GWENCHANA

 (Translation of Title from Korean to English: It's Okay.)

January 29, 2022

Dear Daddy Nana 

Even when I was in school, I used to dislike writing the introduction to a letter, because nothing ever seemed like the perfect way to start it. It is getting colder here, in London. Maybe it has something to do with the fact I live very close to Thames. But I keep myself warm by wearing your sweater, and I think that has very little to do with the wool used to make it.

Life is so different now that I am no longer in India. I wake up to the Sun, if the gray, almost intimidating clouds allow it to peek through, glaring at me, and for a moment, I just lie in bed, as the reality of not being around my family hits me. I cannot hear the maid washing the utensils in the kitchen, Mumma talking about how she is late for office again, and Aapa giving instructions to the driver about the work he needs to do. It is funny, how I feel unimaginably homesick thinking about a place I was desperately trying to escape only a few weeks ago. I do not know how some people make all this look so easy and enjoyable, because when I am back in my college dormitory, the walls seem to close in. 

I couldn’t take it one day, and so I decided to put up photographs of our family and friends. I needed the assurance that you, and everyone else was here with me, that the physical distance did not mean emotional separation, or worse, severance. I get calls and messages every day, and I feel a sense of comfort knowing that there are people who care. A voice inside my head tells me it won’t last for long, that the conversations will become shorter and infrequent. You know, I was afraid of this, when I was making plans to shift to study. What if when I am gone, nothing changes? What if the gaping hole that we think our absence creates fills up eventually, and we fade from memory? When I start sinking because of these thoughts, the rational part of me reminds me that I still remember you, cherish and love you the same way as I did, despite it being a year since you left. 

I am rambling on, aren’t I? When I come back to this piece tomorrow morning, it will make no sense and I will feel the temptation to delete it. Did I tell you that one of my favorite pictures in my room is one with both my aunts, and Mumma. They are laughing amongst themselves and I somehow captured it. They are strong-minded women and when they argue with each other, it is a little scary, but I absolutely adore them. I’d like to see someone try to hurt even one of them, they won’t get through. They are, after all, your daughters. Someone should really write about the Rushdi Family. It would be a best-seller.

So, are you okay? Are you happy? Can you see us, are we doing okay? Am I making you proud? Do you think I can do it? Sometimes, I think I cannot. I look in the mirror, and I see nothing special. Maybe it is silly of me to expect that in a world with a few exceptional individuals, I would be one of them. I just don’t want to be a disappointment to everyone who told me, right before I left, that they know I would succeed. But if you think I can do it, then I will try to believe. I will try to believe that it will get better and easier. I will try to convince myself that sarang (love) does not go away with time or distance. I will look at my reflection and try to be happy with who I am. And for once, instead of sighing and glancing away, I would smile at myself and say, “Gwenchana.”

Until next time, then. I love you. I miss you.

Yours

Hina.