I remember when I fell off my tricycle and broke my arm.
I remember when I gave a school crush a dead cockroach for a gift.
I remember when my drawing teacher slapped me hard for colouring a flower wrong.
I remember Mowgli, Potli Baba and Pingu.
I remember Kya banoge Munna on DD and morning-school breakfasts of curd rice and mango thokku.
I remember the kachoriwaala outside college.
I remember Nithya and our long talks on the porch behind chem lab.
I remember my first kiss, on the steps leading to a lily pond, with the geese cackling.
I remember summer nights of mango ‘kuchi’ ice.
I remember the day it rained ice and I ate most of it, even as lightning and thunder threatened to scare me.
I remember my brother’s opinion on horoscopes.
I remember how my kindergarten teacher made me spell my name ” Vaidevi”.
I remember all the stories of my sister’s crushes and all her pains of growing up.
I remember the first wine I tasted.
I remember sprinting across the Besant Nagar beach, oblivious to the onlookers.
I remember wanting to look like Nandita Das.
I remember Armageddon, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Maine Pyar Kiya.
I remember the ‘idly’ tank at Kilpauk Reserve Bank Colony.
I remember a certain roti-gajar halwa lunch at the zoo.
I remember my baby, Uma. And many other babies of mine, some not human.
I remember my tree back home and how she always made me feel better.
And how if she had been, this post would not have.
And how I do not understand her anymore.
How we now speak different languages.
[ Idea of " I remember" inspired by a book : " Je me souviens" by Georges Perec. ]
