Sipping my tea, I drifted back to the golden times.
Zuhair, "Apu, please let me sip your tea!"
Me, "Here!"
We had been at the same tea stall, headed towards Sylhet to attend my aunt's wedding, our fathers' cousin.
Zuhair, my youngest uncle's 4 year old son, had sipped his tea and asked, "How much longer do we need to reach? "
"Maybe within a couple of hours", I had known it would take much more than that since our grandparents were travelling with us because of which we had to proceed slower than usual, with a lot more breaks.
Everyone had been gossiping as they drank the heart warming tea. Oh! What relief the tea had brought to us in the chills of December. All of us, those of whom were in Bangladesh, we had going together, with our cars lined up in the streets led by my eldest uncle.
"Everyone done? Lets go then. "
"I need to use the washroom", I had known the state of the public toilets here but I also knew there was no guarantee of the next stoppage.
Many followed me to the washroom.
After 5 minutes we had got back to our cars and set off again in unity.
~ "Done? Let's go", my father's voice brought me back to the present.
We were in the same tea stall, same time of the year but not in the same situation. This time, our faces were gloomy unlike last time when all of us were excited for the wedding. We weren't in a pack, we were alone, only our family. And this time we were headed back to Dhaka, from Sylhet.
We had gone to meet our youngest uncle in Sylhet, who now lived there. They were not the only family who were now apart from our huge joint family. My youngest aunt had shifted to Canada, eldest uncle to New York and youngest uncle to Sylhet.
When we entered Uncle's house, Zuhair and Maheera had jumped on to us. We had jumped on to everyone too! Ohh! How badly I had missed them. The times when Maheera, my 2 year old cousin always used to be in my lap, playing and calling out my name which she had newly learnt. Zuhair constantly nagging us for a game of cricket or badminton or annoying us to death. I missed Zuhair's mischieifs, Maheera's tactics, staying with then for almost the whole day...
As we had said, "Bye" to Maheera when we were about to leave, after a night's stay over, she had started crying and did not want to let me go. Zuhair had constantly been begging us not to leave. I had tears in my eyes too. And there, with heavy hearts, watery eyes and sad smiles, we left each other.
~We paid the tea vendor extra tk10 like last time, because of his extremely good tea. I got in the car, missing all of my aunts, uncles who were now away from us. Oh how I missed my evening tea with my aunt, our extreme level craziness with my elder cousins and the never ending chitchats with my aunt and rushing to uncle for clicking pictures, or to solve any mechanical problems in my phone and.... Living together.
What would I not give, to get golden times back? Nothing. I earnestly crave to be back in those days. But sadly this is how reality strikes everyone, in some way or the other and we still have to get on with life.
We did, I did, but sometimes I lived in memories. Two years has passed since we were all scattered away within the years, and I am still hurt like it was yesterday. This is how I am, bonded too strong and too emotionally with everyone. Hopefully we will get to see everyone really soon.
• • •
Hello everyone! Assalamu'alaikum! This is my first work, written with a lot of excitement and love. If I have made any mistakes here, please forgive me and let me know.
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