Letters To Koko

  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 fi...

 Dear Koko,  Someone told me, it is the little things in life that make life worth living. As I grow older, I think there is something inside me that has given up loving things which are traditionally considered "big wins". Sure there was a time when I would have considered a big TV, or a fancy phone to be the epitome of luxury. I think that person in me is gone. I am not sure whether it is because I grew up or I naturally gravitated towards your almost Zen behavior.  I am so surprised at the lack of want that you exhibit in the face of certain rewards. I am talking about times when we are at the mall for example, we ask if you want this or that. You don't exhibit the greedy want or crazy excitement that I remember feeling as a child. Not all the time of course, but sometimes :) So let's go to this December morning when I saw you absolutely thrilled by an idea and we sort of got swept up in the spontaneity of the moment ourselves. It was a Thursday morning, you were o...

 Dear Koko,  Yesterday we had a unique opportunity to meet Amitav Ghosh ! This was in Champaca bookstore in Bangalore and wasn't as widely advertised as the rest of his appearances in the city. We got lucky with the place as it wasn't as crowded as I had anticipated.  These kind of things typically take hours, but here we were in a room full of like minded people who were enjoying conversations with the author and moving along in an orderly fashion. I really enjoyed the experience.  But you, you seemed to be having a party of your own. First of all, the bookstore itself is such a delight. You were quick to find stuff you liked as well as corners you could curl up in.  Then, you volunteered to arrange the books that were kept for signing. I am not sure how much of a help it was for the people, but they were very nice to indulge a little helper. Then, you got a front seat view of the author coming and sitting down to sign his books, interacting with people, shari...

 Dearest Koko,  It was a little after midnight on 24th December 2025 and you were dreaming. In your dream you said something vaguely about Santa and I woke up.  I was suddenly overcome by a terror. This was not the kind of terror that Stephen King novels are made up of, but the kind that covers your heart when you are stuck in traffic or your are in the shower. It is the very real fear of time slipping away. You know how anxious I get when we play any game that has the sand timer running? Even if I know what the answer is I falter when there is a timer running like that. This has been the bane of my existence, but tonight it was something else.  Playing Santa for you has been my obsession over the past few years, In the beginning it was easy. I would decorate the tree by myself, get the gifts and put them under the tree. When you woke up you would get something under the pillow or see the gifts under the tree. The tragedy with this generation of children is of plenty...

 Hi Koko,  So this morning was fun! You and I were just sitting and getting bored, when we came across a great article on my very favorite author Kurt Vonnegut. In 2006, the English teacher Ms. Lockwood gave an assignment to the students to write to their favorite authors. No one responded except Kurt.    This was his letter: His letter ends in typical Kurt style asking the students to write a poem - 6 lines about anything but rhymed. We did that and laughed so much. While Kurt urges us to enjoy just the act and it would be "gloriously rewarding" in itself and it was, I just cannot tear up the first poem you have written and discard it into trash. This is for your future reference: I play football,  Sometimes, I fall Then I walk down the hall At the humungous mall, I twinge in pain I see a man with a cane, Limping his way What's he got to say? So I go and ask him, Are you Jim? And the man answers I'm just a lowly freelancer. Living with my son-in-law Every day t...

 Hi Koko,  There is so much war talk going on that I thought I had to break it up. Forget about you, I am getting anxious. There are WhatsApp articles on how to prepare for an eventuality like a nuclear explosion in your area for crying out loud! So I thought it would be a good idea to look at your new books. We gathered around all your books, reading through to see what we will learn this year. History seems interesting with India's Freedom Movement being in the syllabus. It is important now more than ever to get your facts straight. Maths has some new Geometry concepts that we will enjoy. But it was of course one poem by William Wordsworth that caught my eye. I read it after years and it resonated just as it had the first time, so I thought it would be an interesting social experiment to see how you interpret it, and here is how you explained the poem to me: I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of gold...