A letter to my brother!

Once in a while we open our treasure jars with keepsakes from many years, seashells from holidays, movie tickets of first dates or hastily scrolled love-notes to relive the olden golden times.

Letters from these memory-chests are time portals to happy memories!

Letter writing has gone to dust but its charm lives on. In the socially extroverted world, the quick story tags and Whatsapp forwards have taken over this old-school method of showing love.

Such thoughts clouded my busy mind as I sat one morning at my office desk, jotting down on our letter pad, messages from sisters to brothers. I paused and looked around absorbing the hustle-bustle of rakhis being made, packed, and dispatched.

The studio air pulsated with the happy emotion of rakshabandhan.

After reading and writing all the full-of-love anecdotes and inside family jokes, growing-up memories of me and Umang, my brother gushed in. I too had to write a letter to him now!

August 7th 2021

Dear Umang Bhaiyya,

As rakhi nears, I miss home a little more each day. Especially this year with Dolu’s being the first rakhi You know Umang, I have written so many letters on behalf of so many sisters that I felt, why am I not writing a letter to you?

Umang, for me, you are the childhood I get to keep forever, and that is a beautiful gift. In every letter I write, I see us. Your life journey has also been a part of my journey.

With your marriage, I first made a Lumba for Preeti bhabhi and we started to started to make lumbas at Nomad.

This year I didn't want to send Dolu a big rakhi. Hence I made the Dolu-Meethu rakhi for Dolu and Meethu.

I am bewildered at this realization, how strongly your presence in my life has shaped my Rakhi journey entirely.

We were thick as thieves bhaiyya, but as time passed we got busier. But as many years and miles are between us, you and I, are there for each other.

Always.

I am sending rakhi for you all. You know what! Let's take a break after rakhi and plan a staycation to Mussoorie. Done then, see you soon!

Do give my love to Dolu and Meethu. Sending virtual hugs for you and preeti!

Lots of love,

Harshita.’

A thousand memories flooded my mind as I stamped a heart with a wooden seal we got made especially for rakhi-chitthis.

The cacophony of office activities resumed my mind as I returned to writing down the messages sent for rakhi by many sisters to many brothers.
I share this journey, hoping that many more will return to the beautiful art of letter-writing.

Nothing can ever surpass the feeling of finding an old letter kept carefully between the pages of an old journal. One whiff of the yellowed paper and the finder is lost in a hundred memories of bygone times.

This is what letters do, cherish relationships between their crinkled folds and cursive handwriting, offering a slice of the past just as it was!

Sorcery of time and memories to hold on to eternally.