Jayanti took out a package from her cupboard and caressed it gently before handing it over to her daughter, Ritu. Ritu was surprised to receive the package as she had seen it in her mother’s cupboard growing up and had never been allowed to even touch it. The package was wrapped in tissue and then wrapped with a cotton cloth. In wonder, she opened the precious package and looked in wonder. “Mummy, is this for me?”, she asked in wonder as she opened the package and found a beautiful blue silk dupatta, embroidered in Kashmiri embroidery with flowers all around. “This is gorgeous, mummy! I didn’t know you owned something so beautiful. If I had known, I would have borrowed it from you a long time back.” “And that’s exactly why I hid it from your greedy eyes all these years”, Jayanti lovingly chided Ritu and she packed it back and kept it in her suitcase. Mother and daughter were packing for Ritu’s imminent travel to Mumbai from their hometown of Guwahati in Assam. Ritu had been offered the position of management trainee at a prestigious organisation after her MBA.

“This dupatta is very special to me and holds so many memories. It was part of a set of two that my best friend, Rituparna, and I got made when we were growing up in Kolkata”. We had promised to always be there for each other, but after I married your father and moved to Guwahati, I lost touch with her. In our days, there was no internet and WhatsApp that you people have today. STD phone calls were expensive and only used in an emergency, so all we could do to keep in touch is write letters to each other. Rituparna and I wrote to each other for a few years, and then the letters stopped. I even went to see her one year when I was in Kolkata, but they had moved. I heard from their neighbours that uncle had passed away and Aunty and Ritu moved to stay with Aunty’s brother in Bangalore. They had not left any forwarding address, so all I have today to remember my friend is a photo and this dupatta”. Jayanti wiped her eyes as she extracted a small, faded photo from her bedside table. The photo showed two girls about 17 years old, with their arms around each other, smiling broadly at the camera.

Soon, Ritu departed for Mumbai and life went back to its usual routine. Ritu used to call her mother daily to update her on what she was up to. She had been allocated a shared house and the icing was that Ritu got along like a house on fire. The two girls had many things in common and it was not unheard of that Jayanti would also speak with Jaya. Jayanti loved speaking with Jaya and felt some connection with her, though she could not pinpoint what. She kept asking her questions because she seemed very familiar, as though she knew her from somewhere, though it was the first time both were meeting each other.

Soon, it was time for the festival of Diwali. The girls, both very excited to celebrate the festival of lights alone for the first time were planning very hard on the celebrations. After discussing on what they would prepare for the festival, the planning soon moved to what they will wear. Both had something they wanted to show the other and ran to their rooms to bring it out.

“Tadah! This is what I am going to wear” Ritu exclaimed, thrusting the blue dupatta towards Jaya only to see Jaya showing her the same dupatta. “How, how is this possible?” stuttered Jaya. “How do we both have the same dupatta? Amma told me that this is one of a kind”? Ritu was equally flabergastted. “Mummy also told me that this was a one-of-a-kind dupatta and she and her best friend had gotten them specially made to celebrate their friendship”.

Both Jaya and Ritu were so surprised to see them have identical dupattas. Soon they started comparing stories. “Ritu, did you notice something else?” Jaya pondered. “My name is a derivative of your mummy’s name and your name is very similar to Amma’s”. “You are correct Jaya” Ritu concurred. “Let me tell you a story” and Ritu told Jaya the story of her mother’s and Rituparna’s friendship.

“My mother was from Kolkata, originally. They moved to Bangalore to Amma’s mama’s place after my nana’s death. Amma must be around 20-21 and she got married to Baba there and settled down in Bangalore where I also grew up.” This, from Jaya who was trying to put the pieces together. “We must solve this mystery once and for all.” Ritu stood up and started making plans. “Let’s call both of them here for Diwali and get them in one place. If they are best friends who have lost touch with each other, then this Diwali will reunite them. And if we are completely wrong, then it’s a Diwali we will celebrate with our families.” “Correct” Jaya concurred and started making calls.

Both Ritu and Jaya called their parents and made arrangements for them to fly down to Mumbai. For Jayanti, it was her first flight and she was very apprehensive and excited to take the long flight from Guwahati to Mumbai. Rituparna had a relatively shorter flight and so reached Mumbai first. Jaya had gone to the airport to pick her parents up and brought them back to the apartment. By the time they returned home, Ritu had left for the airport to pick her parents up.

On returning home, Ritu quickly messaged Jaya who then ensured that her parents were inside the room when Ritu brought her parents inside the house. She welcomed Jayanti and her husband and both Jaya and Ritu stood in front of Jayanti and told her they had a surprise for her and that she had to close her eyes. They blindfolded her and made her stand in the centre of the room. Once that was done, they did the same to Rituparna and brought her into the room where Jayanti was standing. Both Ritu and Jaya went and stood behind their mothers and in a move that was coordinated, removed the blindfolds simultaneously while shouting, “Surprise”.

Jayanti and Rituparna stood in shock and did not understand what was going on. They were here to meet their roommate’s parents to celebrate Diwali. Then as if a bulb went off simultaneously in each other’s heads, both recognised their best friend and then they couldn’t wait to be in each other arms. Tears flowed copiously as both friends tried to put the last 25 years into this hug. Finally, they stepped away from each other and turned to their husbands who were looking at this scene bemusedly as they had no idea what just happened. They introduced their friends to their spouses and the two friends sat down to catch up on each other’s lives that they had missed all these years.

“How did you know that Ritu was Jayanti’s daughter?” Rituparna asked her daughter while Jayanti looked at Ritu with the same question in her eyes. Both Jaya and Ritu looked at each other and dashed out of the room, returning with the blue dupatta that had made this reunion possible. “The blue dupatta” sighed Rituparna and Jayanti and caressed the heirloom. “Without this, we would have never made the connection and found that you both were best friends who had lost contact for all these years” Ritu explained the story of how the girls figured out the connection between the blue dupatta and their’s mother’s friendship.

The next day, as Jayanti and Rituparna lit the lamps to start the Diwali pooja, they had a special prayer for their friendship. As they lit the diyas and fireworks, they looked at each other and their families and thanked the blue dupatta for bringing their friendship back to them after a quarter of a century.