I remember how it felt when they would arrive from India, those baby blue missives, so thin and painfully delicate. Only Amma’s hand was sure and steady enough to safely guide the letter opener into the tiny slot and carefully open the unperforated edges, bursting open the news from the other side of the world. Like a pop-up book. By the middle of elementary school, I was old enough to write to my grandparents using an Aerogram, sitting in front of the blue rectangle, pen in hand, ready to follow the convention of using the tiniest handwriting possible but unsure of what was Aerogram-worthy! How would I dutifully fill a page with the most important information that would please and impress them? I was their eldest grandchild, growing up all the way across the world, their pride and joy. I could picture Paati sharing my letter with her friends at the Rotary Club; I didn’t want to embarrass her. If I left any of the blue blank, surely it would mean that I was bored, and I didn’t want them to think that. I filled the space in my neatest script with what was most important in my eight-year-old life — what we were studying in school, piano lessons, stories about my friends, inquiries about our family members there.
As I drove up to my parents’ house on a June afternoon a few years ago, I thought about what it would feel like to see those old letters again. I remembered that they used to be tucked away in my mother’s nightstand. We…
