OPEN LETTER

OPEN LETTER

Dear future wife,

I wish I could call you by name. Such a terribly cold and lonely night and I am thinking of you. I wonder if you like to stay up late at night or wake up early in the morning. I can’t even guess how you look, what language you speak and what religion you profess. I wonder if you often think about me and are concerned about your career in a similar way. I wonder if you drink a lot of tea or prefer coffee. Well, I often try to cheat my mind by having hot water like I am doing now while writing this. I had too much tea today. If you smoke a lot then I must tell you that too much nicotine smell really puts me off. So never anticipate a kiss from me after smoking. Once I asked a crush of mine if she liked poets or philosophers. And she replied, “Poets”. I read Diwan-e Ghalib to impress her. I actually discovered the book those days and that generated my interest in poetry and other disciplines. I supplied her with a lot of poetry. It worked for a while but not after I ran out of comprehensible stuff and she totally lost interest in me. Now I laugh at myself when I think of those days. I don’t want to say much but her car driver was earning more salary than I was. Anyway, I am a grown up man now and I don’t read to please anyone. I read like my life depends on it. And my life now depends on my PhD and the choices I will make in this period. Do you also often feel like nobody understands you? And that it is not easy to express the way you feel but the same time that helps you to have empathy for others? I have always found kind and intelligent women extremely attractive and you must be the epitome of those qualities. I admit that I am not so clear about you. If you exist, you will un-condition me from one secretly held perception of mine that every woman I find attractive is attracted to the other guy, who often seems to me either rich, or popular. However, I do not underestimate myself too much either. This letter is an example that my idealism is not dead yet. It will not die as long as I am reading good stuff, thinking better thoughts and have friends showering me with their love. I need a lot of improvement and I wish to learn from the qualities of the different people I meet. I try to understand what is likeable or interesting about them. Someone is energetic, someone is generous, someone is so well read, someone is so eloquent and someone is so focused on their work. Nothing is as encouraging as great qualities (that most of the 99 names of God also talks about) are visibly embodied in the people around you. I wish I could incorporate those qualities in me. I have a lot of interesting and secret experiences of mine to share with you as a single man looking for love. I understand money is important, but lusting after fame, money and power is not my style and I am sure it is not yours either.

Hope to see you in the future,

Rashid Abbasi 

(PHD Scholar at Jamia Millia Islamia,India )