A Memoir #4

     After having sent you that card, I felt pretty nervous and uneasy. Those days girls weren't supposed to make the first move. Girls should not be forward. What I had done was against the norm. I wondered anxiously whether there was going to be any reply. One of your close friends, the son of the District Officer, was my classmate. Three days after I had sent you the card, during recess at school, I saw that friend of yours place something in my desk. When I checked, it was a large, perfumed Hari Raya card from you. I was overjoyed at first but later disheartened because of what you wrote in your card. It was something quite nasty, about me being 'shameless' sending a card to a boy. It really hurt my young pride. I didn't think what I did was wrong. It was that season of the year when people sent greetings to friends and relatives. I wanted you to be my friend. I liked you or at least liked what I'd seen and heard of you, and I wanted you to be friends with me. What's so wrong about that? When I got over the hurt, I began to think - maybe you did that to provoke me. You did not dislike me! You would not have replied my card if you did. And your card was fancier and smelt nicer than the one I had sent you. You did like me too! That was your awkward way of telling me you did.
     So I wrote a letter to you. Sure enough I was right. Whatever feeling it was that I had for you, you felt it too, for me because you wrote back to me and that was how our beautiful friendship began. We got to know each other better through letters. For three years we wrote to each other - long, newsy letters, talking about our families, brothers, sisters, likes, dislikes, hobbies, favourite songs etc. It was all very reciprocal, sweet and innocent. We had quite a lot in common. We both loved reading, we enjoyed listening to pop songs (we were always exchanging lyrics of the latest hits), we liked the same types of movies. Even our handwriting was similar. A friend in College once commented that I had been writing  letters to myself, on seeing the writing on the envelope. We differed in one area though. You were into sports while I was more inclined towards traditional or folk dancing.


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