Golden trim from a shop in Old Delhi bought almost 10 years to the day ago. I was exhausted by the time I got back home from the market so I thought we'd speak next morning instead of that night. There was no next day for us.
Plans fell apart. We had known for some time that we wouldn't see each other grow old but living that reality was still searing and, more often than not, incomprehensible.
Not long after, I woke up one morning to find what I thought were half a dozen SMSs from him in my inbox, and was elated for a few moments till memory flooded back. A closer look revealed that all of the messages were drafts which I had begun writing when I was supposed to have been asleep.
They weren't the only conversations begun that I have no recollection of. There had been an earlier time when he was the only one truly present. We were half a world apart then, and I ran out of words. He spoke to me every single day, day after day, all through that period. I don't know what was said, I do know he was there.
Other conversations, the ones I remember, were filled with law and laughter and books and textiles and a good deal of sparring. Time never really felt as though it was on our side though. And then we ran out of it. A manuscript unfinished and memory was all that was left. I don't know if we could have made better use of what time was granted to us but I wish we had.