My mother says You cannot have a memory when you were two years old. My brother was born exactly two years after me and his birth sent me in a shock, a shock of stunned silence. My father after three days of witnessing my numbness took me away on a tour .
- It will distract her.
And all I remember is a pink purple bead bracelet that he bought for me. The cheap beads shone irridiscently , shimmering with rainbow hues , a little bit like the shiny patina of peacock blue and greens of dripped petrol from tired old buses and jeeps in small puddles winding through pot holed dusty roads .He had wound the bracelet along my tiny delicate wrists with love. A hexagonal bead bracelet held together with elastic threads bought from the tiny shop. We had stayed in a dak bungalow with green shutters and cool high ceiling roofs , an ancient fan hanging from the thick roof beam, the vast green lawns with tea rose bushes along the drive way . But I don't remember any of those details. All that I remember with a sharp clear eye is the bead bracelet. The hexagonal shape and the intense pleasure of owning somethig so out of this world . I also remember the feel of the beads and the pleasure driving all else away from my mind.
My mother says you can't have memories when that young. And I say maybe I can . Maybe it never happened really , maybe it happened only in some intricate layers of my mind , like a piece of cloth torn by being caught against the rusted fence , torn and sticking out and flutterig always in my mind. I don't know but maybe it really happened. My father always smiles mysteriously at this but never says a word.
