Uma,
Thank you for your kind letter about Dida. We will all miss her so much.
What I want you to know is that I will never tell anyone, not your family or mine, that it was your idea. No matter how much they press me for the truth. And even
though you ask me to tell you, there’s no point in dwelling on what happened after you left.
It’s awful. I don’t want to upset you, but I just want you to know that we should both have thought more carefully about what we were doing. I should have
made you understand how it is here . . . that some things are unjust and some people have nothing . . . and, even though we don’t like it any more than you do, it’s not easy to
fix. In many ways I feel responsible, because it was such a crazy, spur-of-the-moment act – I suppose I just wanted you to know that I care as much as you do. But how we tried to help
was foolish and thoughtless and wrong.
I can’t tell you, when I remember the sadness in our grandmother’s eyes, how sorry I am for what we did, but I have not written to you to cause you
pain.
I just don’t know what there is left to say to each other at this moment in time. Of course, I will always hold you in my heart. I’m not blaming you
– we are both equally responsible for running away with our imaginations.
I think we should stop writing to each other for a while.
I hope that one day we will meet again when the pain of this has passed.
Anjali
I search through the pile again, but there is nothing else until the condolence letter for Grandad in 2011. I read this last letter over and over, trying to work out what could
have happened to make them stop talking for thirty years. There’s no way the silence between them could have been ‘just losing touch’, and I feel terrible now because it’s
obvious that the reason why Mum was in such a state before I left has something to do with what happened between her, Anjali and my great-grandmother. I know Grandad went to Great-Grandma’s
funeral but then never returned to India after that. I feel like a thief stealing into someone else’s house of memories. I suppose it serves me right for taking the album in the first place,
because now I won’t be able to let things lie until I know what really caused that silence. And I can’t ask Mum or Anjali for the answers.
I stand up, go over to the sink and stare into the mirror. I didn’t notice before that the frame is decorated with hand-painted cheeky-faced monkeys. I wonder if this mirror once belonged
to little-girl Anjali. I look into it at the deepening rings of tiredness under my eyes and wonder if anyone else will be able to read on my face how guilty I feel. I take Mum’s earrings out
of my bag and push them through the half-closed-up holes in my lobes. It hurts, and I think maybe that’s right, it should hurt, because I was so vile to Mum before I left, and she obviously
felt bad about the argument . . . What if me coming here is all part of Mum’s sorry to Anjali for whatever it was that happened between them all those years ago. What if . . . without even
knowing it, I’m the olive branch?
I unlock the bathroom door, walk over to Priya’s bed and lie down, looking up through the great arching branches of the tree . . . All the images from Anjali’s letters and a stream
of questions bombard my mind as I read the letters over and over again.
When I can’t read any more I take out my iPod and listen to Jidé’s playlist and it makes me wish more than ever that he was here with me . . . ‘Summer Breeze’ . .
. I’ve never heard this song before. Jidé spends hours trawling through old stuff on YouTube, and he always finds the perfect song for my mood. Lately he’s been picking out songs
he thinks I could sing. I think it’s his way of encouraging me to write and sing my own stuff. He’s always going on about what a great voice I have and that I should record it, so that
I’m forced to believe that I’m good. But he
Thank you for your kind letter about Dida. We will all miss her so much.
What I want you to know is that I will never tell anyone, not your family or mine, that it was your idea. No matter how much they press me for the truth. And even
though you ask me to tell you, there’s no point in dwelling on what happened after you left.
It’s awful. I don’t want to upset you, but I just want you to know that we should both have thought more carefully about what we were doing. I should have
made you understand how it is here . . . that some things are unjust and some people have nothing . . . and, even though we don’t like it any more than you do, it’s not easy to
fix. In many ways I feel responsible, because it was such a crazy, spur-of-the-moment act – I suppose I just wanted you to know that I care as much as you do. But how we tried to help
was foolish and thoughtless and wrong.
I can’t tell you, when I remember the sadness in our grandmother’s eyes, how sorry I am for what we did, but I have not written to you to cause you
pain.
I just don’t know what there is left to say to each other at this moment in time. Of course, I will always hold you in my heart. I’m not blaming you
– we are both equally responsible for running away with our imaginations.
I think we should stop writing to each other for a while.
I hope that one day we will meet again when the pain of this has passed.
Anjali
I search through the pile again, but there is nothing else until the condolence letter for Grandad in 2011. I read this last letter over and over, trying to work out what could
have happened to make them stop talking for thirty years. There’s no way the silence between them could have been ‘just losing touch’, and I feel terrible now because it’s
obvious that the reason why Mum was in such a state before I left has something to do with what happened between her, Anjali and my great-grandmother. I know Grandad went to Great-Grandma’s
funeral but then never returned to India after that. I feel like a thief stealing into someone else’s house of memories. I suppose it serves me right for taking the album in the first place,
because now I won’t be able to let things lie until I know what really caused that silence. And I can’t ask Mum or Anjali for the answers.
I stand up, go over to the sink and stare into the mirror. I didn’t notice before that the frame is decorated with hand-painted cheeky-faced monkeys. I wonder if this mirror once belonged
to little-girl Anjali. I look into it at the deepening rings of tiredness under my eyes and wonder if anyone else will be able to read on my face how guilty I feel. I take Mum’s earrings out
of my bag and push them through the half-closed-up holes in my lobes. It hurts, and I think maybe that’s right, it should hurt, because I was so vile to Mum before I left, and she obviously
felt bad about the argument . . . What if me coming here is all part of Mum’s sorry to Anjali for whatever it was that happened between them all those years ago. What if . . . without even
knowing it, I’m the olive branch?
I unlock the bathroom door, walk over to Priya’s bed and lie down, looking up through the great arching branches of the tree . . . All the images from Anjali’s letters and a stream
of questions bombard my mind as I read the letters over and over again.
When I can’t read any more I take out my iPod and listen to Jidé’s playlist and it makes me wish more than ever that he was here with me . . . ‘Summer Breeze’ . .
. I’ve never heard this song before. Jidé spends hours trawling through old stuff on YouTube, and he always finds the perfect song for my mood. Lately he’s been picking out songs
he thinks I could sing. I think it’s his way of encouraging me to write and sing my own stuff. He’s always going on about what a great voice I have and that I should record it, so that
I’m forced to believe that I’m good. But he
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