This picture was taken 20 years ago . A time when my brother and i couldnt do without each other.When we existed together as one in a way nobody understood,in a way even we could not fathom then( or now)

I have no memories of the day he was born. I have heard stories about how i,a clueless one year old,stared blankly at him.Him who looked like a pig in a blanket(Red, slimy and calm?)

But i clearly remember how i bawled like a baby when he was late to board the schoolbus one evening. I clearly remember how my head buzzed,how i felt faint, how my legs froze and how i gathered voice to speak up and the dreadful desolation i felt for the next few minutes till he turned up(like my own arm had left me and gone maybe?)

I clearly remember how we were each other’s only solace whenever my parents dropped us off at our grandparents’ during summer breaks.An old house amongst trees(nutmeg teak,vines,creepers ..you name it)and my grandfather guarding them like a jailer.We were the creepers he took care of in the summer,hovering over us all along.I remember holding on to my brother’s little finger while we slept at night, i remember us comforting each other before drifting off to sleep ,i remember how i searched for him frantically every morning before anything else(every summer,for quite a few summers of my life)

I remember having nightmares of him dying, of him getting hurt and bullied, my worst fear that used to cripple me then .

I remember the pain i felt watching him cry in a corner,forcing his tears to stay put and failing,his left arm red where my father’s carved,angry hands set the punishment for being “daring” enough to commit a “crime” i dont recall.The little boy would eventually learn to veil his vulnerabilities. (could i have guessed it that day?)

I remember getting sick together( how even distance couldnt seperate us from falling sick at the same time),i remember how we used to be a joined entity,i remember how he used to be the only thing that ever actually mattered.

And one day(or many days braided in to one timecapsule),we grew up. I became a girl and he,a boy and we became busy in our own lives.We forgot how we were one, how we had only each other growing up.

20 something years down the line ,we are a couple of adults who barely know each other with brinks and boundaries set on our seperate horizons.I look at this picture and a special warmth spreads through me and we are at my grandparents’ ,a couple of 7 year olds,in the room that smells of soap and nutmeg,sitting crosslegged across each other on the red frosty floor, bush crickets chirping all around us and listening in on us plotting an escape, hand in hand.

A moment that feels like it belongs to another lifetime, frozen in time.