I Didn't Know I Was Looking For Them...
...till I found them. I have a list for you!
People and things happen to us. Good and bad. And these make us who we are. Make us better, mostly I think. The whole is better than the sum of all its parts and so and so forth.
So when we were given this prompt “Things/persons I didn’t know I was looking for till I found them” at the
Writing Circle, I scoured through books, bookshelves, cupboards, movies, rooms, homes, schools, college, friends, doctors, strangers, jobs, villages, towns, cities, countries and my memory. And made a list of things/persons I didn’t know I was looking for till I found them.
Here it goes:-
Udit—I heard him before I saw him;
fairy lights;
old lampshades;
yellow and red floors;
board games;
fridge magnets;
the green hulk hand;
the shiny red horn bell;
the uplifting honk of the shiny red horn bell;
the book stamp gifted by Jasmeeta aka Amma—a gift that keeps giving and a reason I keep buying books;
bookmarks designed as clues to a murder mystery;
the other pair of a kite bookmark I gifted Bose;
a handmade scented soap tucked away in the cupboard for when have I run out of Cinthol and Liril;
old black and white photos;
a photograph of mum, dad, and me in an old photo album (among many);
dad’s baniyan and bumchum shorts he left behind the last time he was here;
the diary where dad had started cataloging my books;
my first James Hadley Chase in a tiny, second hand bookshop in Hazratganj in Lucknow;
a full treasure trove of James Hadley Chase books at Blossoms in Bangalore a few years later;
Anthony Horowitz, Richard Osman, Keigo Higashino, Lucy Foley;
Mammooty-Mohanlal-Parvathy-Dulquer-Darshana-Nimisha-Faahad-Chakochan-Tovino-Basil-Roshan-Prithviraj-Asif Ali so on and so forth;
a 15-year-old Haddock t-shirt (embroidered in a small shop in Darjeeling) that still fits (almost);
the red sweater mum knitted for me in school (that also still fits);
the pillow cover at mum’s house that was once my skirt;
Hajmola, antacid and anti-allergic in my bag on trips;
A vaseline lip guard in the pocket of a jacket;
the UPSC admit card—a reminder of what I definitely wasn’t cut out for;
the HANPP paper which resurfaced in different parts of my house for years (a relic of my utter failure as a Science reporter);
Udit’s very red passport size photo;
a stash of pilot V7 RT black pens;
brand new diaries bought in London and Paris;
a packet of coffee in the most desperate of times;
Cosmopolitans in the shadiest of bars;
a piece of cranberry chocolate;
some dried cranberries;
Udit’s omelette-making skills and now his permanent breakfast duties;
Porotta and beef fry;
a bowl of my favourite cabbage and beans poriyal in mum’s fridge;
a dabba of curd;
a big bowl of custard everyday after school;
a bottle of wine —Australian, Chilean, German;
the moss green packet of Chili-Limon Lays;
a window seat and a lower berth on a train;
a clean toilet;
clean bedsheets at hotels;
being received by Udit at the airport and railway station after a long trip;
school friends who haven’t changed a bit and are still nearly in 7 C;
our best friend, Bose, who wears new clothes on my birthday, my anniversary and my book launch;
Dr Mattoo my orthopedician who was in the ER the day I had my whiplash injury 17 years ago;
Tara, Piku and Jabbar—my little friends;
my grown up friends—old and new;
a good boss—Tejas ‘slave-driver’ Patel;
an older person who is not a Bhakt;
smart, courageous, brave and inspiring women in our lives;
smart, courageous, brave and inspiring women of this country (and everywhere else);
and ’s writing workshop;new friends at a writing workshop;
and, the Ochre Sky Writing Circle.
By the way, making lists wasn’t something I was looking to do at the writing workshop. I wasn’t a list person, unlike Udit—who loves to-do lists. But here I am making one. This was mine, what does your list look like?
Get a sense that the 'very red passport size photo' has a story behind it. :D
What a pyara list, Savvy. And just amazing that you have wrote about so many of these!!