The year spent in Delhi is replete with memories of you. Sitting here in this room now, thousands of miles away, I miss having you next to me – on an evening like this, with the hint of coming winter in the air; riding in a rickshaw by the long straight streetlit road from the Metro to home – having picked you up at the station on a Saturday evening, and then the market, my extra-sweet Tikia chat and the ultra-spicy Alu chat you like so well, and then the walk home through the park – and that one evening when we walked around the park passing retired gentlemen on their evening walks and just sat on a park bench watching mercury lamp dusk descend on the city. Or is it that early dawn when we tried to photograph each other, silhouetted in the early dawn twilight of the balcony planning our precious, priceless trip to the hills before I left; this, and much else imprinted on my mind in a faded carbon black, grey like the morning twilight, but brightened by your presence. Walking up from Dharamkot to Naddi, taking a turn, and stopping before the grey majesty of the mountains suddenly unfolding before us, or me waiting in the throng of Punjabi tourists in a tea-shop in Naddi where you had curiously ordered tea from one shop, and bread pakoras from the next. Those interminable minutes outside Koyna as you took your time coming out despite listless calls from me every minute, my handkerchief and my cigarette my shields against the swelter of the Delhi summer evening, the fruit beer from the Northeast dhaba, or the tea which gets made only once the evening shows signs of dawning; sitting on a bench, watching the one-handed badminton player; or dropping by with Debbie after meeting my author nearby; or the Northeast evening at the OAT with the incongruous lighting of the fashion show and the mild look of kicked surprise as the models enjoyed their minute in the limelight – the waiting in a chaotic line for food nearing midnight, and finally, the Khasi pork curry with sprinklings of onion, coriander and green chilli I love so much. How you have given me a taste for green chillies, without which I now cannot seem to survive (made sure to get a stash of those from the Indian store the other day); or how I couldn’t bear the canned sardines that you presumed I would like, the umpteenth call to fattening cheeseburst Domino’s, the dreaded alarm clock in the morning snoozed once too often, the blower warming up our feet in the cold, the numb hours of Lionbridging, the intermittent checking of mails to achieve the end which is here today – the nervousness all week (quite unnecessary, of course, in retrospect) before the TOEFL, rehearsing quirky and inane monologues to be spoken uninterrupted for a minute.. yes, I miss you terribly. See you soon, princess. See you soon.