Suruma Writes On...

Our backyard smelled of rain every June and on broken pieces of concrete and bricks would grow wet moss that we pampered our feet with, like on the red Kashmiri carpet in the living room. Speaking of which, his letter hasn't arrived yet from Kashmir. He talks of the Apple orchard in his backyard where he used to play hide and seek with Azra, and I try to imagine him as a boy in black shorts and flowing brown hair, but I can't. The coconut shells tied to rubber trees where deep cuts have been made on the barks get filled with rainwater. Mother tells me they'll breed mosquitoes. I smile. How many have we seen? Do orange trees grow here? I ask Amma. Not as much as the rubber perhaps. But a one or two here and there. Perhaps they are not tasty as the ones that grow in Nagpur. I smile. Maybe they are tastier than the ones that grew on the lone orange tree in his backyard. They don't grown in Kashmir, he had said, calling it a miracle. And when the first harvest came...