family – Element J

The Last Street

For as long as I can remember, we walked to school together, him always on the left, me always on the right. That last street before our buildings was just ours. Some days we talked the whole way. Some days we walked in silence, which meant we were fighting. But we always said bye at the end. If one of us didn’t, it meant something serious, though by the next morning, it never was.

I still don’t know exactly how we became friends. My family had just moved from south Bombay to the suburbs, and suddenly I was without my two cousins who had been my whole world. He lived across the street, fourth floor, I was on the third, same age, same school, same class. And somehow, without either of us deciding it, we became each other’s person.

We did everything together. Studied, played, went to tuitions, watched movies. We could sing every Bollywood song from start to finish and liked exactly the same ones. I still believe that if I ever entered a Bollywood trivia contest, he would be my first and only choice as a partner.

Fighting with him upset me more than anything else. He had a way of knowing exactly how to hurt me, and I think that was just how he showed he cared. I know that now. I also know that deep down, I was his best friend, even if he never quite said it. Once, while we were doing homework at his place, me on the giant pink swing he had, him on the bed, I asked him who his best friend was. He listed name after name. I kept asking, hoping. He never said mine. He never asked me the same question, probably because he already knew the answer.

He was my first crush. In 6th grade he told me he loved me and asked me to date him. I told him we were too young, maybe we could decide in 8th grade. At the end of 7th grade he asked me what grade we were in. I said almost 8th. He never asked again. By 8th grade we were part of a bigger friend group, life moved on, and we never spoke about it. But I know what it was.

Over time, as it happens, people drifted. He built a life with someone from our circle, and somewhere along the way I was no longer close to either of them. It stung, the way quiet losses always do. But I still cherish what our childhood friendship was, and I know he does too.

Why am I writing about him today, after all this time? Because grief is strange. It doesn’t announce itself. It caught me on a train to Paris, twenty years later, and it wasn’t even just about him. It was about his brother.

His family treated me like their own daughter. His older brother was in the same class as my older sister, and by the time we were all finishing school in 2006, he had grown into someone warm and grounded. We’d have late nights together, a whole group of us, making instant noodles, laughing, all of us on the edge of something new. His brother had just finished his MBA, had a new job, was engaged. My sister was leaving for her Masters in the US. Everything felt like a beginning.

Then in July 2006, there were bomb blasts on the local trains in Bombay. Rush hour. My dad took those trains. My mom was pacing the terrace. We were all watching the news, calling everyone we could think of. Slowly, names started coming through. Someone’s father. A neighbor. And then, his brother, who had been traveling back from work with his fiancée. She had moved to the women’s compartment because it was crowded. She called to say he was fine. He wasn’t. He was gone.

I have never seen my friend the way I saw him that night, and I never want to again. His parents, who had loved me like their own, I cannot think about that evening without my eyes filling up. A young, handsome man, just gone. I still think of him when I see old photos of a young Salman Khan. My younger sister used to call him that, and she was right, even though I never saw it then.

Our city grieved together. And my friend was never quite the same after. Every time we met, less and less as years went by, he would ask about my family. I could always sense a small fracture in him when I mentioned my sister. Two siblings, same era, same city. I knew he was thinking about his brother.

I don’t think you ever heal from something like this. I don’t think you are supposed to. One life lost pulls an entire world with it, a family, a community, a future that was just getting started. When I think about all the wars happening right now, all the senseless violence, I think about this. About how it is never just one person. It is every person who loved them, every memory that now has an absence in it, every future that quietly disappeared.

Twenty years isn’t enough to make sense of it. And I know that twenty years from now, it still won’t be.

When Letters Stopped Coming

It’s strange how childhood friendships can live in our imagination long after they’re gone. The connections we form as children—innocent, uncomplicated, and pure—often become the measuring sticks for relationships throughout our lives. Sometimes, these connections get severed not by choice but by circumstance, leaving us with questions that linger for years. This is the story of one such friendship that shaped my understanding of connection, loss, and the arbitrary nature of borders.

When I was in Kindergarten in Mumbai, I had a very close friend named Sam. We were as close as 4-year-olds could be. One day, my mom took me to Sam’s home for evening tea. Back in the 90s, I don’t think traveling to someone’s house for a play date was common. We had friends at school, friends in our apartment complex, friends at drawing classes, and so on. No one ever went for specific playdates. I didn’t think it was weird—I was just 4.

Then my mom told me that Sam was moving from Bombay to Jammu and Kashmir. She showed me Jammu and Kashmir in a giant atlas we had at home, and it looked impossibly far away. Mom suggested we exchange letters and got their new address. I knew my ABCs but had never thought about writing actual letters. For the first few attempts, my mom wrote postcards on my behalf, and then I started writing them myself when I was a bit older.

Sam and I wrote back and forth for a few years. We wished each other happy birthday, sent greeting cards—nothing fancy. We were 1st graders, so we didn’t have much to talk about. I always took pride in having an “online” friend even before pen pals became popular.

I knew Sam’s birthday was in the same month as mine (which I thought made us especially cool friends), and I had memorized her “address”: Sam c/o P.H. something-something, Army Colony, Jammu Tawi something-something. Initially, my mom properly addressed my letters, but once I learned to do it myself, she probably didn’t proofread them. In my 2nd or 3rd-grade mind, I was mailing to her correctly, but the post office workers likely thought it was addressed to Santa Claus, and Sam probably stopped receiving my letters. Eventually, I thought Sam had stopped writing to me. We also moved to a new house during those years, and I never gave Sam my new address. Sadly, we lost touch.

I always considered her my “first” friend and often thought of her, told my current friends about her, and secretly wished her happy birthday for years.

In the summer of 1999, there was a war between India and Pakistan. Social media back then was just the news my family watched. I didn’t really understand much, and asking “grown-up” questions wasn’t encouraged. From what I recall, this war was fought in Jammu and Kashmir over the Kargil region that Pakistan attempted to claim. As a child, I understood that the war was happening in Jammu and Kashmir and many people were dying at the border.

Since then, Jammu and Kashmir became this mysterious, “unsafe” place in my mind. Even though India won the war, the fear never left my thoughts. Jammu and Kashmir transformed into this imaginary place where only soldiers went—and died. I somehow started believing that’s what happened to Sam and her family. That she had died, and that’s why she stopped writing back. I completely made up this story and truly believed it for a while. My friend was a martyr who died in a war. In my defense, she did live in “Army Colony,” which in my child’s logic meant army people, which meant dead soldiers in Jammu.

Once I was older, I doubted this story but had no way to verify it. By then, I no longer had her complete address, and the gaps in my memory remained unfilled.

This experience profoundly shaped me in ways I didn’t fully understand until much later. The belief that Sam might have died in a conflict made me develop a deep aversion to fights—big or small. I began to see all conflicts as unnecessary escalations that could lead to irreversible loss. Death is a one-way street, and the thought that I might never see someone again because of senseless fighting haunted me. Why end any relationship on an angry note when tomorrow isn’t guaranteed? This mindset has stayed with me; I still actively try to avoid unnecessary escalation in disagreements, always aware of how permanent separation can be.

It wasn’t until 2011, when I grew bored of talking to my existing friends on Facebook, that I randomly thought of her again. I decided to look her up. Her name was unique, so the search results weren’t too extensive. One profile had a very similar birthdate—June 17th instead of June 18th—but maybe I had remembered it wrong. Worth a try. I sent her a message with a brief introduction and apologized if she wasn’t the person I was looking for.

She responded within hours and recognized me, my mom, and even remembered the bag my mom had gifted her before she moved. I was thrilled, and so was she. To my surprise, she had moved back to Mumbai long ago and attended college very close to mine. We arranged to meet at a café, each bringing another friend along because, honestly, it felt strange.

Our reunion was pleasant, but not the movie-ending moment one might expect. She was very different from me, and I found myself connecting more with her friend than with Sam herself. It dawned on me that had we known each other all along, perhaps we could have remained close friends—but our lives and experiences had diverged too much. We had a wonderful evening together, shared memories, and happily went our separate ways, both with a sense of closure. Though we aren’t particularly close anymore and have little in common now, I’m grateful to know she’s alive and well. I’m relieved she isn’t dead.

The reality was much more ordinary than the dramatic story I had constructed in my mind. Our lives now remain quite different—and that’s perfectly fine. It was real, not a fairy tale, and there’s something beautiful about that authenticity.

With recent tensions between India and Pakistan, I worry about how Jammu and Kashmir will once again become this mysterious place where only soldiers go to die—heaven on earth that you only experience if you’re prepared to sacrifice yourself. I know it’s easier now to check on loved ones, but the fear of losing someone or a long-lost friend still haunts me.

Are we still so divided even after all these years of independence? I know I’m not qualified to comment on the political situation (I barely passed history in school), but it’s heartbreaking to live in a world where human life seems so dispensable. How are we letting the enemies who separated us win, even after they’re long gone? I’m not suggesting India and Pakistan should reunite, but couldn’t we find a way to share that beautiful part of the world? How can we raise our children in a world where it’s somehow acceptable to lose—or even just fear losing—a friend to senseless conflict?

Perhaps my personal journey with Sam mirrors something larger about our world. Just as I fabricated a tragic ending to our friendship in the absence of communication, nations too can build narratives about each other when genuine connection is lost. And just as reconnecting with Sam revealed a more ordinary but authentic reality than my dramatic imagination had conjured, maybe real dialogue could replace the stories we tell ourselves about those across borders.

This experience has taught me something profound about the nature of relationships and memory. I realize now that I had romanticized my long-lost connection with Sam, building it into something larger than life in my absence of information. Perhaps it’s okay to accept that we are different people than who we were five years ago—let alone twenty. Old friendships don’t need to maintain the same closeness to retain their value. I’ve learned to cherish what I have right now and think of old memories fondly without expecting those friendships to remain frozen in time.

Sometimes, the greatest gift of reconnecting with someone from your past isn’t rekindling what once was, but gaining the perspective to appreciate what is—and the clarity to let go of what isn’t meant to be. Maybe that’s a lesson worth remembering, both for personal relationships and for the artificial divisions we create between people.

Mirror images

I have a 6-year-old son and a 3-year-old daughter who teach me something new every day—not just about themselves, but also a lot about myself. They are polar opposites of each other, yet both are equally strong-willed and adamant about doing things their way.

My son is especially like me. He’s an extremely active kid with the silliest laugh and a huge personality. I’m certain that anyone who meets him will never forget him. While I know all parents feel this way about their children, trust me, he is truly something special. He’s mischievous enough that, by all accounts, kids and adults shouldn’t “like” him. And yet, everyone loves him. He’s always the life of the party and never has a bad day. He loves school and all his classes, approaching everything with a huge smile. In many ways, he’s a mirror image of myself—very active, talkative, disruptive, clumsy, with an outsized personality.

When he was 2.5 years old, my son was diagnosed with a speech delay. Coupled with the pandemic, this made school extremely challenging. He struggled to express himself effectively, which led to frustrating incidents of hitting and biting at daycare. As a first-time parent with little experience, I initially just hoped for a “normal, no-complaint” kid. The isolation was profound—no one ever talks about the difficulties they face with their children, making parents feel intensely judged and alone.

As his speech improved through four years of weekly therapy, the behavioral incidents decreased. However, the teachers’ complaints continued. My son is very kind but clearly shows symptoms of neurodiversity. We’ve been advised to wait until he’s 7-8 for a clinical diagnosis, only pursuing it if his symptoms significantly impact his daily life. While I’m skeptical of this approach, I also want to ensure he doesn’t feel there’s something “wrong” with him all the time.

Watching my son has been like looking into a mirror. He finds it incredibly difficult to sit still, focus, take turns, wait, or listen attentively. But how can I judge? As an adult, I struggle with these exact same challenges. It takes every ounce of my willpower to stay quiet and let others speak. My brain constantly races with thoughts: “I’ll lose the moment,” “The punchline won’t land,” “We’ll move on to another topic,” “It’ll be weird if I circle back,” “I must speak NOW or never.”

A recent bouldering experience perfectly illustrated our shared traits. I unknowingly violated an unspoken rule about waiting when someone is climbing nearby. When my friend pointed this out, I immediately understood—but why hadn’t I recognized it myself? My son navigates the world similarly. When he needs to go somewhere, nothing else matters. His—and my—intention is never to intrude or hurt, but we both lack spatial awareness, both physically and mentally.

We share another fascinating characteristic: an inability to be fully present. My son will wait 20 minutes, trembling with excitement for a roller coaster, but the moment he boards, he’s already talking about the next ride. I recognize this behavior because it’s exactly how I operate. We’re constantly thinking about “what’s next” instead of enjoying the current moment.

Growing up, I was always labeled “talkative” and “hyperactive.” Now, I see the same labels being applied to my son. Unlike my experience, though, I’m committed to helping him navigate these traits. The world is becoming more understanding of neurodiversity, and I’m learning to embrace my high energy while becoming more mindful of my surroundings.

While my son and I are cut from the same energetic, sometimes chaotic cloth, my daughter offers a completely different perspective. She takes after my husband, sharing his calm and measured approach to life. Where my son and I are loud and immediate, she is quietly observant. She watches, she processes, she considers—traits that are so similar to my husband’s. Learning to appreciate her temperament has been a journey of understanding not just my daughter, but my husband as well. She reminds me that there are multiple ways of experiencing and navigating the world, and that diversity of personality is something to be celebrated, not controlled.

Now with learning so much about myself through my son, I realize that expecting him to be a “normal, no-complaint” kid is a hard ask. He is special and unique in his own way, and as long as I am providing him with the tools that I myself would have benefitted from, that is good enough. I also don’t “blame” him when he does something impulsively. Instead, I have started telling him about my struggles with similar things, so he doesn’t feel as isolated or “weird”. I want him to know he is special and that we may be different from others, but we can still be unique.

I’m dedicated to ensuring my son doesn’t struggle the way I did. I’m teaching him that our energy is boundless—like the Earth’s constant rotation—but we can learn to slow down, to appreciate the present moment, and to value the people around us.