I'll come back.

I sniffed the tang in the air today before it started raining and I remembered you. You and that desultory conversation in Aunt Jenny’s hall. Talking about random things glibly,happily.You would curl your nose up in disgust every time I’d touch your share of salted cashew and look away smilingly as soon as I’d withdraw my hands. We would touch beads of water on the window with our fingers and trace them back and forth to write our names, draw patterns of indistinct figures. Sometimes our fingers would touch, linger and the moment would be lost amid giggles in crescendo. Lost? Perhaps that moment has transcended into a world where it is safe. Safely kept away like a treasure. Never forgotten. Never lost.I tiptoe into that world every night, take a look at it and smile a lot. Like tonight.

But life is a desultory journey right? You think something yet you can’t linger. Yes  I have to let go of you, yes  my dear friend, my indispensable treasure. I’ll come back. Please believe I’ll come back.

Nor'westers,you.

Nor'westers remind me of you.Every time I sniff the tang in the air I think about you and I reckon how the ebony clouds hovering above the brick-red patch of sky perfectly mirrors your face after your late afternoon wash,with the vermillion slightly smudged on the forehead.The last time we had it,it was only a fake alarm and you kept whining about the sweltering heat with that characteristic screwing of the nose,while pulling the clothes off the string,barely dry.This would be followed by a staccato of "Kee gorom!".Yes your words are infused into the rhythm of my memory like a beautiful song.A song slightly distant in the memory.The essence of it beautiful,still.


We had it again today,Ma.Except today,it rained.Rained heavily.