Day 6: 'Hello' from Big Brother

Am the only child. But I have several cousins with just one older brother among them. So he was and is my only Big Brother. We were pretty chummy in our childhood days. I was tomboyish enough to be counted as a suitable playmate by him, while probably the female cousins thought me less of a playmate for exactly the same reason. But as we grew up, we slowly moved apart. He stuck to Malayalam movies, I took to English and Hindi. He took to Carnatic music, I moved to Michael Jackson. He was convinced never to move out of India, I was convinced I wanted to travel the world. In short, we haven't really spoken much over the years and I think the last time I met him was at my wedding 3 years ago while I couldn't even make to his wedding.

Today I got an email from him. In fact he had written to me a couple of months ago but we are so out of touch that he had actually emailed to my ancienct hotmail address (which is pretty much a dead account). So today, I managed to come across that email.

He said he was writing in to say "Hello". He had realised that he's been caught up with life so much and been out of touch with a lot of family and friends, including myself and even my dad with whom he used to be in touch regularly. Hence he has made a resolution to contact as many from his old family and friends circle as possible, one person per week. And it was my turn, the week he wrote to me.

He said as he was writing the email he was reminiscing to his wife about all that we used to do together so many years ago.
- How he used to visit us in Thrissur during the summer vacations.
- How we used to go for the Thrissur Pooram festivities together.
- How we used to watch the movie "Chitram" and keep a bet on who cried first or most or last or least (differed every time we watched it).
- How some random uncle had turned up at the door one day and we made fun of him coz we thought he was drunk.

And then he asked me whether I remember any of these.

I couldn't help but smile. Of course, I remember! I also remember...
- How we used to play badminton together, indoors, with my plastic kiddy rackets
- How I learnt the first few card games from him.
- How we used to follow the trails made by the Kuzhiyaana (some kind of insect that looks like ants but found only in special kinds of soil)
- How we used to have a strong love for WWF and the numerous Trump card games that followed.
- How we used to be the "brave" ones, being absolutely fearless on the Giant Wheel at the Thrissur Pooram, while the rest of the female cousins and their moms screamed for dear life.

I remember all of it. And am glad he wanted to say "Hello".

994 more to go.