This is the first time I'm writing to you.
It's with you that I spent 14 years of my life. The smell of fresh pages, everyday books, broken pencils, half eaten erasers...
For the past few days you kept coming back to my mind. For the first time I missed my childhood.
Over the years almost everyone wrote about childhood memories and loss of innocence and things like that. It took so long and finally it sunk in that it's not possible for me to go back. There is no way back for me.
For the last 10 years I kept thinking growing up was so much fun...it surely is an adventure...
But a few days back for the first time standing alone in my old bed room on a cloudy afternoon I missed those days...those late nights when I hurriedly packed you up with the next days routine..the early mornings when I opened you up to make a last minute check and stuff in my tiffin box in your small outer pocket...
You've been with me through a lot of my first's. My first friends in school, my first punishments, my first fights, my first tears....
It's amazing how we never broke up in those 14 years. There were times when you slouched alone in the corner of my room for months during vacations. I never wanted to go to school...I used to pray that the holidays never end. Little did I notice how much you must have longed to have me take you on our regular strolls.
There were days when you slept on the green grasses of the Maidan while I was busy with march past...there were times when you got wet while I dint care much.
14 years went by slowly but steadily. Since then I've never tried to look back. And eversince I grew up unknowingly. My 20's brought with it chaos, responsibility, bitter truths, coffee and a whole lotta new people. I lost you. I didn't even realize any pain. Of losing you, of growing up. Umpteen realities of the adult world spoke louder than the little prince. I couldn't hear the Little Prince anymore.
31 years have not been cruel to me. I met a lot of great people and made a few good friends too.
When I first met her, even she had someone like you. I don't know if she has lost that someone special. Coz she's in her 20's too. But she misses him too. I know how much she cares about little things in her life. I always realize late.
But I remembered you and with you came a whole lot more...bits and pieces of my unkindled youth...words which I can never learn again...sums which I can never solve again...friends whom I can never get to see again...playing fields where I can never play again...concerts where I can never sing again... truths I can never tell, staircases that I can't ever climb, fears that I can never feel...
I will never get a chance to see you again. I guess life is that way. Time takes away a lot. Wherever you are , thank you for giving me so many memories. I can never go back to where I've been. But whenever I see a little boy or a girl walking with someone as special as you every morning I keep looking and it makes me wonder. And I ask myself, 'Has the sheep eaten the flower?' And everything changes.
With love and many memories,
Neel
P.S I miss you. And no grown ups will ever understand that this is a matter of much importance.
