Letters To Koko

 27 Aug 2022 Today is my Dadu's (Dadan's father) 38th death anniversary. When a man is not in our midst for so long, the memory fades and only what we want to remember perhaps remains. Like I told you earlier everyone has their bright and awful days, so does this man, who I have never met.  Writing this was a struggle as it reminded me of the story of six blind men trying to describe an elephant. When I spoke to different people a different picture emerged. So I will try to paint the picture which I got - it has different strokes from different folks.  To me Dadu is this tragic hero you love and get angry with at the same time. Why did Othello do this or why didn't Hamlet do that? He was in the Second World War and many stories have been told and films have been made about the PTSD of WWII. He was an entrepreneur who did not make it, but had the heart to take the risk. His political affiliations and principles were strong. He was a man of the world. At home he was distant...

Thakuma is a generic name by which many Bengali children call their paternal grandmother. This is the name that Baba used fondly for his grandmother too. You have seen her and were lucky enough to share some sweet moments with her. Thakuma passed away a few days ago. No one was quite sure what was the exact illness which took her finally, but it was at the end of a protracted number of ailments which generally befall people at an advanced age and doctors label it as age-related. We were in Bangalore at the time that she spent around 20 days in the hospital with a number of tubes attached to her body supporting her many organs so we did not see her, but I have heard that she was in a lot of pain and the eventuality brought relief to her. I have seen her as an old frail woman, I have not even seen a photograph of her young, but from her broad forehead and mischievous, bright eyes, I think she must have been a force to reckon with in her heyday. Through facts oft repeated by the fam...