SS: Sunshine After Rain - Re-posting Final Chapter page 18 Updated! - Page 10

Chapter 9

Date: March 21^st, 1948

My Dear Khushi,

It has been three months of our separation and last night again I woke up with your thoughts. You know, the wind it cooler here and its chaste brush on my face reminds me again and again of your laughter, your smile, your eyes and... just you. It's as if, wherever I am, your essence follows me. Even your reflection in my heart is like a lyrical symphony. Even silence is you Khushi. Every breath is you...

Those last pure moments in your embrace, when the flood of feelings was overflowing I found heaven. Those moments, when we were taking the vows when you found me and I found you - I left like the eternal light of love, your true ethereal love, was bestowed on me and I am now tied down to you, my love, for personifications unknown to me.

I am working hard; for I know you are waiting back home for me. I promise to come and get you. I miss Babey. Here warm food, her tender hands oiling my hair and her gentle reprimands. I hope she is well?

Last night, before I returned home, I borrowed a book from my colleague. It had a poem in it and I wanted to share it with you. I promise to explain it to you in detail once I return back

I arise from dreams of thee

In the first sweet sleep of night,

When the winds are breathing low,

And the stars are shining bright:

I arise from dreams of thee,

And a spirit in my feet

Hath led me"who knows how?

To thy chamber window, Sweet!

The wandering airs they faint

On the dark, the silent stream"

The Champak odors fail

Like sweet thoughts in a dream;

The Nightingale's complaint,

It dies upon her heart;"

As I must on thine,

Oh, beloved as thou art!

Oh, lift me from the grass!

I die! I faint! I fail!

Let thy love in kisses rain

On my lips and eyelids pale

My cheek is cold and white, alas!

My heart beats loud and fast;"

Oh! Press it to thine own again,

Where it will break at last!

This poem simply tells a story of a speaker who wakes; walk through the beautiful Indian night to his beloved's window, then falls to the ground, fainting and overcome with emotions. He is a Vilayati writer Percy Bysshe Shelly, but here he writes about an Indian night. The poem is called The Indian Serenade.

I miss you Khushi and sometimes being away from you makes everything unbearable. To wake up in the morning, to get through a day and to return back home - when you are not there to share my happiness and my sorrows is very difficult. You are like a current of freshness and vitality in my life. The spring sunshine is not pearly without you, Khushi. I am lost here, trying to live through this separation without my other half. I will come back soon... to you...

I love you, Khushi

Your husband

Arnav

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Date: July 15, 1948

My Dearest Khushi,

I know I am late in writing to you this time, but please forgive me for my tardiness? Things here are getting hectic. And I have some good news for you and Babey. I have finally managed to buy a house thanks to a very high-profile case I fought and won whose defrayment was quite handsome. Also, owing to my win, I have been promoted to a higher level of American Judiciary. Our new house here has a large garden in the backside, where our children will play. Did I tell you I want lots of children? Yours and mine...

Today I feel like I have achieved something in life. Lalaji would have been so happy. I wish he was here. I have never felt this satisfied and happy, Khushi. I always wanted Lalaji to be proud of me. He was the only man I truly wanted to rise in the eyes of. However, his and my views on my professional choices were different. I like doing this, Khushi. I am not blaming him. How can I when he had been my inspiration throughout my life? I never knew what I wanted in life but he did. So he sent me here to study in Vilayat. I just wish he were with us today.

The summer sunrises and sunsets here are beautiful. But even the beauty of these summery mornings cannot dispel the grief that is in the environment. Whenever I look at the beauty of a starry night or the tranquility of a dewy morning my heart assails with a yearning for you. To hold you, to touch you. These days are like shackles of onuses to me. I just want you in my arms, beside me. There is a desire in my heart and a quest, a burning quest - like everything is looking for you. The days change into night and night into days, but my eyes are hungry for your one look. When it gets harder, I remove the Kada and stare at it for hours. It's the only thing I have of you. This separation is getting painful and harder to get through. Why does it feel like the time has slept and each moment is an eternity without you?

I read another poem. This is a poem called unending love by Rabindranath Tagore. I hope you like this

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times...
In life after life, in age after age, forever!
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,

That you take as a gift; wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age old pain,
It's ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end, you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another!
We have played along side millions of lovers,
Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,
the distressful tears of farewell,
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man's days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all love merging with this one love of ours -
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

This is one of my favorite poems and also one of the most celebrated poets of Hindustan. The implication of this poem is that what two individuals feel for each other is not their ownership. It is rather bigger and cosmic. He says love is not now, right now, but ineradicably imprinted on the realization of time. He says the love shared by two people is unending, will go on and on... age after age...

Beautiful, isn't it? I hope you are taking proper care of yourself, Khushi? I hope to settle everything here soon and be back sooner than later.

Your husband

Arnav

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Date: November 3, 1948

Dear Khushi,

This is my last letter to you because next time I will be present in the flesh to tell everything I feel. Just one more month and I will be back. The time of this long and painful separation is finally coming to an end. I have so much to share with you, Khushi. These letters have done no justice to what I feel without you. You are my anchor, my breath, my life and to be parted from you for one whole year was excruciating. These solitary months, apart from you have shown me how much I love you and how my every heartbeat is a desperate chant of you. Every drop of blood in my veins sings for you and if not for you, I would be a corpse by now. Whenever I smell roses, I instantly look around for you. What meaning that attar has to me when you, my love, are not here to put a merit to it? Roses are not roses to me, Khushi, they are mere flowers. You are like rain that enhances their fragrance and gives them a definite luster. You are the fragrance of them, my love, you are the blush in them and you are the color of my entire essence.

I wasn't able to write on their death anniversary, Khushi. I am sorry I did not find enough strength in me to pen down my emotions. I still find it hard to talk about them. I hope you did not cry too much? I know it is painful and I wish we could be together on that day. I hope Babey was fine? I know you must have taken care of her. She is one strong woman. After Lalaji, when we had to see you going through nightmares every night, it was always Babey you would step forward and take you in her arms. She is the only mother I have ever known, Khushi. I was so weak emotionally and only she helped us both.

I cannot wait to see you again. I want to love you like a man loves his woman and make you mine in every sense of the word. This one year has only made me impetuous for you and now I covet you so much. The longing is unquenchable. My heart has always burnt for your love and now my body burns too. I just wish this wait ends quickly. After his long twilight, I now desperately wait for the sunshine to augment our lives with its brightness. I have my tickets booked and I will be reaching Delhi on 4^th November at night. On 5^th, I will be with you.

Your impatient husband

Arnav

A/N: Okay, 1 more chapter to go and then Sunshine after Rain ends. I feel so sad 😭 Looking forward to read your reviews on this one. 😆😳😉