Taking a ride down the narrow lanes of memory reverberating with childish giggles, the sound of marbles colliding, I hear “soanpapdiiii” long before I see the old man selling my favorite sweet appear behind the smoke of burning coals. I clutch the iron grills and climb halfway up the gate in excitement, but I am not allowed to cross. I extend my palms in glee waiting for the sweet he would hand me on a pink slip of paper.

The house crumble around me as I walk back, and in its place a new one gets built. I no longer smell the suffocating smoke of burning coals or hear the old man call out. I don’t know when and how but he had somehow wrapped my childhood in the pink papers, packed it in his tin box and disappeared into the smoke.