Of late, there has been a feeling settling in my chest like dust in an empty room—soft, silent, and certain. It is the quiet realization that my memories are not permanent things. Not chiseled into stone or sealed up in iron-bound books, but written in pencil, the graphite growing faint with each passing season. I am aware, now more than ever, that what I remember will not be remembered for long. I think of my parents often. I remember my mother in her early sarees —floral, soft, like the curtains of a spring house. As the years passed, her colours dulled. Maybe they matched her age better, or maybe they just matched her mood. I see her now in my mind, young, barefoot and newly married, in a kitchen not yet hers, lifting a spoon to her mother’s lips and asking if the peas were soft enough. What was her scent like? Turmeric? Talcum powder? Or those white rajnigandha flowers she loved so much? I don’t remember. I think of my father and the way he used to hum when he shaved, a...
