17th April 2026
My precious angel,
I know you are unaware of the state I have been in. This entire month of April, I have been unwell. The day before yesterday, Dr. Swati ran my blood tests and told me the truth I had already begun to feel: paratyphoid. The symptoms mirrored my suffering—nausea, headache, dizziness, loss of appetite, and a body steeped in fever. Dr. Swati wrote me a small arsenal: Zifi 200, an antibiotic to be taken twice a day; Zincovit to summon back my weakened immunity; Ondem 8 to quiet the reflex of vomiting; and ORS to keep the tides of dehydration at bay. But fate had already guided me. The day before her diagnosis, I had consulted Bengali doctor near our society—the same one I have always turned to whenever cold or fever found me. The same doctor I brought you to when you felt unwell, when you slipped on the stairs and sprained your foot. Do you remember him, my angel? The one who whispered home remedies for your migraines into the anxious air between us?
It does not matter, truly, whether you remember or not. What matters is this: every chapter of my life, every turn of the page, I weave you into it. You were beside me in my suffering, in my sorrow, and in my joy—those bright, aching moments like driving toward Karnal to my maasi’s house with my family, or the shock of discovering a call recording of my late nana, his voice rising from the dead to touch me once more. So how could I not reach for you when those same seasons of pain, grief, and gladness return? Each time they circle back, they lead me to you. They open the door where your memory lives. I will forget you only when the very last cell of my brain surrenders to silence.
I am better now, health slowly returning like a hesitant guest. That is why I can write to you again. But when I was laying in my bed, fever pressing down on me like a great weight, I was shedding tears—not from the illness, but from the knowing that you are no longer here to ask how I am. I still hope. One day, the universe may show mercy if my love is pure. One day, I will be given the chance to sit before you and tell you everything these months without you have carved into me.
Your gem, Vivek Prasad
