Your name flashes on my notifications. I gingerly smile. Gullu calling, it says. It's your nickname, coined by your grandfather because you had fat cheeks when you were born. I stole the name and referred to you as Gullu and its permutations. Gul, Gullanda, Gulcharrah, Gulbarga, Gulzar, Guldasta, Guldaodi. The names ripple across my memory. My smile, like a shooting star, disappears before I could figure that it's a smile. I look at your photo, smiling, your bobbed hair making you look smarter than you are.

You are no more the fat kid you were once upon a time. You are no more there in my life, either. Gul means flower in Urdu. Why is it then that your name in the notification pricks my name like a thorn?

- हर्ष स्नेहांशु