തുടക്കമില്ലാത്തതാകുമീയുണ്മതൻ
ഒടുക്കമെന്തിന്നുഭയന്നിടുന്നു നാം?

 Yesterday afternoon I fell asleep strangely thinking of a rainy day from 12 years ago. A week before my wedding a very good friend and I went for a movie. It was raining cats and dogs. I was not particularly a Sharukh Khan fan, but since my friend was really looking forward to seeing this one, and since I was getting married and moving away and since I was worried about her and wanted to make her happy, I decided to ignore the inclement weather. We did not get an Auto rikhaw and had to wait in the rain for almost an hour. By the time we reached the theatre we were soaking wet. The theatre was air conditioned and needless to say that I was lucky not to have caught pneumonia days before the wedding.

Then I woke up to the startling sound of my telephone, and it was my friend, whom I watched the movie with!

Life would change again and we would all have to accommodate changes, but with out a few things and some people, I wouldn't know who I am...

From the pensieve 15

Miniechi and I sat in the bus and watched the city pass by. We had taken many bus rides together, but this time was special. She would leave me at West hill, and go back alone. We didn't have much to talk, I had been talking to her all my life, a half an hour of silence was probably good for her. we sat holding hands. I had lain down next to her the previous night and wept a good part of the night. But she didn't know.

She had been studying to be a doctor. 'Not a real doctor,' I had heard people say, he sister and brother in law were the real doctors. But still, I had always been very proud of her. She had a small medicine cupboard, where she kept the mysteriously smelling syrups and  powders. Almost all my ailments were cured by her. Sometimes she would let me play with the bone set.( Babiechi, the real doctor, would have never let me anywhere near it). I would hold the scary looking skull in my hand and wonder about time it was alive. When Miniechi went and stayed in the college hostel for a short period of time, I had been totally inconsolable. But all that was in the past. That night I was leaving for Trivandrum with my mother.

We walked to Fisheries quarters, she helped us pack our bags, then she bade farewell. I walked with her again to the bus stop. West hill was all but familiar to me, I had been living there on and off the previous year. She held the loose end of her red chiffon sari carefully as he boarded the bus. She looked thin, frail and sad. I waved my hand.

I would always remember her that way, though she had never completely disappeared from my life. But of course, life changes people in unpredictable ways.  I would always remain grateful to her, for being, perhaps, the most important person of my childhood.

I do not usually tear up when I say goodbye, I save them for later, I sketch pictures in my mind and keep them forever!