Chapter-1: a letter to grandma from hotel 

Dear Dadi,

I’m writing this from the fourth-floor balcony of a hotel in Jaisalmer.
The sunset is spilling gold across the desert like ghee on your rotis.

I wish you were here.
The air smells like your sandalwood powder.
A peacock called out earlier, and I thought of how you used to say,
“Peacocks cry when the sky hides the moon.”

The chai doesn’t taste like home.
The cup is ceramic — too polished, too clean.

I miss your mitti ke gilaas.
Cracked. Warm. Real.

I saw an old woman selling bangles today.
She wore her dupatta like you did — half on the head, half around the heart.
I stared too long.
She smiled like you.
I almost cried.

Are you watching me?

I hope you’re still telling stories to the stars.

I kept your leheriya dupatta in my drawer.
I don’t wear it. But I smell it sometimes.
It still remembers the sound of your bangles.

Love always,
Your Chhoti Rani

Gudiya aur main 

Gudiya wasn’t my sister. But everyone in our galli thought we were.
We wore matching bangles, borrowed each other’s dupattas, and never needed a reason to laugh.
She lived two houses away — close enough to call out from the window, far enough to sneak a note across the terrace.

Every Teej, we danced together in borrowed lehengas under fairy lights.
Every Rakhi, she tied me one too — joking, “For protecting all my secrets from the world… and from my mother.”

We promised to grow up together, move to a big city, and start a little café where she’d bake and I’d write.
We even had a name picked out — “Bubbles & Bindi”.
But life didn’t care much for our plans.

One day, Gudiya left for college in Udaipur.
I stayed back to help Maa with the tailoring work at home.
She wrote me letters in the beginning — long, flowery ones that smelled like perfume samples.

Then the letters got shorter.
The perfume faded.
And eventually, they stopped coming.

I still wrote to her sometimes.
I didn’t post them. Just folded them neatly and kept them

inside the drawer with my old mehendi cones and childhood hair clips.

Yesterday, while searching for my silver jhumkas, I found one of her letters tucked in an old kurti pocket.

It was faded and slightly torn, but her handwriting hadn’t changed.
It said only one thing:

This morning, I wrote back.

No envelope.
No stamp.

Just a note — folded in half — pinned to the old neem tree where we used to tie friendship bands every August.

It said:

Because real friendships?
They don’t disappear.
They just wait — quietly, under neem trees.

My mothers-secret ✉️ letter

My mother is not the diary-writing, loud-hugging, selfie-posting kind of woman.
She folds her emotions like she folds her sarees — neatly, privately, without a crease showing.

So when I found an old letter tucked inside the pillow cover of her almirah, I paused.

It was old.
The ink had faded, and the paper smelled of naphthalene balls and sandalwood.

The envelope read:

I didn’t open it immediately.

I carried it with me to the terrace, sat under our neem tree, and let the wind speak first.

Then, I unfolded the letter slowly — like opening a memory that wasn’t meant to be rushed.

I held the letter close, like a scarf in winter.
For the first time, I realized — maybe she didn’t need to say anything out loud.

She had already said everything.

.

The fair and flying chappal

The village fair came like magic every year — with lights that blinked like stars, stalls full of bangles and bajra rotis, and music loud enough to make even the oldest uncles dance.

I wore my favorite pink kurti and brand-new golden chappals.
They sparkled. They squeaked.
They were perfect.

“Be careful,” Maa said.
“They look like they’ll fly off if you sneeze too hard.”

I laughed.

At the fair, Chiku dragged me straight to the giant wheel.
The one that creaked like an old gate but swung so high, you could see the desert stretch forever.

We climbed into the seat, and up we went.

First round: butterflies in the stomach.
Second round: hair flying, mouth open, sky so close I could smell the clouds.
Third round: CRISIS.

One of my golden slippers flew off my foot — a perfect arch — and landed straight into a chaat vendor’s bowl of imli pani.

The ride stopped.
The crowd gathered.

“Gol chappal golgappa!” someone shouted.
Even the vendor laughed.

Chiku and I ran down the steps, red-faced.

The chaat wala picked up my chappal using a steel ladle like it was treasure.

We offered to pay.
He refused.
Instead, he gave us two free plates and said:

We walked home barefoot, eating spicy pani puri and laughing till our bellies ached.

Maa saw my one muddy slipper and asked what happened.

She rolled her eyes and smiled.

thari prem kahani