Dear Mr Renk,

This is my last mail to you. We will not have enough reason to correspond hereon, even though you have been the only good news in my mailbox for years now.

I was looking though our exchanges. And it struck me how consistent our correspondence has been. You always sent an attachment with a note saying, please find your monthly salary sheet. And I always responded with a ‘thank you’, followed by a smiley. On a few occasions, around the holiday seasons, I had sent you greetings along with the thank you note. Besides that, our correspondence seems to have had a pattern. A consistent one. I guess there’s only so much to correspondence in the work of our nature that’s outsourced overseas; and colleagues are only virtual characters.

There have been days when I wondered what you are like as a person. I tried Googling you once. And I came across a cache of photos, most of them only randoms; of cars, of flowers, of machines, of animals, of people posing at events. Even those of people in sexual acts. But there were quite a few mugshots. And those were the ones I looked at closely. Caucasian men of different ages. Some in baseball caps, some in checkered shirts. Some in business suits. Some balding. Some bald and spotting metal-rimmed glasses. Very hard to tell if one of them is really you. I settled for a couple of faces with glasses and graying hair, after ruling out the possibility of someone of your nature of responsibilities looking otherwise. I also found from my research that Renk is family name that originated in northern Germany, and refers to characteristics synonymous to ‘stoic’.

I guess it makes me a stalker of sorts. But I guess people look-up people on the internet all the time now, now that search engines like Google legitimise it. I wonder if you have ever done that. But you’re probably one of those terribly busy, no-nonsense kind of people. Besides, you’re dealing with hundreds of people like me around the world, sending out payments. I’m just a name, on your list of people to pay for the shipments.

Our realities are so very different, I suppose. I grew up in a little city in South Asia, known only to the first hippie trail pursuers. I grew up in the times of transition, as our country goes in and out of phases, trying to find roots in a state of affairs that has no foundation. And these transitions have had a strong impact on those like me who grew up experiencing these changes closely. It makes us a nation of contradictions. Our women will dress like the girls in your New York City, in short summer dresses and sandals in the hot months and in knee-high boots and frock coats in winter; but go home to fiddle with the ladle and clean-up while their husbands watch TV and eat on the sofa. Our youth will read articles about

sophisticated tech topics on international forums and walk past piles of garbage and rubble on the streets. It’s a strange nation, this, Mr Renk. I wonder if you know anything about us.

I know nothing about you, myself. Yet, I like to imagine your life. Sometimes, I picture you as a cranky man, who lives alone and swears at the world. And sometimes as a quiet old man who lives by himself, reading his book and cooking his meals methodically. But my favourite imagination is that you have a happy family. I picture you, stepping out of your beautiful home somewhere in the suburbs, driving out to work every day, and then returning home to smiling children and then helping your wife fix dinner and then later maybe having great sex with her. I like to imagine a perfect life for you.

In everything I imagine, I try to put in permanence and happiness. Because these are things we cannot have here. At times, all I dream of is to get out of this claustrophobic city, to a place where everyone is a stranger. Where, if I were living next-door to you, I couldn’t tell this is the man I exchanged emails with for a decade. I long to get away to a place, where friendships are not incestuous, and loved ones don’t turn into enemies at the blink of an eye. I want to be at someplace else, where I don’t go round and round in circles in twenty-seven kilometres just to come back to right whereI started. Such is our city, Mr Renk.

But who knows what your reality is? Maybe you’re like Krapp, walking around your house alone every night, looking through old journals, trying to find your voice again. Maybe you’re drinking yourself to oblivion. And maybe if you weren’t a stranger, I’d be worried sick about your situation. Maybe you don’t have a wife or children who love you. Maybe they left you. Maybe you’re heartbroken and bury your head in figures and bills so you can stay alive. Who knows? Every life is made up of absurdities, I suppose.

Sorry about this long email as opposed to our customary one-liners. I only started out to say that I’m grateful to you for all the payment that arrived on time. It helped me pay the bills. We all need some sort of stability to see us through this turbulence called life and your emails have been an evidence of that to me. Thank you.

I wish you love, happiness and most of all, permanence.

—Subhaaya