As always, I feel that inner glimmer of joy when I see the familiar blue envelope, the neat addressing, and the extravagant signature at the back. I wait for my wife to come home before I open the envelope. We like reading the letters together.


Dearest Appa and Amma,
It is six PM, and from the way the evening smells, it may rain later. I am sitting at my desk, looking for the right words. Not really finding them.

I guess I’d better just say it and get it over with. A man from the International Red Cross came to our hospital yesterday on a recruiting mission. He said that they need nurses desperately in Somalia, and I spoke to him for a long while. The end result of it all is, well, I am leaving to Africa next week.


“What??! That is crazy. That is ridiculous.” I say loudly and turn to your mother. She has curled in to herself like a flower closing. “She can’t do this.” she says softly.

I know you are going to say that I am crazy. But this is something that I have thought about for so long. Frankly, I am terrified about going in to a war torn zone, but they need nurses there. Someone has to go, and at some point of life you have to stop turning away. Somewhere in myself I have found the courage to go.


I am finding this difficult to absorb. Can you have changed so much in the four years you were away studying? Your mother and I have memories of a cynical, wild girl who didn’t much care about rules. Your infrequent visits home have done nothing to change that picture. But you have never stopped surprising us.


Four years ago, you used to scream for me if there was a cockroach in your room, and now you are writing of travelling to a war torn area to work. It is so difficult to understand your motivations, to predict what you will be doing from one minute to the next. Your choosing nursing school, now that surprised us, but made us so very proud. And now, this. You are so brave. But baby, I do not think that going away is a good idea. Not for you. You are so young, so innocent. 

That’s a good one. Last week I was undressing a drunk so that the doctor could examine him. He grabbed my hand and told me that he would pay me a hundred rupees if I slept with him. When will you realize that I am not innocent anymore? I am not as clueless as I used to be. You can not continue to be innocent for long, if you work in a hospital. I find it tough to believe sometimes, looking back, that I was the kind of person you used to know. Hedonistic, self absorbed and egoistic. But I have changed, and I think that I am better. I’m not sure, though.


I should start planning, there is so much to be done before I leave, but I do not really want to think about the future. I stare at the lizard walking on my ceiling and try to escape in to protected memories. Memories of when I was protected. When I met with that bad accident, for instance. Lying in bed sick, and Amma holding my hand and saying Say ‘Om namah shivaya’ you will feel better. And the street savvy educated cynic that I was, I would say, “Don’t give me that naïve shit. Give me sleeping pills. I need to sleep.” Or when I didn’t get in to that fancy nursing college that I was so set on. You didn’t say “I told you to work harder, I told you not to stay out late dancing.” You just came to my room and sat by me while I sobbed and ranted and cursed the system. What forgiveness it must require to pull me out of a mess I got in to myself in spite of your warnings! Oh shit I am crying now.


You hated it when other people saw you cry, right, baby? And what strange things used to move you. Flowers, some songs, the monsoon’s first rain. And I used to hug to myself the knowledge that this weird and wonderful creature was my child.


My sweet, sweet baby. You always gave yourself as a gift, unconditionally, knowing you are precious. But must you give yourself to a cause like this? Let the world fight it’s own battles, baby. You are too young, too tender.
I am trying not to cry as I think about where you will be going. So far away from us, so dangerous.


I’m over the crying fit, thankfully. I am wondering why do you do it? We grow up, sheltered, fed. We grow up knowing that someone cares enough about us to wait up till they hear our car in the driveway. That some one is vetting our boyfriends, waiting for our phone calls, feeling sad when we are unhappy.


But what do you get out of it all? Seriously, Appa, Amma, what do you get out of it all?


What do we get out of it? I remember when you were a little girl and I had to pick you up from school. I was late, some problem in the office that I had to handle. I rushed to your school half an hour late, to see you sitting on a stone bench, legs too short to reach the ground, watching a huge spider build it’s web. Watching with curiosity, not fear. I placed my hand on your shoulder and said “Aruna” softly. Then you turned saying “Appa.” to me with joy. You know, Aruna, I have often rued the irony of life’s joys being discovered in retrospect. Most of life’s gems, we recognize as precious only from the distance of a long time. But that monsoon evening was different. I knew then as I carried you to the car, listening to your excited account of the fun you had in class, I knew right then, that not many of life’s treasures would compare to the feel of your cheek against mine and the trust in your eyes when you said ‘Appa’. 

Perhaps that is what we get out of it. Or perhaps it was that look on your face, intent, focussed as you played raga Nilambari on the Veena. Or the way you used to sit, with your head resting on my knee, when you were unhappy.
There are so many other things, but I would do it all over again, just to hear the way you used to say Appa when you were a child.


Is that enough?

Perhaps it is.

But it must be scary, right? Bearing children, caring for them. Teaching them. How do you do it? Teach them to say it before they lose the words, do it before they lose the guts? To recognize the important things – the loves, the friends, the lessons?


Yes, it is frightening. You teach your children, and wonder forever if the wisdom you are giving them is the best there is. You teach them, and finally at the end of it all, you do not have much of an idea why they are doing what they do.


You spend nights staring at starless skies, trying to fathom what is almost always unfathomable – another human’s mind.


It is almost morning now. Sunlight drops in to the ink blue sky and dissolves the darkness. Birds and their shadows dart across the wall ahead of me. I think about leaving, and I am terrified. There are few things as beautiful as the early mornings, and I think that will be betraying something in that beauty if my fear stops me from leaving.
The pain of being alone hums through me until I feel dizzy. Everyone thinks I am mad, idealistic, naïve. It is all right with me, that no one understands why I am doing what I am doing.
But you -- you are my source, my sanctuary. You should understand. It is so important that you do.
Can you?
Will you try to?

We sit in your room and stare out of your window. Trying to see what you see. Trying to see from where you see. There on the wall is a quote by Suu Kyi. “You must decide how much you are willing to sacrifice for your beliefs.”
This is your way of doing what is right. You are brave, and so very, very precious.


God bless you, keep you safe and happy.