She invested in postcards,

particularly those with European landscapes.

She would gaze at the Positano,

the Svartisen glacier and the Dordogne river valley

for hours after meticulously pinning them to the wall

above her writing desk.

Solacing herself with exquisite pictures,

stroking every landscape,

passionately, wistfully,

running her fingers along the edges and contours

of the Machu – Picchu, the Kremlin,

it struck her sometimes with a pang

that she shall never have the pleasure of savouring those places.

But postcards from faraway lands

gave her something to cling to,

something to hope for,

something to daydream about.

Collecting postcards was a migratory act,

hopping from one destination to another,

escaping life’s darkest experiences,

a sanctuary in which to lose herself.

How skillfully she blurred the lines between life and art,

how postcards allowed her to remember and forget,

how they made her travel back and forth in time.

Postcards –

A distraction with purpose!

                                                              ~ Swati Moheet Agrawal

                                                                      Mumbai, India