I don’t know, I can’t tell
But there was she
My classmate
With jasmine teeth
A dance perched on her feet
Bothering my budding masculinity
Genre: Love
My First Love Letter
by Madathil Rajendran Nair
It was when I was just in class three
Hovering around the tenth year of age
Something bothered me in the hours wee
A sweetness, an aroma, sweat
Or was it the morning dew on grass
That kept me awake
Rolling on my smelly bed
With a sweetness that blazed my glands
I don’t know, I can’t tell
But there was she
My classmate
With jasmine teeth
A dance perched on her feet
Bothering my budding masculinity
I knew I wanted her
I couldn’t make out what for
In a frenzy that engulfed me
Like a forest fire then I wrote
On the inside of a discarded cigarette pack
Slit open like a bleeding heart
What I felt, the first love letter
In words that moved like ants
All over me and my heart
I handed it to her brother
Two years younger
In secret, behind the school toilet yonder
Hoping it would reach and vanquish her
But, there was the maths teacher
Fondling his scorpion tail moustache
Watching the goings-on
Who intercepted the missive
From the hands of the shivering brother
I thought I was in for hell
Punishment, beatings, no one can tell
But nothing happened to my surprise
Till at last I noticed
The school headmistress at my fence
In a rare bosom chat with my mom, her friend
I was playing behind my house
Rolling stones in the setting sun
Like a forlorn Ulysses adorned in sweat
Yet I knew I was their subject
Days passed and Diwali came
The Indian festival of lights
It was time for the early morning bath
Under the glistening stars
My mom poured warm water over me from a tub
And I misbehaved in a gleeful jump
She cautioned and slapped me on my thigh
With a fire unknown in her eyes
“Idiot, have you begun
Writing love letters at this age? ”
That was the first and last time
She ever beat me
A lovely mother was she
And, often I wonder what happened
To that passionate missive of mine
Perhaps, it was blown over by the winds
Over fences and thorns and profusely bled
And withered in the sun and rain
Decayed down the channels of time
And I met her of late one of these days
At a temple festival when I braved
To tell her about my missive missed
That perhaps could have changed our fate
She laughed out in a guffaw
An aging grandma of three
And I could see at sixty-eight
Her jasmines were still intact
What more could a lover want
When he has only a toothless smile
In exchange, Oh, why do we age?
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