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

Ochre Sky Stories

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;

Malayalis and Malayalam;

Mammooty-Mohanlal-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);

Natasha Badhwar

and

Raju Tai

’s writing workshop;

new friends at a writing workshop;

and, the Ochre Sky Writing Circle.

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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?