Remembering...

Is it really a year that has passed by? Wasn’t it just the other day? How did we manage to cross this one year? It had felt insurmountable then.

A long drawn year, each day heavier than the last has passed by. Another Ulsavam- Temple festival came by and went.  There was the shamiana in the temple precincts, the stage was decorated, the concerts took place, the crowd was there, and we were in the crowd.  The awareness of a certain absence loomed large in the consciousness, sometimes feeling like a thick, unwieldy slick and sometimes like waking up with a start from a horrible nightmare.

They’ve named the street where her home stands, after her. The silence, the emptiness, reverberated with her absence. Every unspoken word was laden with memories.  Walking through her home, touching the wall, the vessels in her kitchen, the shelves, a forlorn hair clip, one sought her presence in vain.