Tumhari Amrita

A deliciously cold Delhi November evening, and a play that I had long wanted to watch.

Though the story was slightly predictable - impossible love between a socially accepted man and a self-destructive rebellious artist - the emotions that played out on the actors' faces as they spoke to us through their letters and their expressions carried me along. By the end, Shabana Azmi actually had tears glistening on her cheeks, and I, a lump in my throat. Without sets, props, music, costumes, 2 human beings sat at separate desks, spot-lit, and lived 2 lives as we listened.

Though the story is sad, it plucked at chords in me that I hadn't known I had. That something so uncertain, so ill-fated, should be so innocent and tender. That a relationship lived, and re-lived, through letters should make an uninvolved heart ache. That sometimes sorrow and grief can be devastatingly beautiful. I don't know what it made me feel. But somehow, with my simple life, simple pleasures, and uncomplicated state of heart, the play made me feel that I have not fully lived. That my heart and mind have not known loneliness, longing and passion to the degree that turns the being into the human. I am thankful for this unevolved state of 'being', but a little voice in my head keeps saying, 'You don't know anything because you have not felt anything.'