When we were kids, “break up” was something that only happened in movies or with playground romances. Then people started using the term “growing apart”, as if the ache could be softened by fancy words. But now, I think it’s simpler than that. We weren’t apart. Just stretched across years.
You know that feeling when you return from a faraway place to a long-lost home? Everything feels the same, yet somehow not at all. The petrichor of monsoon evenings had long been replaced by the stench of dust.
I couldn't even remember the last time I’d had an ice lolly, and there you were, standing outside my door with two in hand, wearing a mundu and everything.
I was instantly pulled back to that one utsavam we went to together. You introduced me to paal-ice. I had scoffed and said, “Amma doesn’t let me eat nasty things like this,” with all the pride a well-behaved child could summon. You called me a ‘parishkari’. I could barely pronounce the word.
A minute later, some chekkile payyan tugged your mundu and bolted like he was in a chase scene from a Malayalam movie. Thank god your dad made you wear biker shorts underneath. You chased after him while I stood there, horrified and laughing, clutching my paal-ice like it was some fragile treasure.

You always liked your veedu a little too much. When your dad left for the US again, you announced, “No white man’s green card can take me away from here.” You were barely fifteen then but you said it like you were defending a nation.
Every time I came back for vacation, staying at achamma and achachan’s place, I’d wake up to find you waiting right outside our gate. Same place, same time, like clockwork. I know you well enough now to say that it was never really about the Dubai chocolates.

That evening we walked, no destination in mind, just past old things. The paal-ice was colder than I expected, milky and cloying, the kind of taste that lingered even after you were done. I remember the way my tongue turned pale blue. You said it was proof that happiness had a flavour.

The cement wall we used to scribble on with multicolored chalk, pale now, half broken as if the life we gave it was just like achamma’s make-believe stories. The shops that sold naranga mittayi and injimittayi for 50 paise each turned into air-conditioned sweet shops that sold pastries. The mango tree appu chetta used to climb upon and the temple elephant statue under which we once buried a time capsule (I think it was just a 5 rupee gold coin and a sticker of Kunchacko Boban), remained the same, like something that could never be taken from us, just like the time we shared.

We didn’t talk about what had happened in between, the missed years, the missed calls. We didn’t need to. We paused outside the old post office—its red paint faded to a tired pink. You kicked a stray stone and asked if I remembered how we used to draw hopscotch grids in front of it. I nodded. I remembered more than I said. Some friendships don’t need fixing. They just need to be witnessed again. You told me about your new job. I told you about the city. We argued about the best flavour of pickles. You still laughed like your lungs were trying to escape your body.

I asked you about that time in eighth standard, when we planned to run away. The time we made “THE LIST”; water bottle, umbrella, ten rupees, and two parippu vadas. You said we could live in the train station like the kids in the movies. We didn’t even make it to the end of the lane, got distracted by a dying butterfly on the ground. You knelt down, whispering something I never caught. Then you picked it up gently and placed it in my hands. “See,” you said, “even broken wings can rest somewhere.” I told you about how it has always stayed with me, through all my relations, and you looked at me the same way you used to when we were kids, and when the sun dipped and the mosquitoes started their shift, you asked,
“So, see you tomorrow?”

It wasn’t a question. It was a memory, already repeating.

I didn’t answer. Just smiled and went inside, pausing at the threshold like always, half expecting to hear your laugh again, trailing behind me. When I turned back, hoping to catch one last glimpse of you standing there with that same old half-grin, the street was empty. The ice lolly was melting in my hand.

Maybe you had somewhere to be.
Maybe you had never been there at all.
And now, as I sit here scribbling this down, every detail, every word, every stubborn little memory, I keep wondering: what am I trying to do? Resurrect something? Revisit someone who’s already gone?
Would this ever reach you, wherever you are?
Did you ever exist beyond the story I keep telling myself?
But then again… maybe that’s the only way I’ve ever known you.
Not as you were.
But as you are - in these pages, in this remembering.

In this kuttikalam that refuses to end.