Love

Coming from the tradition that gave us the Karma Sutra, K. Malik has a lot to live up to when he proffers assistance to his countrymen in the preparation of letters of love. But it is precisely this noble endeavour that we are to celebrate in this week’s extract from that most efficacious of guides for the correspondent, 1111 Letters For All Occasions. Not for Mr. Malik all that messing around with pestles and mortars and bawdy talk of pinching and slapping, lingams and yonis. Oh no. Mr. Malik is much higher minded than that, although, by these examples, he lacks no ardour – and the spelling mistakes below are faithfully reproduced: it is, I believe, a testament to the strength of passion that overruled M. Malik’s normally scrupulous eye for grammar. But it is when he turns his hand to poetry that he transcends his own very high standards. And if anyone can be sure of what a household motion is, please do let me know. I suspect it is to do with housework rather than the toilet...

It is just possible that young people following his guidelines will find the effect of their epistles more prophylactic than procreational...

One last note. My apologies in advance to anyone reading this who realises that the silk ribbon-tied letter which led to love’s young dream blooming that has been preserved in a drawer all these years was not actually penned by young Lothario, but cribbed from K. Malik’s example. Please do not address your complaints to me, but to New Light Publishers of New Delhi.

LOVE LETTERS

Love letters are the most delicious part of all correspondence. Here below are a few specimens which you can use, employ and emulate.

Personal Magnetism
To see you is to fall head over heels in love with you. You are like a red rose that’s newly sprung in June. Your voice is like a melody that is sweetly played in tune.

When may I have the honour of meeting you and pressing you to my breast and squeeze the elixir our of your kisses and embraces?

Yours,

Feeding a Flame

All my thoughts, all my passions and all my delights feed the sacred flame of love for you in my heart.

Let us live, Lizzy, and love, and value at a paisa all the talks of crabbed old men who do not understand love.

Yours,

Ministers of Love

All my thoughts and fancies are concentrated on you. Day and night I think of nothing but you. When are you coming to me? Whatever stirs this mortal frame are but ministers of love. When shall I squeeze you in my arms to let the elixir ooze out of your rose-petalled lips?

Why not meet me Friday evening at Lido? I shall be there at 6pm.

Elopement

Let us leave everything and everybody. We shall sail beyond the sunset and the horizon. We shall follow the morning star until we die. It may be that we shall touch the happy Isles.

Censure

There are some meannesses which are too mean even for men. Only Women – Lovely Women – can venture forth to commit them!

To Middle-aged Women

You are a perfect woman, nobly planned, to warn, to comfort and to command. In your eye serene I see the pulse of the universe. You are a spirit, yet a woman too. Your household motion is light and free. Your steps possess virging liberty.

Best and Brightest

Oh, my beautiful beloved, best and brightest, come away. Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead, are heaped for the beloved’s bed. Let me be crushed to juice under your satin skin. Your passion vibrates in my memory and makes me a slave of your passion. Help me to live or die.

Enhanted Boat

Bear Neena,

My soul is an enchanted boat that floats like a sweet swan on the ocean of your love. I am lost upon the silver waves of your singing. Come, love with me and merge into my heart and be mine forever.

Yours,

Nath

Stealling a Beloved

The seed we sow another reaps.

The wealth we find another keeps.

Let it not be said that the girl I discovered was kidnapped by another college student!

Be you mine forever.

From the Girl to the Boy

Oh, I am in love with the janitor’s boy.

And the janitor’s boy loves me:

He’s going to hunt for a desert isle

In our geography.

Next week: Letters of Complaint