The Date Fetish

I first walked into the Taj Mahal Hotel lobby at roughly knee-height, in a pink sweater my mother had buttoned to the top, small pearls sewn all over it.

Delhi in December. The tree alone was taller than our house. Lights everywhere — cold white and warm gold, climbing the columns, pooling on the marble floor. Gifts stacked beneath the branches in colours I had no names for.

Papa leaned down with that particular smile of his and said: see, all this — it's for you.

I believed him completely.

I was born on the 24th of December.

The year I walked into my school chapel and understood what Christmas actually was, I stood very still for a long time. Something was being recalculated. The tree, the lights, the lobby, all those Decembers — none of it mine.

Then something settled.

I came one day before, I thought. I see the decoration first.

There is a date against every person I love, kept in some private calendar of the heart. The date is how I show up. Not with whatever is convenient — with the thing I planned for, the reservation made weeks ago, the flight, the message that arrives at midnight.

I still believe him.