Tanya unlocks the last box kept in the basement of her grandfather’s home. She sighs a bit before dragging the huge box across and sitting down next to it on the cold floor. As the box opens, she looks in to find bits of cloth – cloth her grandmother saved over years when it’d be leftover from stitching yet another sweater for Rehan. Tanya smiles looking down at it. She cant help but suddenly remember everything about her grandparents all at once. Before the tears can fall, she starts sorting the miscellaneous things in the box. Almost as everything is out, Tanya notices a tiny bundle of notebooks right at the bottom of the old box. The minute she picks it up, she knows. She knows exactly what it is. Tanya might be well in her forties now, but she remembers being 23 as well as she remembers every single Harry Potter scene (and mind you, she remembers every little detail). Tanya picks up the notebooks and dusts them lightly. She isn’t entirely sure if she should open them. There was a time in her life when she had hoped to forget everything that had happened back then. Maybe she should just burn the whole lot. Wipe it off. Then she remembers Rehan. Rehan, sitting with that stupid smile on his adorable face, shaking his legs even though Aryan keeps trying to stop him, asking almost daily now “Mom, how did you decide what to name me?” Tanya looks at the notebooks and thinks that maybe a few years down the line Rehan can read them and when he does, then he’ll know.
Tanya opens the notebook with the darkest shade of blue covering. She chuckles at her naivety. She was certainly something else. She flips to the last page and comes face to face with her messy handwriting.
Dear Rehan,
Its funny how many months have gone by without talking to you. I really don’t get how you couldn’t give up smoking after that long one year break because not talking to you has become a habit after six months. Its selfish; but I wish you were here right now. I mean, this is the happiest day of my life. I want, no, I need my best friend here. A part of me feels like I can’t really get out there and push the varmala onto Aryan’s next without feeling your presence next to me. But you are not here. You haven’t been here for a while now. Even when you were here, you felt so distant. So distant, that you weren’t really here.
Rehan, you once told me that you didn’t have a favourite colour. That you couldn’t be unfair to other colours. I found that so fascinating. Really silly, but fascinating. I think thats what you were to me – silly, but fascinating; confusing, but an adventure; heartbreaking, but home. I tried as well, to not have a favourite colour. I tried to fit into your life like I’d fit you in mine. I think maybe I succeeded because even now I can still remember the feel of your lips on mine.
When I close my eyes, I can still hear you – never saying you love me, but always meaning it. I like to tell myself that you and I were the perfect combination, that we could’ve made anything work even though my mother hated you and your family was indifferent to me. You were so stubborn. I’m sure we would’ve made it work. I mean, who would’ve dared to argue with you when you grinned at them with those blue eyes? Actually, its funny, but I can’t remember the colour of them. I close my eyes and I can see them but maybe they now just seem blue because blue is my favourite colour? (Sorry)
Weirdly, even though we have a ton of pictures together, it feels like you only exist in my memory now. Like I’ll blink and three years down the line, I won’t remember why you hated pepperoni on your pizza so much. I think that I’m trying really hard to remember everything you meant to me but without you actually there to remind me, how hard can I try? Its actually time for me to go now. Aryan must be already up on stage waiting for me to make my grand bridal entry. I wish you could’ve seen him. Apparently, I make him happy.
Maybe one day, when you look down and you see me, I’ll finally make you happy too.
Love, Tanya.
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