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I am participating in the 30 Days Letter Challenge where you write one letter each day. The 7th in the list is a letter to ‘Your Ex-boyfriend/girlfriend/love/crush’
Dear Ex-Girlfriend,
We were the unaligned ones, owing no allegiance to any of the established ‘gangs’, the free-floating debris of our class. So may be it wasn’t a surprise that we drifted towards each other and become friends. I was still new to the school and not being the sort to make friends easily (that was still somewhere in the distant future), I was glad of your company.
Catherine. That was your name. Eleven years old. Curly hair, worn in a single plait. Wide curious eyes in contrast to the slow way you spoke, almost as if it needed a lot of time for your own words to sink in and for the next ones to follow. Not all that good in studies. Not bad a memory, huh? The last I saw you was more than forty years back.
Though I haven’t thought much about you in all these years, it is hard to really forget you. How can I, when you so easily made mincemeat of my already non-existent self-esteem?
You know something? Remembering you after all these years brought back another long forgotten fact to light. I had attempted to write my first story at 11 years of age. It was in Malayalam. And I shared it only with you!
We had hit upon this idea of having a common notebook. We’d write stories, different ones, in the same book. So I kept the book one day and gave it to you take home, the next. I still remember your spidery handwriting. For the life of me though, I cannot remember what our stories were about. I only know that mine started off with a conversation between two girls, probably it was something to do with the pair of us. Or was it something else altogether?
You probably do not know how happy our ongoing project made me those days. It was our secret. Did we have any plans regarding our work? What were we going to do with our stories? I don’t remember at all.
I remember something else, though. One day, my efficient radars picked up changes in you. I went out of my way to be nice to you, all the time worrying what the matter was. Had I done something wrong? Yes, that’s my speciality. When something, anything, goes wrong, I blame myself first. It holds true to this day.
Later on, when we walked out from our classroom for the Social Studies class to be held in the open below the mango tree near the playground, I saw you with members of one of the ‘elite’ gangs. They had your undivided attention, and were doubling up with laughter. Something about it didn’t seem right to me.
My sixth sense has never failed me, never ever in all these years too. It hadn’t that day either. Suddenly you weren’t talking to me anymore. Eventually news trickled back to me that you regaled them with ridiculously cooked up nonsense about me. We were only eleven, and I got my very first taste of betrayal, back-stabbing. More would follow later in life.
What made you do it, Catherine? Was it your own lack of self-esteem? Did you feel making up stories would gain you entry into the exclusive group? Did it mean so much to you to belong with them that you didn’t care about shredding our nascent friendship to bits, not to mention derailing our ‘illustrious’ writing career too in the bargain!? I wouldn’t know the answers. Perhaps neither did you. I doubt you even remember all of it now.
Well, that’s how you became my ex-girlfriend for the duration of my stay in that school. You sent my notebook back through another girl (I had to ask you for it) after tearing off the pages you had written on. So that was that. I never wrote in the book again. But guess what? If we meet today, I promise you we will have a quiet laugh over it all, and also wipe that ex off the ex-friend tag you hold as of now.
Your as of now, ex-friend.
* * * * *
Those who are taking part in the 30 Day letter Challenge, please don’t forget to add your links to the linky over at Hrishikesh‘s page.
©Shail Mohan 2014
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Poignant and nostalgia
Thank you 🙂 This challenge has given me an opportunity to remember some people from the past 🙂
I loved how you ended it.
Thank you 🙂
Powerful read, Shail. Though I am not regular at the 30 letters, I’ll try to pen something and it’s gonna be my first outing with the challenge. Am I allowed to?
You can start any time Vishal. Go right ahead 🙂
Touching indeed! As I said earlier love the way your fingers tap dance on keyboard and the words flow to your fingers’ tunes! All the best!
Aww… so kind of you, Swati! Thank you 🙂 I am thoroughly enjoying the challenge. But so far till i sit down to write, I have no idea who I am writing to or what I am going to write. 🙂
Well that’s more like you nai? In fact this letter of yours triggered another memory about which I have written in my diary and will be posting ASAP! One of those tales Army kids always have to narrate to others!
Awww…. ❤ people come by the dozen, but very few do get the coveted friends tag, isn't it?
Indeed, yes. And sometimes they don’t value it 🙂 Kids, really.
I complete my letter-reading first before I sit down to post my own and close the laptop, but every time I read yours, I have a lump in my throat and I go away to clear it off before I write. You have such a flair for writing.
When’s your long-pending Pune trip. I want to meet you 😦
Now you put a lump in mine. 🙂 Next month, pakka. 🙂 Going to book tickets next 🙂
oooooh
Sigh, those days and how betrayal stung the soul! Hugs to that little Shail, she’s still somewhere in you
So she is, Ritu. I realized that with a surprise reading your comment 🙂
Catherine, the curly-haired, with the single braid
With whom, Shail, as an eleven-year-old, played
Shared a story-note-book
Later did a cock-a-snook
Consequently, a patch-up has been indefinitely delayed!
Gulshan! I am impressed at the flow of limericks one after the other for each post 😀
My own private dare
To see how i fare
I shall try
To be as spry
As you, till i’m thread-bare!
All the best, Gulshan. 🙂
Ta! 🙂
The little self never really disappears ? Strangely this reminds me a story where we got separated due to a misunderstanding created by a third person who wanted to get close to my friend. LOL
today if I meet I too wanna just hug and relive the moments – may be . Not sure what I actually would do.
Wish Catherine reads this 🙂
If I think of it, it is not just kids who do it.. ‘Mature’ adults will partake in such activities as well
Of course. That’s why I said, more followed later 🙂
An unfortunate trend these days; so sad. I wished I’d known about this challenge. Is it too late to participate?
It is an open challenge that you can take up anytime you wish. Just follow the link. Looking forward to read your set of letters 🙂
Thanks!