The Postmaster’s Letters

23 October 1967

It was a tiresome day, a tiresome week, a tiresome year, and a tiresome life. His eyes drooped slightly to the sound of the rattling of his cycle’s chains. His khaki uniform had an inkblot on the collar that he hadn’t had time to remove.  No one expected him to either. How was he supposed to when he practically never had a day off? His legs rotated perfunctorily, pushing the cycle forward into the boulevard of Lalwara Society. The postman whizzed through the bands of light and shade, past the park where the children played without a care, and the retired lot hurled abuses at the world that never listened.

Autumn had just arrived but the seasons never seemed to change for the young postmaster, all of twenty-six.  A few leaves lay scattered along the asphalt that the old sweeper swept away to the sides. Every Friday evening, he would burn the leaves up in a heap and warm his tired old hands over it. Whether it was a large flame or a small flame never seemed to bother him. His ritual stayed unchanged.

It was such a misery this young postmaster was in. he had been transferred to the suburb without a week’s notice and, on reaching there, found to his utter dismay that there was no post-peon to help him deliver the letters. He’d have to deliver the letters himself, maintain records and report to the main post office all by himself. The task was monumental. But he was young and he had a rare sense of duty that drove him, spurred him on. There were days he felt he could and he would just give up. That was only wishful impulsiveness though, a young man’s arrogance so to say. He hadn’t much of an option really. This was the only way he could earn something for his family back in his village, his parents and his two sisters. They depended on him entirely. They lived off the measly sum of money he was able to save and send back to them every month. He even lived in the post office and slept on the narrow bench in the darkest corner just to save on rent. His kitchen was a nothing more than an old rusted gas stove that he had brought along from his village, two hundred and forty three kilometers away.

At present, however, his thoughts were much more local in their travels. The houses around him looked like dreams. Golden in the sunlight, they seemed closer to the palaces his Grandmother talked about when she was alive. She would often ramble about the rajas and emperors of her time. She could have had one believe that she dined with them. She probably didn’t know how magnificent these mansions were; she had probably never seen them. Their wrought iron gates and decorated windows seemed so unreal to a boy who had seen only thatched roofs and open walls. Some even had those wonderful carts that didn’t need horses to drag them. They moved by themselves! It had seemed so unreal when one of his friends had told him about the magical carts. Now, he was forced to believe it.

He had just one letter left, the last on his rounds. This letter wasn’t extraordinary, just an orange postcard with two two-rupees stamps on the right corner. But it was going to a very special house. It was the largest in Lalwara Society. The nameplate next to the gate read ‘The Pine Rose’. The strange thing however was that, unlike the other houses in the colony, this one had no letterbox. Perhaps the British culture had not found acceptance in the owner’s ideals. He went in, nonchalantly. Nobody ever bothered about the postmaster. He walked up the pavement to the house that surely had a thousand windows. The grass on either side was greener than the paddy in any field he’d seen all his life and the aroma of scented flowers hung lightly in the air.

He rung the doorbell but it didn’t work. He knocked his knuckles on the door itself, in more familiar a fashion. There was no response so he knocked again. This time he heard the sound of footsteps somewhere inside. He looked down at the watch his uncle had given him when he joined the postal service after graduating. “It can’t tell you how much time you have left,” he had said, “but it always tells you how much you have spent.” Twenty-six years, twelve hours and twenty minutes, to be exact.

The postmaster took a peek into the grand old house. It was dimly lit and painted with a monotone of ochre. The postmaster could just make out the shape of a gramophone, like the ones he had only seen pictures of. It didn’t seem to be in use for quite a while now though. It was probably quite old. In the background played the melody of an old patriotic Hindi song that he could not recognize on the radio.

Presently, beyond the door a figure appeared and at once the door opened to reveal the face of a girl, pretty, twenty-three, twenty-four at most, with the most beautiful eyes that creation has ever realised. She had a smile on her face that could breathe life into a dying tree. She was shorter than the postmaster by about a good five inches and she looked up at him, charmingly.

“Yes?” she asked, sweetly, “mail?”

“Uh… yes,” said the postmaster in his normal professional manner and handed her the postcard.

“Thank you,” said the girl, taking the postcard from his hand in slow yet decisive movement.

The postmaster smiled and was about to leave when the girl said, warmly, “Would you like a glass of water? It’s a hot day.”

“No memsaab,” replied the postmaster, uneasily. “But thank you.”

“Oh no! You look tired! You have to have some water at least. Even better, I’ll get you some lemon juice. Just wait here.”

The girl had left by the time the postmaster could say anything. She came back with a glass in her hand, as promised, of sparkling lemon juice with two square pieces of ice floating at the top. The glass itself looked so fragile that the postmaster was afraid his rough hands would shatter it as soon as they held it. He took it nervously when offered though, and sipped it apprehensively, unsure of what the next sip held. He sipped at it for a few minutes, looking up to smile at the girl in between sips, and she smiled back. In fact, it didn’t seem like she stopped smiling at all. The postmaster gulped the last of it and hurriedly returned it, to his relief.

He thanked her as generously as he could and raced to his cycle that he had parked outside against the wall. He got on it and rode back to the post office with a straight face. Across the park, past the boulevard, past the sweeper, the old men, the children, past the stray dogs, the street vendors, he rode with a straight face. Through gullies, streets and alleyways he rode with a straight face. When he reached the deserted street the post office was on, he parked his cycle outside it, locked it securely and walked in with a straight face. He sat on his old wooden chair in the dark room. He couldn’t keep a straight face. He smiled a little. Only a little.

 

30 November 1967

At first the postman dismissed his own feelings. He fell into denial and tried very hard to stay there. He went about his rounds as usual, with no glitz or glamour. He delivered his letters; he kept his records but yet could not deny the fact that he had started to look forward to his visits to The Pine Rose. He would rummage through the morning mail as soon as it arrived with the hope of finding its name on one of the rough brown envelopes. Those were the good days that were few and far between. On the off days, that were far more common, he would come up empty, and those were the difficult days. He would meet the girl sometimes when he rang the doorbell. At others, a huge, intimidating woman, he assumed to be her mother, would greet him. Those were the days he would just curse his luck. But on the odd chance that fate’s threads all strung together in his favour, he would receive her with a smile and a friendly “how are thing’s going, memsaab?” At first the replies ranged from “well” to “good” to “fine” but slowly, over the weeks, they turned into “My brother sent me a dress from London yesterday in the parcel you brought me”, “The rains are coming soon, I’m sure” or “It’s so nice for someone to ask.”

The postman went from denial to acceptance, slowly but with a certain vigour that was difficult to explain. It was a beautiful feeling, seeing her every time, talking to her. But he knew it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t going to be enough. Feelings only grow lonelier when they aren’t shared. Twenty-five days passed.

So he sat, in the darkness of his small office, a candle to his left. His legs were crossed and his head sunk into his shoulders. He shuddered a little. His fingers were intertwined and his eyes were fixed on the flickering light. He took his fountain pen in his left hand and pressed it onto the paper.

 

Dear Miss, 

I don’t know your first name or your last and you don’t know mine but I know I cannot live without saying this to you any longer. I cannot write a letter that will bring us closer. I admit I am not much of a writer, as you may have already guessed but I have not slept a night, I have not spent a minute, for the last month, not thinking of you. It is a truth I cannot keep hidden any longer, however great the risk is. I have read of many poets and how easily they say what is on their hearts, but I am a simple man with a simple heart and a pen that does not know what to say. So I’ll stop here, with nothing more than this, with nothing more than knowing that you are aware of my existence.

 

Yours truly.

He couldn’t sign his name so he left it at that. He creased the paper once and placed it inside one of his spare envelopes. He kept the letter in front of him and crossed his arms and leaned back into his chair. He never meant to deliver it. It was an ordinary letter, he knew.  He was only a village boy taught to read the alphabet when he was thirteen. He recalled his desperate attempts to comprehend Tolstoy, in high school. He understood the words, the letters but never the meaning, the soul. Yet Tolstoy was his favourite because he told stories of men and women who lived in depravity and always wanted more. He found it a very human emotion, something that he found in everyone he had known.

He sat there staring at his own letter as the candle died out. He did not intend to post it. He only wanted to let his feelings out and this was the only system that appealed to him.

All the letters he had delivered had the same address signed on them—Lt. Gen. Srijoy Sinha, Pine Rose Villa, Lalwara Society, Sunderbad-22. He didn’t know who Lt. Gen. Srijoy Sinha was or what relation he had with the girl he had grown so fond of seeing and so he decided to leave his name out when he signed the address onto his own letter. He kept it aside with a sigh.

 

 4 November 1967

Four days passed and the postmaster was finally getting used to his agonizing rounds around the suburb. He was starting to enjoy his bike rides, meeting new people, delivering their letters and sharing their joys and disappointments. It was strange, the trust a postman could gather by sharing a few letters. He knew Mrs. Jalpaddi’s son was finally getting married because he had delivered his wedding cards himself. He had been informed by old Dhritiman chacha himself that he would be leaving the suburbs next June to go live with his Son and daughter-in-law in the city. Mrs. Sahoo, however, had lost her mother the previous week, a telegram had said.

The Postmaster enjoyed visiting the small local railway station most of all. On slightly less hectic days, he would ride his bicycle onto the empty platform and stand against a pillar, watching the freight trains whiz past him with all their churning and heaving. His eyes would gaze unblinkingly at the marvelous sight. He would cross his arms tightly and lean further into the wall. Later he began sketching the trains in a notebook that he kept among his letters.

That morning was one of the good mornings. He had boarded his bicycle as soon as he had found two letters for the Pine Rose. He smiled at the old sweeper along the way and he waved back. He parked his bike against the wall and went in. he rapped on the door and in a minute came that smiling, gleaming face he longed so much to see. It was early. She had probably just been drinking her tea. The radio still played in the background as always.

“Good morning!” she beamed.

“Good morning, memsaab. How are things going?” He greeted.

“Wonderful! Any letters?”

“Yes. Let me just…” he reached into his bag and took out the letters for the Pine Rose and handed them over to her.

“Oh good.” She said, gleefully.

“Sara!” a voice screamed from inside the house. The postmaster recognized the voice.

“Coming!” the girl shouted back. For a moment then, just for a moment, her beautiful face showed just a hint of annoyance in a quick grimace. “My aunt isn’t in a good mood. I should go.”

“Yes, memsaab,” agreed the postmaster, almost apologetically.

He turned around on his heels and was making his way back to his cycle when the girl cried out after him. “Who is this for? It doesn’t have a name on it.”

The postmaster turned around as quickly as he could. He was sure he had betrayed himself in that moment itself but managed to keep his composure. He looked at the letter she held in her hand and knew exactly which letter it was.

“I don’t know, memsaab. I only deliver the letters.” He grinned. She nodded, blankly.

As soon as he turned around, the grin disappeared. He knew he had probably made the biggest blunder of his life. There hadn’t been two letters for the Pine Rose that morning. There had been just one. The other had been in his office for the past four days.

 

19 November 1967

The postmaster was too scared to deliver any letters addressed to the Pine Rose for over two weeks and thankfully, in that time, there had only been one letter for the villa. But he knew that his duty would not allow him to remain in his fright for much longer. He could not fathom what might have happened in that time or how the girl would have reacted. What if she knew it was him? What if she had guessed?

He stood there with his knuckles just brushing the polished wooden door. He just couldn’t bring himself to knock on it as he had done hundreds of times before. Finally he did out of complete exasperation and a strong desire to simply get it over with.

The girl came to the door, to his surprise, with a wonderful exuberance.

“Good morning, memsaab. How’re things?”

“Excellent! Simply excellent. I can’t find a better word for it.” She smiled, uncontrollably.

“Well I only have one letter for you today.”

“Oh,” she said with a slight catch in her voice. “That’s it?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Oh, well. Thank you.” She said as her face fell a little, “So how are things with you?”

“Very good, memsaab, very good.” Was all he could come up with.

They chatted about mostly general things for a minute or two before the postmaster took her leave. He grinned to himself as he rode his bike back to the post office. She didn’t know who had written the letter, she hadn’t guessed. But even still, she seemed to be genuinely intrigued, like she wanted to know more. He didn’t know what to call this feeling he felt, but it seemed strangely close to contentment, complete and absolute contentment.

 

18 December 1969

A lot changed in two years. The postmaster wrote a letter every month at first, then every fortnight and finally every week. Every week Sara’s eyes would brighten, as she would reach out for the letter she knew was hers. The contents of the letters varied from talk of old poets to dreams to folklore to descriptions of trains and current affairs. The strange thing about the whole situation was that the postmaster could never expect a reply since, for all intents and purposes, the letters came from no one. But he could never seem to run out of things to say or stories to tell. Sometimes he would just imagine her reaction, her replies.

Other things had changed as well. The playground seemed to have more children and fewer senior citizens everyday. The leaves seemed to fall much more rapidly and the trees stood bare, like skeletons of bark.

Everything seemed to be flowing with a steady pace, a stream that ran quietly along its course. However, every stream meets a bump somewhere along the way, and sometimes that bump is more of a waterfall. So it was in December 1969 that the postmaster sat in his office, filling up paperwork and tuning his own radio that he had managed to purchase after months of saving, when an unexpected guest entered the tiny, damp room.

“Busy?” sang a voice he knew all too well.

He jumped at his table and hit his knee against its leg. For a moment he couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Yes… no! I mean no, memsaab! Come in, come in. have a seat.”

“Thank you but I can’t stay. I’ve come to post these invitations. I’m getting married next month.”

The words sank in slowly but it was the waterfall that the stream had never seen coming. Every breath after that seemed too heavy to breathe.

“What?” he questioned, disbelievingly.

“I’m getting married.”

“Congratulations,” was all he could manage to mutter through lips of stone.

“There’s nothing to congratulate me for,” she said, looking down, uncomfortably. “I haven’t even seen his face yet… my husband to be, my groom, my…”

There was a long awkward silence that filled the room. The sunlight peeked into the dusty old room.

“I’m sure you’ll be happy,” the postmaster said with counterfeit encouragement. She nodded, her eyes still down. What are words when eyes say everything the heart feels?

“I should get going. I’ll be leaving to Siligunj next month and I don’t know if I’m ever coming back, but I do need to ask you one thing.”

“Anything.”

“Do you have any idea who sent me those letters?”

The postmaster swallowed and swallowed hard. He could feel all the pains of his childhood crawl up to the surface of him. The strong, hard man he used to be was falling apart. His tired hands quivered slightly with every beat of his heart. “What letters?”

 

23 January 1970

The wedding was a huge affair of gold, red and sparkling gowns. There were hundreds of people who’d been invited. There was a grand procession that marked the arrival of the groom atop a white mare. Then there was the ceremony that lasted hours and was the cause of great celebration. There was an extravagant feast that seemed never to end and dancing that seemed to only grow more exuberant with every passing hour. In the end, though as the lights dimmed and the celebrations died out, Sara got into a decorated car with her new husband and drove away into the moonlight. And that was the end of it, for most of the people who’d showed up that day.

A few fifty yards away, against a tree, rested a bicycle, and next to the bicycle had stood the postmaster for the entire wedding, with not a word on his lips. He stared at the lights and the flowers, the beauty and the lavishness of it all. He felt insignificant, he felt like he would never matter. He felt a thousand different things in a thousand different ways but he didn’t move an inch. At last, when it was all over and the sweeper swept the streets of the flowers of festivity, he turned and rode, rode into the darkness.

 

1971

The postmaster went about his daily rounds on his bicycle. The sweeper swept the streets. The children played. The dogs barked. The skies changed and so did the seasons. But nothing was the same. The sunlight always seemed a shade darker and the trees a little less green.

There were new people in Sunderbad, new families, new faces, and more letters. The postmaster’s schedule became even more hectic. But he always found time to write a letter every week. It wasn’t a painless exercise but it was better than giving up a memory.

In the winter of 1971, there came the sirens of war and suddenly everything revolved around it. Pakistan had attacked India on both the western and eastern fronts. There were soldiers dying everywhere on both sides. Everyone in India was glued to his or her radio set. Every evening, people would tune in to their radio sets and listen intently to the news report for the day. On most days, the news reporter would say how two hundred Pakistani soldiers were killed at the cost of just fifty Indians. They weren’t necessarily true but definitely morale-boosting. And the nation never needed it more than during a war. India finally defeated Pakistan on both fronts and peace was restored to the subcontinent.

Even through the war, the postmaster would sit silently at the train station sometimes, while everyone else talked about the war, and wonder how she would be, where she would be. He could still smell her scent in the air. He wished he could write poems, he wish he could sing. He wished a lot of things.

 

16 September 1981 

Wouldn’t it be easier if we could all decide the time that our watches read to us instead of being a slave to our watches themselves? Wouldn’t we always have enough time on our hands if we decided we were going to live our lives two hours after everyone else had?

The watch his uncle had given him had stopped working. He tried many times to revive the old rusting watch but to no avail. Ten years had taken too much out of him. In this time, he had a new assistant after years of writing to the head office in the city. He was a young boy named Roy. His arrival effectively meant that he had no longer had to deliver his letters himself. Roy did it for him on his own bicycle. However, the postmaster missed the whole charm of delivering letters and ran errands at times just for the feel of it.

On one such errand, one early morning, he noticed that the old sweeper was nowhere to be seen. It was strange to him since for the last fourteen years, there had never been a day when the sweeper hadn’t been there, sweeping the leaves to the left with his gigantic rake.

He looked around but the sweeper was nowhere to be found. Just as he was about to give up on his search, the postmaster’s eyes caught a glimpse of something blue on the other side of the park. He assumed it was the sweeper’s old pale blue shirt, and sure enough, when he got there, he found the old sweeper on the heap of leaves that he had raked. He seemed to be asleep. But then the postmaster realised a startling fact. The old sweeper wasn’t breathing. And so his leaves became his deathbed. But it couldn’t be where he remained. The postmaster lifted the skin and bones onto his shoulder and carried him away for a more respectable send-off. He had never even asked him his name but felt a strange affinity towards the poor old man.

Later, the postmaster came to know that the old sweeper was never actually employed. He was never paid for cleaning the streets. He had lost all his family during the Partition riots and he had spent all his life raking up leaves all day and night only to light a bonfire to keep him warm as he slept.

 

21 May 1987 

The postmaster had bought himself a small black and white television on his forty-sixth birthday. It was a device that had caught his fancy for a long time. He had saved up enough in three years to get one.

He positioned it slightly to the left of his table, facing him. The wires were frustrating but it was worth the inconvenience. Roy stood on the other side of the table like a humble servant, waiting for his orders.

“Why are you just standing there, boy? Come give me a hand,” The postmaster said with a dreary voice of wavering authority. Roy obeyed without a hint of delay.

Once the television had been set up, the two spent a good hour and half exploring the mysterious creation of science with a certain childish curiosity. The postmaster’s tired old eyes, however, began to hurt in a while.  He decided to make a trip to the train station. It was an overcast day and he decided to take an umbrella.

He boarded his reliable bicycle and rode towards the station. It had begun to drizzle slightly. On the way, though, he happened to be driving past the cremation grounds near the river when he recognised a lady in white standing to the right of the pyre. There were only a handful of people around it anyway. He laid his cycle on the ground and stood there with a strange feeling of heartache. She hadn’t changed much. She looked older but her face still had the smile of the girl he had spent twenty years forgetting.

The pyre went up in flames as soon as the torch touched the stacked wood. The man who had lit the pyre threw the torch into it with the air of a man who had realised the pointlessness of life.

“It’s good to see you again, postmaster,” said the woman when she walked up to him once the ashes had been collected.

“I didn’t think I would again,” the postmaster gushed. “How long are you here?”

“I’ll be leaving today. Those are my aunt’s, ashes the one who used to look after me. That’s my cousin brother there who lit the pyre. Pine Rose was my uncle’s house. My uncle lost his life in the war and my aunt couldn’t take the grief. She always wanted to be sent away here so we had to come.”

A drizzle had begun and the wind swept her hair across her face. Her eyes were as tired as his own.

“Well I shouldn’t keep you then. You must have a long journey to make.”

She nodded. “I hope to see you again someday when I come back.”

“Anything is possible, memsaab.”

 

5 August 1994

The postmaster had never been transferred again in his thirty-four years of service. Sometimes he wondered if people had forgotten about the small town altogether.

The park was filled by new occupants, new faces.  Though many of the new faces were the old faces of graying men. The swings were going out of fashion. A movie hall had been constructed in the middle of the main market.

The postmaster, too, had changed a little. His hair was a lighter shade of grey now. He sat at his desk, staring out the small window, blankly. On his side was the letter he had written the previous night. He burnt every letter the morning after he had written it. That day, he felt lazy.

“Do you want me to deliver that too?” asked Roy, naively, picking up the letter.

“No. You couldn’t even if you wanted to.” The postmaster turned to take the letter into his hands. “No one lives at this address anymore, Roy.”

“That’s not true. I delivered a parcel there myself the other day.”

The postmaster expressed mild surprise. “Really?”

“Yes. A woman, about your age lives there now.”

“I think I’ll do the rounds myself today.” The postmaster got up.

The ride to the Pine Rose was a strange one. The postmaster, for the first time in all those years, realised how much things had changed. The streets had become more populated with the horse-less carts which he now knew to be cars. Fashion had definitely taken a more western turn with more tees and jeans than shirts and trousers. The Walkman had found its place in everyone’s pockets. The suburb, though, had changed little, like some old forgotten place, abandoned by the world.

The postman felt little. He didn’t know what to think about or what to feel as he walked past the gate into the old villa. He stood at the door, breathing slowly. He rang the bell. He began counting his breaths. Every breath seemed longer than the last until behind the light veil of a curtain on the door, a figure began to form—thin, slow but decisive.

The door opened and the postmaster allowed himself a smile of a kind he had never known in his youth. He realised then, looking at her face, how old he had become. He saw, in her warm brown eyes, the sweetness of the girl who’d left all those years ago. And he saw himself, the boy who’d fallen in love without the slightest idea of the word.

“You’re back, memsaab,” he said, in more of a statement.

“Yes,” she replied, smiling wearily, “It’s been a few weeks. I’d been wondering when I would see you.”

“Why did you?”

She stopped just a bit. “I just stopped being welcome everywhere else and this is the only place I could think of—home.”

The postmaster nodded without any more questions. He reached into his old leather satchel and took out a single letter—pale yellow and slightly worn on the edges. “Just one letter today.”

“That’s strange. I hardly get any more letters now that my uncle’s not in this world anymore. Just parcels.”

The postmaster shrugged coyly. She took the letter from his hand and asked with a smile, “Lemon juice?”

“Maybe some other time, memsaab.” The postmaster smiled and left.

 

17 April 2001 

The letters came by the week once more. Maybe the letters meant less now, maybe they meant more. But writing them gave the postmaster a purpose he had lost long before. Even then he never ran out of things to say. He could tell stories that he had gathered through all those years, stories of men and women he had known, stories of journeys he had made. But he never said anything that would let her know or even guess who he was. This was an involuntary compulsion he could never get over although at times he wondered if she had always known. The letters were posted by Roy most of the times and himself on occasion.

There was however one part that always bothered him. Every time he met her, she seemed sicker than the last time. Her health was deteriorating, he was sure. She was suffering from an illness but he couldn’t tell which. He worried at times, helplessly, wishing there was something he could do. But she got more and more ill in front of his eyes. It’s hard to imagine who it hurt more—Sara or the postmaster.

Finally, thirty-four years after they had first met came the day that would end it all. It was the day the postmaster retired. He woke up early as usual, had a bath, got dressed and sealed his final letter. He didn’t know what he would do next as he stood there, leaning on the desk, letter in hand. His parents had died, his sisters married away. He had nothing left in his old village. He had little he wanted to do.

He had decided to deliver his last letter himself, for the last time. So he packed his suitcase and combed his hair. He got onto his old rusty bicycle, his companion all these years and told Roy he would be back in an hour. He had already given him his keys and thanked him for his help.

He reached the Pine Rose at twenty to ten. Only to find Sara on the front porch on a rocking chair, staring blankly at the ceiling.

“Come, postmasterji,” she called, hearing him enter. “I’ve been expecting you. Do you have any letters for me?”

“Just one, memsaab,” he said smilingly.

“Oh please come sit,” she called, beckoning to a mura on her right. Something was not right about her. He could feel it. “You’ve been the oldest friend I’ve had. Probably the only friend I still have left.”

The postmaster obeyed without a word.

“Could you read out the letter for me? I would myself but it’s very… stressful.”

The postmaster hesitated for a second but decided there was nothing to lose. He tore the seal of the letter and was just about to read it when Sara said—“Or maybe let’s not for a while. Maybe later. Can I tell you something, postmasterji?”

“Yes. Anything, memsaab.”

She sighed and closed her eyes. “My parents died when I was nine. They died in an accident on the way to the city. Since then, my uncle took me in to live with him and his wife, but uncle found… found someone he… loved more than he loved my aunt, and he moved to the city, leaving her… to take care of me. I always felt like I was becoming a burden for… her… like I reminded her of what my uncle had done to her. But she still loved him… she took care of me and… got me married to a lawyer. She still loved him… she cried when he died. She still loved him. So much so that she died of grief.

“My husband was good to me. So was his family… but only at… first. I never had… children… I never could. When I fell ill too often and they didn’t understand what I was suffering from… they feared it might be contagious and sent me back here… I became a burden to them too.

Those letters you bring me… they… they—”

The postmaster saw she was in pain and held her arm reassuringly.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this…postmasterji but you’re the only one I can say it to… and I don’t want to… just disappear someday… without anyone knowing who I was… what my story is.”

Breathing was becoming more and more difficult for her and the postmaster tried several times to ask her to save her energy. She fell out of her chair and into his arms in a sudden burst of pain.

“I can’t see! Postmasterji, I can’t see! I haven’t seen anything the whole morning! I’m… I’m blind!” she gasped.

The postmaster didn’t know what to do as she struggled in his arms, in tears, until finally she sighed heavily and let out a long deep breath. She rested herself into the rocking chair and fell asleep. The letter lay on the table beside her.

The postmaster took a step back and stood like a statue for several seconds. He took the paper in his hands and turned around and walked out of the Pine Rose for the last time, with tears in his eyes.

 

The postmaster travelled continuously for the rest of his life. He traversed the nation on the railway carriages he had always dreamt of being on. He saw many things, he learnt many things and he drew it all in his bulky old notebook. He died on a park bench in Pondicherry, near the ocean, a man who had no regrets, on the twelfth of July 2010.

But among those pages of his old brown notebook was a letter that he had kept all his life. The last letter he ever wrote.

 

This is the first time I will tell you that I love you. Not because I have not loved you since the first day I met you, but because now I understand that it is more than just a word. It is foolish of me to love you, being who I am. But I have found that love that is born of stupidity, as foolish as it is, is also the truest. I have spent my life loving you and there is no greater feeling in the world. Of that, I am sure. Those poets I never understood make sense now. They seem to be speaking a language I understand. So let there be love, however foolish, because this world is filled with fools of many seasons and many colours. So I’ll end with nothing but love, forever and always.