There’s always a first, including eating Puttu

 Dear Koko, 

The decision to allow you to go for a football tournament all the way to Kochi, all alone, was a hard one. But we took it. 

The problem with writing to you after a long time is that I forget the way I used to write to you. You know when I was younger, in school, we did not have easily accessible phones or internet so letters were a large part of growing up. I have this cousin sister who used to write letters to me. She was my first pen friend. For all my other cousins who lived in Kolkata, it was easy to just meet them during the weekends and play with them, chat with them and occasionally fight with them. But with this sister, who lived in Durgapur the communication was always through letters. We were not very diligent, often there would be months of pause between our letters, but when we put our pens to paper, the words would just flow. We would talk about the various occurrences of our lives which were limited to our social lives in school. Even now, I find it so much easier to talk to her over a text than in person. But may be that’s because she is the eloquent one! I’ll never know. Look how I digress, I was talking about my inability to express myself to you. I think this also has to do with how you have evolved over the last few months. You are not a baby anymore. Sometimes you speak with such philosophical depth that I am at a loss of words. So even though this letter will probably reach you once you are older, I thought I should reset the tone to how we talk these days, almost like equals.

I had made scraggly notes of how I was feeling here and there and it took a little time for me to really bring all of it together to talk about how I felt about the first time that I let go of you (for real). The month was November (2025) and you were doing very good at the football academy. We were told that there would be a tournament in early 2026 where the team will be travelling to Kerala. While we were all pretty excited at the prospect of a tournament away from home, you were also excited to be travelling with the team. I was supportive but I had my doubts.

How will you ever take care of yourself? You can’t even wake up in the morning by yourself. You lose one water bottle a month at school, at least. Pens and pencils seem to disappear in some alternative portal. For you to travel all alone with a team which was primarily boys who were a year or two older than you seemed like an outrageous concept. When I ask you what time it is, you squint at the face of a clock as if you were deciphering some Dan Brown level puzzle. When you will be in a situation where the schedules are tight, it will be so difficult for you to manage everything. Plus you have never slept alone!

What kind of food will they have? Will you be able to have the spicy food of Kerala? Will you be able to manage your travel documents? What if you lose something? What if you get lost? What if it rains? What if you fall sick? What if, what if, what if - a million world ending scenarios were moving around in my mind at the prospect of this. Then came the second wave of doubt - when this news would be broken to the grandparents. They will have questions and boy will they be big, scary and soul crushing ones!! If I am not convinced myself, how will I handle their doubts and concerns? When we were younger, your father and I, such opportunities were few and far between. If they would arise, we would finally not go for such things. The reasons could be varied. Maybe our parents were going through these same doubts or others. Communication was not as easy and accessible as it is now, so just letting go had many more layers of complexities.

But finally we did make up our mind and decided to allow you to take this opportunity. What’s the worse that can happen is the framework I follow. If you fall sick or something happens, we will just go to Kerala. It is not very far from Bangalore and we can reach within half a day. We got you a phone so that you can keep in touch (and also click a few pictures). Once we had that clear in our mind, it was easier to see you off at the airport.

You were super excited to wave goodbye and join your friends. Your coach was also someone who we trusted, and I think I called him a hundred times to check on you. 

You returned after three days - a sunburnt and independent boy. I could see the change in you. You never had a dearth of confidence, but I could see how you had built a strong muscle of negotiation and patience. Previously if you wanted something you would cry and nag like a child, now I could see the subtle shift in how you would try to reason and get your way. And may I dare say the distance from home fostered self-reliance. You have not lost a single water bottle this year, which I think is a personal milestone. Managing time and keeping track of personal belongings has improved drastically for you. Not just that, engaging with a new region, local customs and cuisines has also led you to grow a taste for Kerala food. You have been advocating for puttu a lot since your return and swear we will fall in love with it when we have it!

Love,

Ma