The Inherited Custody

CHAPTER IV

4

At this point, I am not sure why I am still writing to you.

I'm starting to believe that these letters are lost somewhere. Perhaps much more lost than you. And yet, after I promised myself to stop last time, I am writing this again. For some reason I hope it reaches you.

Such a silly thing to say, ain't it? Hope is so dangerous. And I seek that danger from you.

I wanted to know if you were okay. Where are you? What have you been doing? Have you remarried? Or are you seeing someone? What is it that dragged you away?

I must be honest, for some reason I had seen this before you even left— but not you leaving for good. I had seen us drifting away like repellents. I just never imagined how far.

So many arguments, disagreements, fights. It becomes a predictable pattern.

The night before you left, we sat for dhyan together. We didn't speak a lot before that either. But then you helped me with the kitchen that day. You were playing with the children so dearly like you always did. But that day, I thought we could achieve higher energy together. As a family. You, me, the babies.

For a handful of moments I had believed that things suddenly shifted. I was happy. That was the happiest you'd made me feel in a while. And then, by morning there was no sign of you. Nobody saw you. Not even Ruchi or her husband, Guru's then assistants who woke up early that day.

I asked outside the ashram— the tea stalls, the pan shops. And nobody had seen you. Even at the tabela you would go with the other men to fetch fresh milk in the morning, where a cow was said to have magical powers. A cow-witch, they called her. I hadn't realized before that a handful of your things were missing too. But by noon, when there was no whisper of you, Guru declared to me that you might have simply left for good.

We had our differences. I wanted this. To have more than the simple things the outside world offers. You wanted to live in the world of filth and facades— all in your trench-coat, office, money, shrimp and chicken for dinner. Guru was right, all material things are endowments of evil. A distraction from true reality.

And to think that you are corrupted by it makes my stomach churn. That no matter how much I loved you, it makes me want to renounce it all. That you are just like others. That no matter how many good things come your way, you will always be this needy human.