If — Summary

I send SMS to you: How long I do not see you... How long I do not meet you... And I expect, expect for your answer Mobile tinkle ...messages come I see with eagerness, see messages: Ad of songs, or radio, or lottery Or matrimony.com with special discount I feel sorrow.

You like to ramble in shopping mall You like to suck ice-cream Sitting on the stairs of Rabindra Sada Auditorium You like to gossiped Sometimes you like to sit silently On the chair of Esplanade Metro station To hear songs on mobile phone You also like to send SMS

I move in shopping mall by oneself I take ice-cream by one I look paintings in Academy by oneself Or sit on the chair of metro station I also send SMS by oneself: How long I do not see you. ..and expect... if...

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A lonely speaker keeps sending text messages to someone they miss, "How long I do not see you," and waits for a reply. Each time the phone chimes, hope rises, but the messages are only ads for songs, radio, lotteries, or marriage websites. The speaker's sorrow is stated plainly, and it hurts because the phone promises connection and delivers junk.

The middle stanza lists what the absent person loves: wandering the mall, eating ice cream on the auditorium steps, gossiping, sitting quietly in a metro station with songs on her phone. The details feel warm and ordinary. In the last stanza the speaker repeats every one of those activities alone, visiting the same kinds of places, as if trying to keep the other person present. The ending trails off with "if...", leaving a wish unfinished. The mood is quiet, wistful, and a little awkward, which suits the plain, slightly broken English. The poem never says what happened between them, and that silence is part of its ache.

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