Letter from Me to my Other Self

Niharika Trama

I am writing this on the behalf of that night we experienced, how you rained questions on me like Cats and dogs. I was sleeping calmly after an exhausting scroll on Quora on "How to know what you want"
on all the theories of Stoicism with wasting inks of questions on ruled paper.
Haha, Little did I know it was the day we will meet in reality and not just in my journals. Into the deep silence of the night, I hear a sound squishing "You wanted to meet me? " Terrified and Trembled, Sweat dropping off my face as I see " Another ME a.k.a YOU" standing right there sitting on my study table amidst piles of books and journals stacked together. I remember my first few syllables that came out of my panic-stricken mouth adding on to stammering A-a-a- a re Y-o-u f r-om 2015 N-o-o-r ? (Noor and Goonj are my two series of journals that I used to write and still do)(Noor means abundant radiance and goonj means capturing Inner voice to write out loud). You beamingly nod in affirmation and full radiation, like your shine will blind my eyes just how it happened in the year 2015. As much as a question mark with panic I am in, you are hooting and roaring with laughter. I watch you wearing my old glass frame, my old zero fashion sensed clothes with a silver bangle in your hand that we both have identical somehow, add gel pen in your hand and that Rabindranath Tagore book where my first ever poetry got published. Why are you here I ask in panic? In a pretty convincing tone you mumble, Dear 23,
you wanted to know what you really desire and here I am you are me and I am you. You desire me, You want this back in life, but you are derailed and lost in the vicious circle of society and other beings. These hands, that never wanted to cease writing are now contriving to even pick up a pen? I am aware right here in this charcoal cupboard you have concealed all your writings with those heavy course books you will impersonate to want and I warned you back in 2015 even, Remember when you wrote me down with a RED INK spreading and sliding with the water-shedding off your eyes in pain? You were a coward then you are still the same coward today. You are giving me a bad time than death, A part of me you have secretly stored somewhere in INK while a part of me dies all this while when you are too scared to even open me again. I am your true self, the feminine body, a genderless mind, The heart of a fighter with the most tender weapons, the soul full of the sun always wanting and longing to spread what’s within, I am your English honors you kept scrolling about secretly on Quora, I am your course structure of the authors you would have read, I am the shine in your eyes when you see a library, I am the ambition rooted deep in you when you first met Ruskin Bond.
This is you, who decided to end her inside echo because you lost to the voices outside. This is your dwelling in the pretension of Corporate, Succumbing yourself with work and getting pleasured in menial ounces of mint production. This is you, who wanted to write about every neuron of emotion felt and look at you now writing emails and attending meetings. This is you, who wanted to own a typewriter to start documenting her work but this is you who hasn't even bought a new journal to pen down.
This is me and I am you, it’s not an identity crisis, it's an identity theft from you to your self. These lines kept echoing around in my head till the time I woke up in a gasp! I rushed to my journal and felt like an integral loss of missing on you for the last five years. Was it just a dream or an identity check reminder to me?

Your current Self,
Niharika