The Last Letter

Shalini’s father Amit is a very well-known cardiothoracic surgeon working in London hospitals. Amit’s father Deepak emigrated to England soon after the British left India. Amit is a true anglophile and has brought up his kids to love the British way of life. His daughter Shalini is de facto the storyteller. Exactly two years ago Amit went to Egypt for a medical conference. He went missing for a few days and then came a letter addressed to Shalini’s mum Emily written by Amit from exile which described how he had been taken hostage by a warring faction in the Civil War in Syria. Amit explained in that letter that the hostage takers had promised to release him exactly after one year.

Shalini’s wedding was scheduled to take place within six weeks of Amit’s trip to Egypt. All arrangements were in place. Amit implored in his first letter from exile that the wedding must take place in his absence. After much debate within the family Shalini’s wedding took place without Amit being present.

Life went on as usual and the letters from Amit came regularly full of romantic thoughts. Nine months after Amit’s departure Emily was diagnosed with cancer. She had a mastectomy. The first cycle of chemotherapy went horribly wrong and proved almost fatal. For the second cycle of chemotherapy the doctors wanted to keep her under close supervision and they started to administer the drugs slowly over a period of three days.The last letter from Amit arrived when Emily was in hospital and brings the story to a dramatic climax.

The author is a retired Civil/Structural/Bridge Engineer who has worked all his working life in England. He divides his time between England and India. He was born in Calcutta and graduated from Calcutta University. He went to England for further studies and settled there. He has authored many books. He uses his pen name Beno Ray for most recent books. He is also known as Satya SankarRay. He has travelled all over the world and his primary interest is photography, cooking and travel. He is the author of seven engineering books, two children’s books, one book on religious study, one cook book and a book of photography.