In the embrace of fireflies

That summer in the early 90s our annual vacation was marred by a new rule—girls and boys would sleep in separate rooms. We were growing up. The adults had age-linked worries. We had our own. What will happen to our late-night laughter fests? Oh the mischief we could have plotted, the stories we could have exchanged!

Then we landed on a plan! About 8-10 of us children scoured the paramb. We ran all around the overgrowth around our grandparents’ home, grabbing at bugs and insects. We cupped them in our palms and peered at them through tiny openings between our thumbs. We were only looking for a specific kind of bug —fireflies. After acquiring two, we guided them into thick straws and hid them safely in the two gender segregated rooms.

That night, as per the day-old norm, the boys slept on the floor of the small prayer room at the center of the house, and the girls in the living room. Between the two, a threshold and an open door. In both rooms, an adult lay in exhausted sleep on the bed or sofa. In both rooms, miffed children took turns napping and peering at the adult and then through the doorway. Once our adult was asleep, we raised the straw and swayed it side to side, and the firefly glowed! Like a lone lighter at a concert. When we received the same signal back, it meant all clear.

We took turns commando-crawling to the threshold to crouch and chat, two by two. I’m not sure what it was that we had to talk about that the 18 hours of the day were insufficient for. It must’ve been important. I remember the army kids peppering our giggling chats with serious-sounding phrases like, “Roger that,” “Danger at 3 o’clock,” “Retreat! Retreat!” “Duck!” All to the background score of snoring adults and mice scuttling about on the roof.

That firefly signal—that tiny glow in the dark—was a permission. The kind that says, It is safe to break a few rules and bend a few norms. No one is watching! The fireflies we caught and released during those delightful vacation nights would find me in completely unexpected ways.

For the past year, I have been part of a writing circle—a group of writers that met every fortnight for three months to write with

Natasha Badhwar

and

Raju Tai

. We couldn’t disperse at the end of three months and carried on writing together—and lo and behold it has now been a year! Anything I say about this circle ends up sounding like the touchy-feely PDA of the young who are fresh in love. But I’ll try. Feel free to gag if PDA is not your thing! I feel you. It wasn’t mine either.

Writing and reading with this group of brilliant writers and stunning humans is beautifully intimate. Our Slack workspace is filled with first drafts, half drafts, and perfectly genuine, real pieces—written without the fear of feeling exposed, in fact, written with the desire to be seen, and that is new for many of us. Over the year we have all stripped away the protective screens and masks to arrive at that which we wanted to see but were fearful of looking at. We were a bunch of writers inching toward a pond to check our reflections. When we finally peered into that pond, we found ourselves flanked by other writers stepping up and doing the same. We held hands and danced around in the crescent moon’s light. Like twinkling fireflies.

A belated happy birthday to this circle of fireflies! May we continue to glimmer!

Here they are - Savvy, Sanobar Sabah, Nidhi Arora, Sumira Khan, Manisha Gupta, parvathy, Reema Ahmad, farzana, Tanya Shakil, Karthik, Anusha Khan, Farah, Sanskriti Bhatia, Sharmada, Supriya Devarajan, Prerna Kundalia, Anam Deepika, Shivam, Khusboo,

Natasha Badhwar

and

Raju Tai

.

P.S - The sketch is made by a writer with many talents -Savvy

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Tell me about your fireflies?