Letters from a life forgotten

The tearing of a yellowed air mail catapults me back to that time when writing a letter was .. communicating. When e-mails were a novelty ... when people were more conversant. 

Back in the present: Each rip is like a whiplash; even though those letters are not mine; even though those memories are not mine... I just felt like I am losing something precious.

I am cleaning up the house and, in a way, cleaning up memories... and making new ones for myself. And this way, I discovered a treasure: a treasure from his past.

There is this carton full of letters: to my husband. From a time when I didn't know him; the time when I didn't even know of his existence. The oldest letter that I discovered was dated June 2000; packed inside a greeting card. That was the time when he had just moved to Bangalore.

It all began with this greeting card that gave the definition of Doofus. I just wanted to know who was so comfortable with my husband --- a man that I know to be quite the serious person --- to call him a doofus.

When I read the letter, I realised the friend was calling himself doofus. I was only curious about that person. It was this friend who had apparently somehow fallen out with my husband. And what I got to know was so much more that just satiated curiosity. That letter was something from both their pasts; it was their lives's story that was written --- albeit in ridiculously bad handwriting --- in those four pages.

They told me of a person who was just 21. These letters told me of two persons who cared for each other. I am a bit afraid to write any more than this, as somehow any more than this would be betraying those two. Even though I haven't met that other person... even though....

Then there were letters from his parents; typical the same. Opening sentences were enquiring after his health, the latter half his mother used to scold about his grammar and spelling mistakes, chide him for not writing and then tell him about how the life in Pattambi was since his last one.

His father, on the other hand, was very to the point. He would send him resistance charts and tell him to do certain things --- mostly related to some policy or the other.

There was this one from his girlfriend in Canada. I should have torn it the moment I saw the stamp... but I didn't. Don't ask me why... I think it was because I had already skimmed through so many of those letters that one more didn't make a difference. I guess, the excitement of taking out those fragile folds from their yellowed envelopes was a headrush that I didn't want to let go.

But I couldn't. Read that girlfriend's letter. He came about and started asking me, with a lot of anguish ... or perhaps embarrassment ... to not read that one. So I didn't.

However, unlike the proverbial cat, curiosity is something that you can't kill. So I got to the cleaning again: reading the sender's address and then emptying forgotten envelopes; leafing through those letters ... because I don't really want to hurt my husband even though I am curious about his past... the one that he says is "a part of his life that he doesn't like".  

My brother has now taken over the cleaning part and I am here ... feeling the loss of someone else's memories.