern civilized country. So am I. But there are certain things about human nature which is the same all over the world. It is the same in India, in your country, and in the USA. Beating wife at the midnight, for example, it happens in India, your country and in the USA or France (where women's movements started first). Civilization doesn't mean a thing. What matters is what we all, have in our mind and character.

If you don't have tears in the next year, I will be the one who enjoys it most. Joys get multiplied by sharing. Sorrow gets divided by sharing. It is easy to share the joy and multiply them. But to share sorrow is difficult. That is why I asked to give me your sorrows. I am not doing a service to you. This is what I believe love. To share everything. It is not going to affect anybody's independence. I am not going to keep you like a caged bird. But I am not going to allow you to keep your sorrows private, as long as I love you.

If people want to keep their problems to themselves and are not willing to accept other people's sorrows, why do they love each other? Why it is a mother loves her child? A mother takes all the problems of her child, right?

I never even thought of treating you like an "idiot". If ever I told you to do something that is because you are mature enough to understand what I said. If you ever felt that I am advising you too much, please forgive me. I never intended it.

But writing and saying things like "I am a tragedy" is not matching with the other things you say. Believe me for at least this. I can prove that your life has not been a tragedy or destroyed. You are simply thinking so because you have had some disappointments. No, don't say to me that I don't understand things. You told me that you are elder than me, ok, I accept. But that doesn't mean that I am naive.

I am not any Saviour. I am just an ordinary man who felt the pain in my heart when my lover was in sorrow. I don't know whether I was keeping "distance" from you as you suggested. I just felt it that is all.

Your English is good. It seems my English is not good enough to convey what I mean. You still think that I took revenge on you for that "notorious 10 days". Please be assured that if ever in my life I will hurt myself in any way, you will never know it. Because I don't believe in threats.

You didn't tell me what happened at your hotel. That is perfectly ok. I didn't ask you to tell me. I am not interested in that. But I am interested in what happened in your mind. It is not just an interest. I am concerned. Be it in a hotel or office or anywhere. You told me that I have never told you about anything that happened in my office. That is right. What happens in the office is not important. My job is different and I don't have much tension here. When there is something of personal interest, I had always told you. Like Ojas going to Germany, my boss coming from Germany, visiting temples with our boss, shifting of our place, etc. I can write problems every day that happens in my work. But that is not a problem, it is my work. There is nothing in it. What happened after the exhibition? What to happen? Everything was packed up and dismantled. There is nothing to write about it.

And I never told you who works with me at my company. That is just because there are around 1000 people in this company and in my range there are over 100 people. In my group, there are 10 people. I have told you that our group is a good group and all of them are very co-operative.

I asked you to remind me because I don't know what to write about.

You asked me why we should be together if we want sadness. That means that love should always bring happiness. Yes, it should. But let me ask you another question. Why did Cleopatra suicide? Why did Romeo and Juliet suffer? For happiness? I think togetherness is the ultimate happiness.

You wrote that the one who gains happiness first is the winner. How? I don't think I will be happy unless you are happy. I am not in a race with you to win happiness. Happiness lies in togetherness, it is my opinion. You know "a winner is not the one who always wins, but he is the one who never gives up."

I never told you that I could help you in all your work. I have always told you that I could offer you all the support and maybe little things which I can do. I never felt guilty about that. I felt concern.

You told me not to treat you as a 3-year-old-idiot. A 3-year-old is not an idiot. Neither are you. But both of you are human beings, only differing in the way you look at things. Of course, I will help you to solve your problems. But I am not a teacher to explain the only theory to you and then sit back and watch how you do it. I will solve that problem with you, (of course only if you permit me). It is good if you catch a fish and cook by yourself. But if you are hungry and don't know how to catch, first I will catch the fish and cook for you. You can do the studying later when you are not hungry.

You told me if I am mad at your writings, I can pinch your ears or slap your back. NO!! I am not at all mad. Pinching and all comes when we are talking silly. But now we are talking seriously. I have always made my way out of any argument with you, but now you specifically told me to write my views.

And you told me not to compare any Indian woman with you. I never compared you with anyone. Did I? Indian men don't have any additional duty to their women, than the men in other parts of the world. There is no "heavy-duty". In love "to love is the duty and being loved is a fortune". You asked me about the right. The only right in love is to know. You have the right to know all about me. You can make use of your right or you can forget it. It is your discretion.

Let us go a little off the subject. You hate the press because they bring up scandals, right? What are scandals? A scandal is something in which has happened but must not have happened in the first place. Why? One cannot do any foul thing he wants even in private. We are a society, as you said, a modern civilized society. So you believe in society, right? If you do so, you have to accept all the laws of society. You cannot take some laws from the society and reject some other laws because it is disturbing you. So what does a press do? It tries to keep the society informed of what is going on around. A press has responsibilities to the society in which it exists. (This is just an argument. I too don't like press giving too much time and space to scandals.)

You wrote we should "combine" together. Yes, but the same you wrote that we should keep a distance. Does this match?

And then you told that we should believe in "equality of woman". Yes, of course. I don't know why you brought this subject up. Can you give me an instance where I treated you not equal to me? On that night I told you that I will wait for your call and you have to call me. That was not showing my dominance. That was my love. Sometimes love gives the privilege to be unreasonable. If you didn't feel like that, it was my fault, rather than yours. I could have thought twice before saying that.

"You can't take all my problems to be yours that is not the way to love each other!!!!!!" You wrote this! Then what is love? To look and watch the other one suffer to solve the problems. To keep advising to swim when someone is drowning? Be independent. But not adamant.

I would have preferred saying all these things when we were together and you lying in my arms. But now I feel it is better to write all these things now itself. Whatever you say, I never felt any regret in loving you.

This mail is not the mail which I intended to send. But when thinking of all those you wrote...

Yours

Kamal