She, who reads and writes

You will see her first at a bookstore, browsing the poetry or literature section. You will notice her because she will be beautiful. She will take her time among the shelves, reading slowly and smiling slightly. You will attempt to think of an excuse to talk to her but before you realise what is happening, she will be the one talking to you. She will ask you your opinion of a book she is holding, maybe Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things or Samrat Upadhyay’s Arresting God in Kathmandu. If it is the former, you will sing its praises, marvelling at the language, the characters, the nuances and the beauty of tragedy. You will go on and on and surprisingly, she will continue to listen. If it is the latter, your criticism will be measured. This is still his best work, you will say. She will appear convinced.
You will continue to talk and you will discover that you both like Hemingway’s clipped, deliberate prose. She will adore Marquez (who you will hate) and you will love Miller (who she will hate). You will say Marquez is too romantic and she will say Miller is a misogynist. You will agree to disagree.
Eventually, you will find yourself sitting across from her in a leather couch at an expensive cafĂ©. You will feel out of place. You will sip your coffee, which will remain bitter no matter how many sugarcubes you put in it. She will drop no sugar into hers. You will continue to talk and you will notice that she smiles when she listens and looks you in the eye. You will also notice that the smile doesn’t leave her face completely even when you are not talking. You will marvel at her hair, which will be thick and wild and everywhere. You will want to brush it away from her face. She will tuck her tresses behind her ears and grip her coffee cup with both hands. You will notice that her nails are neatly clipped and painted a deep red.
Your talk of reading will give way to talk of writing. You will tell her that you try to write but that you are no writer. She will respond similarly. You will ask to read her writing and she will refuse at first, suddenly shy. You will press and she will eventually agree. She will take out a notebook, bound in dark leather with a strap holding it closed, from her oversized cloth shoulderbag and hand it to you with a pen. You will flip through the notebook, sneaking glimpses at its content. You will see sketches in ink, flowing, cursive handwriting and neat, orderly poem stanzas. You will reach the last page and write down your email address in your awkward boyish handwriting. She will tear off a piece and write down hers, expecting you to reciprocate with your writing. You will think mentally to never send her anything if her writing is better than yours.

You will go outside for a smoke. You will buy two loose cigarettes off of a streetside vendor and pass one to her. You will light it for her while she cups her hands around the flame. She will smoke with glee, exhaling in great grey plumes. Before you part ways, you will ask for her number and she will refuse to give it to you. First the writing, she will say. You will say a hurried goodbye and turn away quickly to hide the shame of being rebuffed. She will not send you any writing, you will think.
That night, when you log in, there will be an email waiting from her. It will have no subject, two lines by way of introduction and an attachment. You will read it and you will hate how good it is.
You will write back saying exactly that. But you will put some effort into it. You will write, erase, think and write again. You will write three paragraphs, each totalling around 200 words. It will be an essay, no, a paean to her. You will think long before sending the email. And once you do, you will spend the rest of the night sleepless.
There will a reply in the morning. It will only have her phone number.
The next day, you will meet at the same coffee shop and you will bring her Bhupi Sherchan’s poems. You will tell her that he is your favourite poet and she will ask you to read to her. You will comply because you have read Bhupi so much that you know his poems by heart. You will look into her eyes, not breaking the gaze a single time as you recite Mainbatti ko Shikha from memory. She will be impressed.
The next time you meet it will be at night. You will meet her for dinner at an Italian restaurant that you have never been to and are afraid you cannot afford. This time, she will have a gift for you. She will hand it to you all smiles and tell you to open it. You will carefully tear off the wrapping paper, which is a hazy amalgam of pink and green flowers, and reveal a notebook.
Inside you will find a folded piece of paper. She will tell you not to read it right now even though you will be dying to. When she leaves for the restroom, you will not be able to help yourself. It will be a three stanza poem, short and beautiful. When she returns, you will be sitting there with a large, stupid grin on your face. She will playfully ask what is so funny and when you say nothing, she will realise you have read her letter. She will not be angry.
You will take a walk in the dark after dinner. She will hold your hand and you will think about how warm and soft her palm feels against yours. She will draw closer and you will almost forget to breathe. You will kiss her under a streetlight as if in a scene from a film. You will reel. Your eyes will be closed but you will see colours and patterns and you will think that nothing will ever feel this good again. When she breaks away, your body will yearn for her. She will smile and you will find yourself in love.
You will meet again and again. You will share your writing with her and she will say you are among the best non-professional writers she has ever read. You will think that is the greatest compliment anyone has given you. You will share books and you will meet at parks and read together. She will rest her head in your lap and read or you will sit back to back and you will read or you will sit arm in arm and read. You will also read to each other. She will read a passage from Sirish ko Phool and you will read her a passage from The Bell Jar. She will read with a lilt, bringing the words to life in your head as you sit listening with your eyes closed.
She will invite you to her house and you will arrive on time. You will drink beer and watch a black-and-white French film. Halfway through, you will start to kiss and the movie will be forgotten. She will arch her back and call for you. You will not be able to hold back anymore. Afterwards, when lying together, she will trace the outline of your jaw with her fingers and you will wonder when her parents will be home.
She will kiss you goodbye chastely on the side of your mouth and you will go home with a ringing in your ears. Over the next few months, you will meet regularly, doing it in your houses when your parents are away, furtively in dark alleyways and even in the shadows of a parking lot after getting drunk at a bar. You will write for her because it will be the only real gift you can give her. She will cry frequently after reading your letters to her and when you try to comfort her, she will say she has never been this happy before.
Then, after enough time has passed, you will find that you still love her but that you will never be able to compete with her other suitors. You will always pale in comparison to her other lovers, who she loves simultaneously. One night it will be Wilde, another Dostoevsky, another Lennon, another Rimbaud and another Duras. She will love with abandon and you will realise that she gives herself to them like she has never given to you. She, too, will realise the arc of your relationship. After all, as a reader, a writer, she will know how the plot progresses. She will see fragmentation and the approaching end to the story.
You will end it one cold winter night when the lights are out and there are candles around. You will both cry and hold each other but it will not be enough to heal the wound that you feel in you. You will say inane things, things that make no sense and things that you do not mean. You will leave each other letters.
On the way home, you will think about how you were never meant to be with a girl who reads, or worse, a girl who reads and writes. You will realise that her loves are made of stardust and memories, not flesh and bone. She has charted the course of her loves and has dreamed long of lovers passionate and perfect. But most of all, she knows that everything ends—books, poems, films, lives and relationships. She is comfortable with full-stops. She has bid goodbye a thousand times before. And she knows that there is always another book, another relationship and another life.
- Pranaya SJB Rana

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