Letters To Koko

  Hi Koko, Last night we were having a strange conversation. I was scrolling through old photographs of vacations and you suddenly said, “I have been to these places, but I don’t remember.” I can see that dejected and languishing look on your face.  And I thought to myself, your excuse is that you were too young, what is my excuse for having these memories lost? So I will try to think back and write to you some memories which are unique to us when we visited these places. I am not going to go all Lonely Planet on you and explain which flight we took and what famous sights we saw, but I will be talking more about what made our trip to these places special. We made distinct and once-in-a-life-time experiences here. Maybe, some day, when things are better and we can freely move about again, we will go to distant lands again – to make new memories. Till then, let me regale you about the old ones.  Let me start with one particular experience in the last awesome trip that we t...

Dear Koko, I have been highly irregular, but then life has been highly irregular the last couple of months - no about a year now?  I am sorry you had to see all this now. Now when you should be going to school and filling up your pocket with sand and share everything with your friends. Instead we are teaching you to be wary of people, stay away from them, not shake hands, not hug, not share. What a strange world it is! The other day I was telling you to sit and complete your homework. I know homework is such a chore for you. You don't want to do it. You'd rather watch TV and play video games. I used to get very irate initially (full disclosure - I still do) when I'd want you to read and paint and you sneak out for some TV time.  I think to myself, watching so much TV will fry your brain. But then wouldn't this crazy loneliness too? This weird time when both parents are home but hey can't give you focused attention for whatever reason (work mostly, or their own sanit...

 Dear Koko, Recently we have found a shared love for Spin a Yarn, and we are having a ball of a time! I will try and note some of your most noteworthy works so you can get back to them much later in life. In this trip back home, I was going through some of the stuff I wrote when I was a kid and it gave inspiration and brought back memories of a happy time. I hope I can do the same with this series for you. Kojiro Hunt Once upon a time there lived a boy named Hiyoshi. Hiyoshi lived in Japan on an island. There were many families that loved there. They all stayed in caves. Hiyoshi and his family lived in a very comfortable cave. He also had a pet dog called Kojiro.  Every day Hiyoshi would practice with his sword. He wore a very nice head band too. Hiyoshi and Kojiro had a lot of fun on the island. They knew every part of it - all the caves, the jungles, the hills. On the other end of the island, away from their caves was a secret garden where Hiyoshi and Kojiro would go to play...

 Hey Koko, I’ll keep this one real short, but it was too hilarious not to share. This one is from one of our rides through the city when you exclaim, some of these name plates are white and some are yellow. You mean number plates. I promptly go on to explain the rationale to you and your curiosity is thwarted. Of course you point out ‘that’s someone’s car’ & ‘that’s a taxi’ all across the Lake Gardens flyover. When you get carried away like that I generally try to talk about something else, but I can’t help but admire your eye for detail. I am appreciative, but you go on, ‘it’s not I for detail Ma, it’s D for detail tsk tsk’ - and you break out into that nod and laugh. Love, Ma

Oh dear dear Koko, This year has turned out to be the worst, hasn’t it. It’s been a fair amount of time that I have written to you too. Blame it on the blur that time has been this year. The year practically whizzed past, except the times when it wasn’t trudging along in a never ending repetition of eat, sleep, cook, clean. I cannot remember how August was different from September except for the fact that we are now working from Kolkata instead of Bangalore. Yes, we have been here for some weeks now (months maybe, yeas it’s already November!). Perhaps, many years later, you won’t remember this long vacation (let’s be honest, these online classes are not half as much fun/work as school). However, this will be the longest vacation that you are getting. Truth be told, I am kind of getting a vacation feel myself. I have been told that I have become irregular with my letters to you. It’s true, sometimes I just happen to prioritise other things - it’s not fair, not right on my part etcetera,...

Dearest Koko, These are really strange times that we are living in. I am both happy and sad that you have to witness this at such a tender age. A new virus has decided to stake claim upon this world and it is not sparing anyone. The COVID is what humanity’s worst nightmare is made up of. A lot of people have lost their lives already and we do not have a cure for it yet. The WHO have declared it as a pandemic and people around the world are very scared. So are you, my little human and there is nothing wrong in being a little scared. At these times, being scared is perhaps the most legit feeling ever. As we are quarantined and trying to make sense of this weirdness, something beautiful is also happening. Neighbors are chitchatting and actually asking about one another’s well being, family and friends are making time to call each other and have conversations, people are dusting their old guitars and breaking into a tune, some are painting or trying out origami, the waft of ...

Hi Koko, It’s been such a long time since I wrote to you. I have just been reading my earlier posts and think how much you’ve grown up through these mere months. I have been meaning to write this note for quite some time, but just never got around doing it. So much has changed within this time. So your father and I were on this cleaning spree where I think we threw more than half our belongings in a bid to only stick on to things that spark joy in us. Clean as my home is now, I feel quite empty inside when I open my cupboard and see lined up clothes instead of my previous mess, when I know my favorite black lace top is not there anymore. I just realized that you are so much like me when you cried yourself to sleep three nights in a row for a blue sweater with three teddy bear heads sown on top. I am sure some less privileged kid is enjoying the sweater now, you know it too, but still you long for it. Your father does not understand this behavior. It’s not selfishness, it’...