Greentext · 4 minUnder The Stamp

>be me, 12 years

>1996, vijayawada, a colony behind the bus stand

>in our class everybody collects something

>first it was matchbox labels

>you walk on the road looking down

>empty matchboxes near the tea shop, near the bus stop

>you tear off the top label

>ship brand, cheetah fight, homelite, tekka, aeroplane

>the rare ones are from kerala and sivakasi side

>gopi from my class has a tiger with a red sky

>he will not trade it for twenty labels

>i have one hundred and twelve labels in a notebook

>stuck with rice paste

>the notebook smells a little

>then in class 7 everybody moves to stamps

>stamps are serious

>stamps have an album

>a philately album from the higginbothams shop, eighteen rupees

>tweezers, you cannot touch with fingers

>i have only indian stamps

>gandhi, nehru, the tiger, the peacock

>gopi has a stamp from hungary, a stamp from cuba

>the foreign ones decide who is a king

>ammamma lives with us

>tatayya died two years before

>he was in the railways, he moved to many places

>in the loft there is his trunk

>tin trunk, blue paint, his name in white letters

>ammamma never opens it

>one sunday i ask ammamma

>"are there letters in tatayya's trunk"

>"why"

>"for stamps"

>she thinks

>"take the stamps" she says

>"do not take the letters"

>"the stamps only"

>i bring the trunk down with nanna's help

>inside there are files, a torch, a shawl

>and a bundle tied with a red thread

>letters

>all in white envelopes gone yellow

>all in one handwriting

>tatayya's writing

>to ammamma

>before they were married

>1958, 1959

>from jhansi, from itarsi, from places i have not heard of

>ammamma looks at the bundle and goes into the kitchen

>"stamps only" she says from the kitchen

>i know the method from gopi

>you do not tear, you steam

>i boil water in the small vessel

>hold the envelope over the steam

>the stamp corner goes soft

>you lift it with the tweezers slowly

>the first one comes off clean

>a fifteen naye paise stamp, brown colour

>and under it

>under where the stamp was

>there is writing

>very small writing, in pencil

>in telugu

>"sarala, i saw a green saree in jhansi market, i thought of you"

>sarala is ammamma's name

>i put down the tweezers

>i do the second one

>it comes off

>under it, small pencil

>"third month here, the food is all wheat, i miss your pulusu"

>third one

>"do not tell your father i am writing so much"

>fourth one

>"when you read this, the stamp is gone, and you are thinking of me"

>i stop

>the kitchen is quiet

>the cooker has not whistled for a long time

>i take the envelopes to the kitchen

>"ammamma, there is writing under the stamps"

>she is sitting on the low stool

>she is not cooking

>"what writing" she says

>"under the stamps"

>i show her the first envelope with the corner bare

>she takes it

>she does not wear her glasses

>she holds it far, then close

>she reads it with her lips moving

>"green saree" she says

>then she says nothing for a long time

>"i never took off the stamps" she says

>"why would i take off the stamps"

>"he never said anything"

>"thirty four years he did not say anything"

>she gives me back the envelope

>"do all of them" she says

>"slowly, do not tear"

>that sunday i steamed forty one stamps

>under every one there was one line

>under some there were two

>i read each one to her

>she sat on the stool with her hand on her mouth

>sometimes she laughed

>one time she said "liar" to a letter

>one time she got up and went to the puja room and came back

>the last envelope was from 1960

>just before the wedding

>i steamed it

>under the stamp, one line

>"in one month you will not need stamps"

>i put the forty one stamps in my album

>gopi offered his cuba stamp for the brown fifteen naye paise one

>i said no

>gopi did not understand

>ammamma put the bundle back with the red thread

>but now it is not in the trunk

>it is under her pillow

>and some nights in that house

>you could hear paper in the dark