The Time Capsule

There is a box that has travelled with me through almost every move of my adult life.

It has travelled across cities.

Across countries.

Across decades.

Every so often, I open it.

Not because I'm looking for anything in particular.

Just because I wonder who I'll meet today.

Inside are bundles of old letters tied together with fading elastic bands.

Birthday cards made with glitter and felt pens.

Postcards.

Autograph books.

Newspaper clippings.

Tickets.

Programmes.

Little scraps of paper that most people would have thrown away years ago.

To anyone else, they're just old things.

To me, they are time capsules.

I pick up an inland letter.

The paper has yellowed.

The folds are soft from being opened and closed countless times.

The ink has faded just enough to remind me that time has passed.

Then I begin to read.

"Wazza Ma & Bhai!"

Within a second, I was back in India.

Sam was fourteen again, writing from boarding school.

There he was, apologising for not writing sooner because geography homework had swallowed his week.

He told me about a snake that had wandered into the hostel.

He proudly listed his marks.

Asked if I could send Coffee Bite chocolates, snacks and a new watch strap.

It was always about food for this little one!

Then, completely out of nowhere, came this gem of advice.

"Brush your teeth every day. You have to smell good when you want to make a good impression on girls."

I laughed.

Not because it was particularly funny.

Because I could hear him.

Not the grown man he is today.

The fourteen-year-old whose voice had been waiting patiently inside an old inland letter for over twenty years.

None of the stories are extraordinary.

They are wonderfully ordinary.

And that's exactly what time takes from us first.

The ordinary.

That's what makes these time capsules so precious.

Photographs remind us what people looked like.

Letters remind us what they sounded like.

Their humour.

Their excitement.

Their terrible spelling.

The slang that belonged only to that age.

The endless requests for things they simply couldn't live without.

The little details that no one would ever think to write down years later.

The little jokes that made perfect sense at fourteen.

Memory preserves the milestones.

These time capsules preserve the Tuesdays.

A snake in the hostel.

Geography homework.

Coffee Bite chocolates.

A new watch strap.

Advice about making a good impression on girls.

None of it important enough to remember.

Until one day...

it became impossible to forget.