Missing SomeoneYour child and Papa's Work Trip
↗Papa has to go to Chennai for eighteen days and Your child finds out at breakfast, after which the toast stops tasting of anything at all. Before the taxi comes, Papa draws eighteen boxes on the back of the calendar and hands over a red sketch pen. 'One cross every night. When the boxes finish, I am at the door.' The first crosses are slow and heavy. The last ones are made very fast indeed.
Lesson: Count the days and the waiting gets an end you can see
Missing SomeoneYour child and the Video Call at Eight
↗Every night at eight the phone rings and Papa's face fills the screen, small and pixelated and far away. Some nights there is nothing much to say. Mumma props the phone against the sugar dabba anyway and Your child does homework while Papa watches, both of them quiet. On Thursday Papa says, 'This is my favourite part of the day, just sitting with you.' Your child realises it is the favourite part too.
Lesson: You do not need words on a call to be together
Missing SomeoneYour child and the Letter to Nani
↗Nani has no smartphone and the village phone line crackles, so Mumma suggests a letter. Your child has never written one. It takes three attempts and a great deal of rubbing out. In the end it says what the tooth did, what the rain did, and that the mango tree should be told hello. Two weeks later a reply comes in Nani's big looping Hindi, and it is read out loud four times.
Lesson: A letter can carry a whole month to the village
Missing SomeoneYour child and the Friend Who Moved Away
↗ Aarav's family moves to Pune in the middle of the term and the bench beside Your child stays empty for a week. Sharma Ma'am notices and says, 'Missing means the friendship was a good one. That is a compliment to both of you.' She lets Your child make a card from the whole class and everyone signs it. Aarav sends back a photo of it stuck above his new study table, in his new city.
Lesson: Missing somebody is proof the friendship was real
Missing SomeoneYour child and the Memory Box
↗ Mumma finds an empty shoe box and covers it in leftover Diwali paper. 'This is a memory box. Anything that reminds you of Nani goes inside.' Your child puts in a pressed flower from her courtyard, a bus ticket, a green bangle she left behind and a drawing of her blue door. On heavy days the box comes out from under the bed, and Nani is right there, in pieces, on the floor.
Lesson: Keep the small things and the person stays close
Missing SomeoneYour child and the Photo in the Pocket
↗ On the first day after Papa leaves, Your child cries in the school toilet at eleven o'clock. The next morning Mumma trims a small photo of Papa to fit the uniform pocket. 'He can come to school. Nobody has to know.' Through maths and through games Your child presses the pocket flat with one hand. The eleven o'clock crying does not come, and by Friday the photo is only checked at lunch.
Lesson: Carry a small photo and you carry the person
Missing SomeoneYour child and the Empty Chair
↗ Papa's chair at the dinner table stays empty for a month and everybody eats around it, pretending not to look. On the tenth night Your child says out loud, 'I miss him.' Mumma puts down her roti and says, 'Me too. Every day.' Then Didi says it, and even Dadi says it. The chair is still empty, but the table stops being a place where nobody is allowed to say anything.
Lesson: Say it out loud and everyone stops pretending
Missing SomeoneYour child and the Smell of Nani's Shawl
↗ Nani leaves her old brown shawl behind after Diwali, entirely by accident. It smells of her kitchen, of coconut oil and cardamom and a little of woodsmoke. Your child refuses to let it be washed. Mumma understands and folds it onto the cupboard shelf exactly as it is. On the days when the missing is big, Your child wraps it round both shoulders and sits by the window until the big goes small.
Lesson: Some things must not be washed
Missing SomeoneYour child and Moti Who Went to Another Colony
↗ Moti the lane puppy is taken home by a family two colonies away, where there is a garden and no traffic. It is the right thing and Your child still cries about it for two whole days. Chacha listens properly, then puts Your child on the scooter one Sunday. Moti is fatter, wears a red collar and knocks Your child flat with happiness. Riding back, Chacha promises one Sunday visit every month.
Lesson: A goodbye is easier when you can still say hello
Missing SomeoneYour child and the Goodbye at the Station
↗ Nani stayed a whole month and now the train to Gorakhpur is standing at platform three. Your child holds her hand until the whistle goes. Nani presses a small brass box into it. 'Elaichi. One for every time you think of me. When it is empty, I come back.' Your child rations the cardamoms very carefully. The box lasts until December, and Nani is back on the eighteenth.
Lesson: A goodbye is easier when it comes with a date
Missing SomeoneYour child and the Two Clocks
↗ Papa is working on a ship for six months and his day is not the same as Your child's day. So he posts home two paper clocks to stick on the fridge, one for here and one for there. Now Your child knows that when it is homework here, Papa is eating lunch there, and when it is bedtime here, Papa is looking at the same sea he keeps sending photographs of.
Lesson: Know their hour and they are never really far
Missing SomeoneYour child and the Drawings That Travelled
↗ Your child draws something for Papa every single day of the trip and there is no way at all to send them. Didi has the idea. Every night she photographs the drawing and sends it, and Papa sends back a photo of that drawing taped to the wall of his room. By day twenty the wall is covered. Papa says the other engineers are now asking for a gallery of their own.
Lesson: Send what you make and the distance grows a wall of colour
Missing SomeoneYour child and the Missing That Comes at Night
↗ In the daytime it is fine, but at night, when the lights go off, the missing arrives and sits on Your child's chest. Dadi knows this one well. 'Night makes everything bigger,' she says. 'Give it three things instead.' So they say three good things about Papa out loud in the dark. His terrible singing. His long walks. The orange sweets he always brings. The missing gets up and moves off.
Lesson: At night say three good things instead of one sad one
Missing SomeoneYour child and the Parcel from the Village
↗ The postman shouts from the gate and there is a stitched cloth parcel from the village with Your child's name on it in Nani's handwriting. Inside are two jars of mango pickle, a packet of homemade papad and a small red purse holding a hundred rupee note. Mumma laughs and says Nani has posted the whole village. That night the papads are fried and the kitchen smells exactly like Nani's kitchen.
Lesson: A parcel is a person sending their kitchen to yours
Missing SomeoneYour child and the Day Papa Came Home
↗ The last box on the calendar gets its cross at six in the evening and the doorbell goes at seven. Your child plans to be very cool about the whole thing and instead runs so fast that the doormat slides across the floor. Papa smells of train and dust and does not let go for a long time. Later, unpacking, he takes out eighteen small paper boats, one for every night away.
Lesson: The waiting was long but the hug is longer