Pen Friends

Sunday afternoons are the worst. Kids stay home and watched the telly. He joins them on the couch and they alternate between napping and wrestling for the remote. A heavy brunch around noon and I am mostly left alone.

I have this corner of the house to myself, the store room where everything that I never had the heart to give away has found a home. A hoarder, I collect things like memories and bundled them up with a bow of joy. Their first rompers, our wedding invite, that too-small-for-a-mother of-two little black dress, my first typewriter, and even some music CDs, among other things. Letters, diaries, magazines, albums, cameras…  

It was a year ago that I became a pilgrim to this room. My life in a box, I would call it. Irritated by the ruckus in the living room, a restless and agitated me found solace in an old, battered novel I had dug up here. The next week, it was my parent’s charmingly preserved photographs. Then, some sketch books I had kept all these years.

Today, I’m tackling a box that says PRIVATE. I don’t remember why that warning was written in such bold letters, on a brown carton, with a solid black marker. Not that anyone would ever trespass here—the room was invisible to everyone in the house, barred of all technology.  

Half filled with diaries, notepads, notebooks, and papers. Writings. One is mine, I know. And the other is of someone I love very much.

We had no phones in those days. Computers were a luxury we didn’t have. No emails, no texts, no video calls. We did everything on paper. Innocent ramblings of a teenage girl, telling her reader how the day went at school.

“You are not here, so I’m writing everything down before I forget. Maths was boring. Someone played a prank on the Physics teacher and the principle punished us all. I didn’t have anyone to have lunch with in the recess, so I just sat in class…”

Religiously for ten days, there were ten entries. Even if it was just one sentence: “I am too tired to write today, will do it tomorrow.”

I jump with glee when a few pages later, the correspondence start in earnest, with replies. Either side is discussing what someone else reading this would consider tedious humdrum. Yawn-worthy. Just plain boring.

But I am reading it as it is scripture, passages and passages of a life I hadn’t lived in decades. Flashbacks to the time when penning down thoughts really meant penning down. We had shared our deepest thoughts, our worries, our delights, with each other, without judgment.

“I can’t believe you left your bag in her house! What if she read all this? We have written so much about her…”

“I bunked school to go to a movie with some friends…”

“I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up. I love writing but that can’t be a career, can it?”

“Hey, what are you doing sitting on the floor?” He finds me in the room, eyes alight with pleasure, I am sure. It has grown quiet in the house, which means the kids have gone to the park. He brings me a cup of coffee and kneels down to look into the box.

He understands, smiles, and leaves the room. He comes back with a paper and pen. I haven’t written a letter in ages, I tell him. To this he replies, good thing you found the stationery, then.

Thirty years later (not exactly to the day but close enough)—I stir the wheel again.  

Dear Samah,

You won’t believe what I just found in my store room. Our childhood diaries! Remember how we used to exchange them in class? One was almost caught in my bag in school! I was reading them just now and I wanted to write to you. Not text or email, but exercise penmanship.

How are you?

And so, it begins again. 

There’s Something I Have Been Meaning To Tell You

My resolution this year was to write 24 short stories. I'm falling behind, terribly. So now I have a new goal: finish this series by the end of this year. Five chapters, that's all I'm thinking. 

Chapter 1

It is a rather ordinary scene of a mother driving her son to a restaurant for a treat. They are celebrating the last day of school. It’s an ordinary white Maruti Wagon R, dented and battered, on the streets of a busy neighbourhood in Gurgaon. A moment of innocent bliss that’s broken by a cry of, “What the fuck is he doing?”

“Mom! You swore!” A voice comes from behind a Kindle. The boy with the glasses looks up from the backseat to his mother with impatience and reluctance. It’s just another day. 

“Sorry. I’ll pay the fine, but just look at what that crazy bas—head is doing.”

“Mom.”

“Fine, Rs 200. Okay, let’s find parking space.”

Kirti Shah is not a bad driver, she tells everyone who listens, but there are so many idiots on the road. 

“They refuse to see that I have a child in my car, arrogant pricks,” she mumbles but is heard but the child again.

“You are teaching me bad words, mother,” her nine-year-old son complains. Vir has always been wise for his age, she thinks. Even in his short pants and Batman t-shirt, he sounds like a 20-year-old. He tucks the Kindle in his Batman backpack, pulls up the glasses on his nose, and gets out of the car when Kirti opens his door.

“Because you should know the bad words. I am confident you will not use them, smartypants,” she takes his hand in hers and walks towards the café on the other side of the parking lot.

It’s a hot day, with many more to come. Summer break is a wonderful time of the year. She will plan a week-long holiday with Vir, who will drown himself in extra classes on everything from robotics to piano, and hate every spare moment of his time. “No sports,” he had declared earlier when discussing his summer plans. Kirti was a national level football player, but her son had little to do with the sport, or any other. He liked reading books, playing piano, doing his homework, and watching cartoons. An introvert, she had mused while reading to the shy boy who had difficulty making friends in school.

The café is buzzing with activity, even at 4 in the evening. The bright blue walls painted with cartoon characters had made it an instant hit with Vir when it opened two years ago. It helped that the owner was his favourite person.

With her big round eyes, pixie-like hair, feminine voice, and short frame, Sana is a sweetheart. She is also Kirti’s college friend. Vir and Sana were best friends and sometimes, the understanding between the two makes Kirti envious. As a single mother, it is difficult to see her son rely on someone else, but then she knows that he is more like Sana, intense, quiet, and rational than her, impulsive, spontaneous, and passionate. 

She waves to them from behind the counter and they take their favourite table in the corner to admire the set up. The wall behind them is white, with photographs of patrons and guests, but the two walls on the opposite sides are bright and vivid. Batman and Robin, Superman, the X-Men, and some other comic characters are bundled together, with their weapons, stance ready to fight the bad guys. Sana has painted it herself, by taking help from Vir’s various comic books. She has always had a knack for the arts, like her brother.

She joins them with an assortment of new pastries that she has been experimenting with and Vir gives a nod of approval to orange honey and mint macaroons. 

“Tell me again, why did you ever go to a media school?” Kirti asks her as she pours green tea for both of them.

“Because I didn’t know what to do with my life. Good thing that I did though, now I can do my own branding, advertising, and PR.”

“Good thing you went to cooking school later,” Kirti adds and watches Vir devour peanut butter cookies, back to his Kindle.

Sana is wearing white pants and pink top. Her silver loops are new, and so are her white pumps, Kirti notices. The girl sure loves to accessorise. Feminine, that’s the word that you think of when you look at Sana, but she is more than that. She has a great left hook and sharp business acumen. She doesn’t miss things, attention-to-detail is her strong suit.

She asks a server to take Vir to the washroom, and when he’s out of the hearing range, asks Kirti without any theatrics or premonition, “So when were you going to tell me he is my nephew?”

Kirti did not see that coming.