Dear Daadi

By Fahima Nahid

It was December beyond  December. Oranges kept aside waiting to be peeled, the quilt smelling of sheer Daadi' s Amritanjan and you sit beside her, gawking at her art of  storytelling about her struggles. And then she asks you to sit by her feet, gets you a hairdo and tells you how her grandma used to do the same for her and how childhood slipped away a little too early for her. She told you that she loved doing henna, but she forgot her hands smelling like one, long before. Her thin wrinkled fingers tenderly caressing through your hair, and often on those afternoons,  sleep stole you away.

And in a moment December changed to another one, and here's you, just here in December a little older, Old enough to cite incidents dated A decade back. You wake up missing your childhood, and caress through the wrinkles of your daadi, watching her sit still, smiling like a flake of sunshine ......in the photograph I meant, the only memory your hands could contain. You begin to realise how demurely her voice is forgotten, her existence is now an old fairy tale, blithely caring to be read anytime soon.

Beside dadi, there was no rush, the world slipped into oblivion, and for a moment, everything else seemed kinder.

I know, to December we owe memories, so let's call it a wrap then?

By Fahima Nahid