"Will this be fine?"
I enlarged the image Fahad had sent me on WhatsApp and studied it for a moment before replying.
"Yes. It is. You've captured every detail perfectly."
Fahad was my classmate who was pursuing medicine in Georgia. He was also a manga artist. I was never particularly fond of manga art, but his drawings always appealed to me in a way I could never quite explain.
This time, he had drawn something at my request—a boy standing at a distance with a bow in his hand, aiming an arrow at a pierced heart resting on a girl's head. The heart was already wounded, already hollowed out, yet another arrow was on its way. It was exactly what I had imagined, though now that it existed outside my imagination, it looked far more tragic than I had intended.
Fahad reacted to my message with a red heart emoji and immediately audio-called me.
"Oi, what's the inspiration behind asking me to draw something like this?"
There was a long pause. My eyes slowly filled with tears. Perhaps he sensed what was happening on the other side of the phone. He always did.
"Is this because of your writer boy?" "There you are," he sighed. "Crying like a child again."
A weak laugh escaped through my tears.
"Come online."
"Why?"
"Chess."
"I'm not in the mood."
"Exactly. Come online."
The whole evening we played chess. One game became another, and then another. Just as Fahad had predicted, it eased me. That was what he always did. He never reached out much. Sometimes weeks would pass without us talking. Yet the moment I truly needed him, he was always there. My most trusted friend.
Occasionally he would interrupt the silence.
"You missed a bishop."
"I did not."
"You absolutely did."
And somehow even our arguments became funny. For a little while, just sixty-four squares. Black and white. Move and countermove. By the time we had played nearly ten rounds, both of us were exhausted. Before ending the call, he asked the same question he always asked whenever life became difficult.
“You good?”
“Yes”
"Good. Sleep."
"I will."
"That's another lie."
I laughed.
"Goodnight buddy.”
"Goodnight."
The moment he disconnected, I opened the drawing again. The wounded heart glowed against the darkness of my room. The waiting arrow. The distance between them. I stared at it for a long time. That night my pillow absorbed every tear I had hidden from Fahad. At the time, I thought I was grieving a person. Much later, I realised I was grieving something else. A forest.
I met Raj at a book publishing event on October 16 of 2024.
It was the sort of event where writers discussed literature with the seriousness of diplomats negotiating peace treaties, while readers wandered around carrying books they could barely afford. I don't remember much about the speeches that day. I don't remember who sat in the front row or what exactly was said on stage.
What I remember is meeting Raj. What began as a casual literary conversation eventually ended with us exchanging phone numbers. At the time, I was an undergraduate student in my final year, trying to survive assignments, examinations, and the uncertainty that comes with being twenty. Raj, on the other hand, was a bureaucrat. His wisdom attracted me the most. Perhaps that's the case with all bureaucrats. Or perhaps it was just Raj.
What fascinated me even more was that he was also a published author with nearly thirteen books to his name, some written in our regional language and others in English. For someone like me, who had always found refuge in creativity that alone was enough to spark admiration.
The first meaningful conversation we had over text messages was about a half moon.
"The moon looks incomplete tonight," he texted
“Is, it?” I replied.
"No, it's waiting for the rest of itself to arrive."
"That's a writer-like answer."
Conversations like that slowly became a part of my everyday life.
One thing I immediately noticed about Raj was his willingness to talk about subjects that many people considered uncomfortable. He spoke openly about menstruation, a topic many men still hesitate to discuss. Ironically, he even referred to menstrual blood as "tomato juice. “It was unusual. Amusing. And strangely refreshing. Keeping a person like him in my life became a genuine source of happiness.
He was not only creative; his brain seemed infused with knowledge. Literature, philosophy, spirituality, current affairs—he appeared capable of speaking about almost anything. My own mind had never naturally gravitated toward such vast pools of information, so I often found myself listening with admiration. There was also something deeply spiritual about him. Sometimes he reminded me of characters from Paulo Coelho novels.
Somewhere along the way, we created a forest of our own. Whenever it was just the two of us talking, we rarely remained in the ordinary world for long. Instead, we escaped into that forest. It became a private landscape that belonged entirely to us. We did strange things there. Weird things. The sort of things that make perfect sense only to the people who create them. The forest became a screen separating us from the mundane world beyond it. When I think about those days now, I do not remember every conversation. I remember the feeling.
Girls rarely make the first move. At least, that's what I had always believed. I wanted him to ask the question. And eventually, about a month after our first meeting, the question came through a message quietly appearing on my screen.
"Will you be my soulmate forever?"
I remember staring at those words for a long time.
When I finally replied with a yes, his response arrived almost immediately.
"My soul is trembling.” Trembling. Exactly the kind of word a writer would use. And perhaps that was the moment when the forest truly became ours.
One evening, while I was struggling through a college assignment, Raj called me.
"I've been thinking about translating one of my novels into English."
"That's wonderful."
"But a good translator is impossible to find."
I shrugged even though he couldn't see me.
"Then wait."
"For whom?"
"The right person."
There was a brief silence. Then he asked quietly,
"What if the right person is already on this call?"
"Raj, I've never translated a novel before." I smiled.
"You'll figure it out."
"That's a lot of confidence."
"No," he replied. "That's trust."
At the time, those words felt like a gift.
I remember feeling excited. I was no longer just his lover wandering through the forest. I was becoming part of his creative world. Maybe the forest was about to flourish more. Maybe it was going to become an Amazon rainforest. At least that's what I told myself.
I already had more than enough on my plate. My degree assignments kept piling up. Every week seemed busier than the previous one. Yet somehow I found time for his manuscript. Or to say I made time. I still remember translating his 167-page novel in ten days. Looking back, I honestly don't know how I managed it. I woke up thinking about the manuscript and went to sleep thinking about it. Every spare moment went into carrying his words from one language into another. I wasn't simply translating sentences. And because it belonged to him, I gave it everything I had. The strange thing is that I never received a thank you.
There were compliments. "Wow." "Cool." "So fast." "Nice." "You have great skill." The words arrived occasionally. But they never felt like gratitude. They felt more like observations.
Months later he broke the bad news. “The translation isn't getting published. The novel deals with communal issues related to Assam. Publishing it in English might create controversy. It could even affect my career."
For a few moments neither of us spoke. Ten days of work sat silently inside a folder on my computer.
"Ok." That was all I said.
"You understand, right?"
I did understand. At least logically. Emotionally was another matter. I don't remember him asking how much sadness I had hidden behind an “ok”. There was no apology. No acknowledgement of the effort. No "I'm sorry you spent so much time on this."
Exactly after two weeks he came with another novel. This was the first novel of him where I found that the main wasn’t a bureaucrat. This time he sounded more optimistic.
"This one can work." And just like before, I agreed.
Whenever I asked about publication updates, the answers were always similar.
"You'll understand once you enter the writing field."
"Publishing translated works is difficult."
"I don't have complete freedom in the publishing process."
The explanations were reasonable. Or maybe they were even true. Yet every conversation left me carrying the same feeling. A feeling I couldn't quite name.
With days that passed by I realized that the forest was changing. The place where we once spoke about moons, imaginary rivers, and impossible adventures was gradually becoming something else. A workplace. A place where manuscripts appeared more frequently than affection.
I hadn’t heard him mention the forest again after that, except once—during the first time we had sex. He said while looking into my eyes: “This feels like the first time we sat together in our forest.” I felt a quiet happiness that he had brought up the forest again after such a long gap.
Raj often insisted that he wasn't interested in popularity or follower counts. Yet I remember being surprised when he casually mentioned using the follow-unfollow strategy because publishers had advised him to expand his audience. I understood his desire to reach readers. I knew how deeply he cared about his books. Still, there was something unsettling about hearing someone dismiss popularity while simultaneously pursuing visibility. He could appear online several times a day, post stories, share updates, and interact with others, yet leave my messages unanswered. Later, he would explain that he had been occupied with work, meetings, travel, or one responsibility after another. And so I started to call him “IG MAN”!
And somehow, his explanations always softened my frustration. That was one of Raj's gifts. He knew how to make people feel loved through words. Even when I was disappointed, hurt, or angry, a few carefully chosen sentences could melt me like a Popsicle in summer.
Meeting him in person had become increasingly difficult. Since October 2025, four of our meetings had been cancelled in a row. He became the perfect version of a human being for everyone except me. The perfect officer. The perfect writer. The perfect speaker. The perfect chief guest. The perfect mentor. The perfect public figure. The world seemed to receive the very best of him. I often wondered why I felt as though I was receiving what remained. Perhaps that thought was unfair. Perhaps it wasn't. All I knew was that there are days when he wouldn't leave his office until eleven-thirty at night. His team was becoming one of the most respected teams in India's bureaucracy. His books were finding readers. His reputation was growing.
And somehow, in the middle of all that success, I found myself asking a much smaller question. Could he spare a single day for me out of three hundred and sixty-five?
"A day?"
"Just one."
"You know how things are right now. Work has been crazy. The book is in its final stage. I’ve got some events to attend as chief guest…..We'll meet soon."
Soon. It was one of his favourite words. Soon had already stretched across weeks. Then months. The strange thing about loneliness is that it can exist even when someone loves you. And that evening, for the first time, I began to wonder whether love and priority were two different things. Whenever Raj entered what he called his writing phase, he seemed to disappear entirely into that world. It was as though writing demanded complete isolation and I became one of the first things sacrificed to his Seshat.
Last Friday, Raj spoke to me about translating yet another manuscript. This time it was a novel written for adolescent readers.
"Will you do this one too?" he asked.
"Yes."
That had become a familiar pattern between us.
Later that evening I told Fahad about it.
"You're translating another one?"
"Yes."
"For free?"
I laughed.
"You always ask that."
"Because you never answer properly."
"I don't want monetary benefits."
Then Fahad sighed.
"One day you're going to realise that love and labour are not the same thing, you idiot!"
At the time, I brushed the comment aside. For me, it was never about money. I had consciously decided never to measure my relationship with Raj in financial terms. I knew his status. I knew his profession. But I wanted to be seen as his lover, not as a service provider waiting for payment. Over the years, I had spent my pocket money buying him gifts for Christmas, Valentine's Day, his birthday, and our anniversary—which he rarely remembered. I never expected expensive gifts in return. I never wanted luxury. A roadside flower would have been enough. A handwritten note. Something that said, "I thought about you." Instead, I received nothing. I tried to find happiness in that nothingness I received.
Yesterday, Raj told me that the first novel which I had translated for him was being published by a UK-based publishing house. He complained endlessly about the process. The manuscript had been edited too heavily. The book had lost its authenticity. The cover design wasn't right. His author photograph wasn't suitable. At one point he even claimed that he had asked the publisher to stop circulating the book altogether.
Then he mentioned something else.
"They removed your name as translator."
"My name?"
"Yes."
"Who did they replace it with?"
"A Russian translator."
I remember feeling disappointed, but not devastated. By then I had learned that publishing was a world full of uncertainties. I listened quietly and allowed the conversation to move on.
Today morning the moment I woke up curiosity got the better of me. I opened social media. What I found looked very different from the story I had heard. There were promotional videos. Launch announcements. Celebratory posts. Expressions of gratitude. People being thanked. People being acknowledged. Among them was a friend of my professor who had helped with proofreading. The Russian translator was acknowledged as well. I searched for my own name. It wasn't there. I stared at the screen for nearly 5 minutes. Then I closed the application. Maybe there was an explanation for this as well. There always seemed to be one. But explanations don't always change how something feels.
Now suddenly, I recollected George Orwell’s line from ‘Why I write’-“All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery.”
He often said in his interviews that those fortunate enough to enter India’s bureaucracy or diplomacy ended up sitting on the long years of toil of those could not reach the same goal. In the same way, his blue-bound book now feels like it sits on the tears of a translator’s quiet, invisible labour.
At this very moment I’m sitting in front of my PC, ready to translate the chapter titled Cinderella from his chic-lit novel. And strangely, I found myself slipping into Cinderella’s place—except my glass slippers had suddenly grown too big for me, no longer fitting my feet, but perfectly fitting Drizella’s, my wicked stepsister.
DoubleSpeak 