Dear Love,

Years pass by…everything changes but nothing really does. Though, each time I find you slipping away from my memory, I touch my chin and there you are, going ‘chi chi’ as if I’m a toddler needing to be amused.

I hardly pass by the cremation ground these days. …I’m not supposed to (docs orders, to let all four of you go). You of course are the hardest to stop clinging to, of all those who occupy my heart. The one person I loved without the fear of loosing, who looked at me as if I was the queen of it all, my confidant and most importantly the bridge between me and the rest of the world. How well you navigated through this world- calmly and always detached from the drama around us! ‘Why do you care? Just stop reacting. Iss jungli suar ke gusse ko control kar!’ By the way calling someone a wild boar, is highly disrespectful! You would be amazed at the way I would spiral out of control and I was confused by your ability to sleep through it all.

I miss you more than usual these days. When I’m sad I want to see you pretty face but when I’m saner or happier, I want to see it more. The shrink said to me the other day, ‘ you’re making progress…you want to bring someone to meet me, so we can plan, the days when you struggle?’ ‘ The only person who would have understood is dead and the rest are trying to convince me this is bullshit. So no thanks!’ Remember the last year of your life, you got help from M. We were both a little frailer than most, I guess.

I was sitting in a cafe, in Kashmir a few weeks ago. As I looked out of the window at the Dal, sipping my coffee in this quaint place, I recalled how your friend SG, would pull your leg. ‘Diya at forty will be reading a book and sipping coffee by herself in Ladakh and Dusty will call her, ‘ Diyu my kids are troubling me, come and scold them!’ and she’ll rush back!’ Forty two love, all alone, sipping coffee by herself but you’re not there to fight for. These day, one fights for oneself though. It took them a while to figure out, this one is programmed a little different. ‘ This is bad for your mental well being. Do it so you can sleep well…do it for this that and the other.’ Then they said ‘babies’ and I said bring it on. I wish I could make a few like you but considering my luck and our genes, I shouldn’t take that chance. Imagine, if they turn out to be like me, freaking horror show…no…no..no!

Over lunch a couple of weeks ago, a friend was talking about how men are and I said the men in our house weren’t dominating. ‘ Maybe your brother was a little docile because you’re like this. He must have been giving you space to be yourself!’, I guess, he was trying to make sense of my aggression. ‘ I wasn’t always like this!’ is all I could say. You weren’t there to tell him how I was or how we were as kids, growing up the way we did. Totally different and yet connected, almost completing one another. You -more in touch with your feminine side, mostly in the company of women, peaceful, practical and level headed. Me-with my high testosterone levels, in love with high speeds, chase and drama, perpetually getting into trouble with the parents, hating the whole world and it’s mother other than you (and whichever man I was involved with at the time). Now, when I look back, not only was I fiercely protective but almost territorial about you. Sometimes, I wonder, is loosing you to death more painful or would loosing you to life have been more difficult for me?