Love Letters in the Thar Desert
The desert kept their secret for forty years. Until the last letter arrived.
Razia found the bundle of letters in her grandmother's almirah — sixty-four of them, tied with faded red thread, written in an Urdu script so beautiful it looked like art. Each one addressed to 'My dearest Shirin.'
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She had never heard her grandmother called Shirin. Everyone called her Dadi, or Nani, or 'that stubborn woman who makes the best ker sangri in Jaisalmer.'
The letters were from a man named Farhan. A painter from Jodhpur who had met her grandmother at a Urs fair in 1971. They had written to each other for three years before the families intervened and Shirin was married to someone else — a good man, a kind man, but not Farhan.
The last letter was different. It was written six months ago. In a shaking, old hand.
'I heard you lost Hamid last year. I lost Gul in March. I have been sitting in my blue house in Jodhpur for four months wondering if a man of 74 is allowed to be a fool in love again. I think he is. Tell me if I'm wrong.'
Razia looked up from the letters. Her grandmother was sitting in the courtyard, looking toward the desert with an expression she had never seen on that face before.
Hope.
"Dadi," Razia said softly. "I think you have a letter to write."
