LOVE LETTERS – My keepsakes

How I found rediscovered them...

Opportunity strike once and rarely strikes the second time.

June 2011, I got the chance to pump on the accelerator and fast track my career. If it meant moving 10350 kilometers (6429 miles) to another country, another hemisphere, so be it.  If Australia can bring in a fresh-start, better work-life balance, and is my oyster to other dreams, I am game.

I’ve made a home for myself in a rented house in Bangalore.

So beginning July 2011, I was going through a mad pace of pulling my act together. In short, I was browsing through decades of belongings, separating the keep-sakes from those to be given-away/throw-away. It was a painful process so much so that 3 days before I took the flight to Melbourne, I was at my wits end, literally tearing my hair apart. No way near the end to my packing my friend Himanshu stepped in and lend me 3 of his miracle-workers. They boxed up all my effects in a matter of 4 hours. Their nonchalance was incredulous but grateful I was.

So I am a hoarder. For most, they see it as a disease. Especially my minimalistic friend Ashish would shake his head and generously instruct me on the latest fad, that is ‘Minimalistic living’. He is a disciple and I applaud.

For me, I don’t see it as a disease or disorder but I agree that it could be a nuisance especially when you are packing up to start anew.

OMG,MY TREASURES!!!

Because I am a hoarder, a sentimentalist, a memory clinger, while packing up I came across certain keep-sakes that made me all gooey inside. A pebble on which was written ‘I am sorry’ from my die-hard friend Nimisha, chits of amateur poetry written during lectures from my petite-pretty school friend Meda, a small wooden designer case gifted to me by my engineering batch-mate Santosh on my 21^st birthday (I bet he does not remember this) wherein, I have kept other treasures; numerous off-the-shelf and customized birthday cards; But the one keep-sake that stole the attention are ‘the letters’.

CLOSE TO MY HEART, THEY ARE :-)

I came across letters from my school friends, college mates, seniors and juniors alike. Letters from Sib Chettri (a senior who ended up as a best friend) would start from a mere 3 pages to as long as 18 pages (both sides). Letters from my sister Olivia which would start with ‘Oh you know what happened!’ and half way through she’d write ‘Oh why am I writing this? I’ll tell you all about it when you come home for the holidays’ (Exasperating because by the time am home the subject in the letter would be far from our minds, as we nit-pick on each other’s faults all through the holidays). Nathania, my cousin sister whom we all thought hated to write, wrote to me emptying her heart out in those letters. I found letters from Kiran and Koyal – their English vocabulary skills were superlative even then. Sanda’s letters while endearing were a handwriting masterpiece. That good was her handwriting! Eugenia’s letters would make up a diary about the angst of a girl growing up, falling in love and all that is beautiful and nice (God bless her. Eugi is now married and happily running around her two little girls).There were letters from Jenny, Meda, one or two from Christine. Oh Ashish, wrote letters too. Because of what he was then and who he is now, the journey takes me to a reflective wonderment of his life.

There was also a letter from an old priest I met on the way from Delhi to Dwarahat who gave me a lift in his broken-down jeep when our bus broke down. He made sure I reached college safe and sound. He was one of those angels I keep meeting in most of my journeys. The fact that there was a letter from him inquiring about my well-being is an absolution (I don’t know where he is now, if he is still alive but with every thought of him, I send up a thankful prayer).

These were my letters then. They are still my love letters now. Love letters- cherished then, preserved all through these decades, and will always be enshrined as my valuables to posterity.

THE HEART-WRINGER, CLOSEST TO MY HEART

What sent me into an emotional upheaval of disconsolation on one second; smiles and cathartic sobbing in the next second was the letters from my mother.

I forgot I had them. With each one that I read, it brought back memories of years gone back, of what we had, what we could have had, what could have been. Mom wrote to me since the time I stepped out of the house. She continued writing them so much so that I became blameworthy of taking her and her letters for granted. She had poured out her heart in them. Her wishes and desires for her daughters (Olivia and me), her humble dreams for her family, her love for dad, her commitment as a mother, a doctor, and a counselor to every young soul she comes across.

As I was growing up miles away from her, she would write letters of instructions, encouragements and prayers. She wrote about the world how unkind it could be and yet, how with love, compassion and kindness one could survive the world. She would reprimand me when am wrong, acknowledge my efforts when I try – ALL THROUGH HER LETTERS.

Mom wrote to me last when she was lying on her bed, fighting against cancer.

24^th August, 2009 is the date on the letter.

Her letters are a part of her legacy. Her letters would pull me through a bad day then,and lift-up my spirits now.

Through her love letters, she still speaks to me…