Letters To Koko

 Dear Koko,  There is something truly out of this world about space travel, isn't it a wonder? Day before yesterday, India became the fourth nation to land on the moon and the first to land on the dark side of the moon.  The entire experience of the Chandrayaan III had captured your imagination quite a bit. And not just you, but I can see the excitement and wonder with which all children have been talking about it. I was fortunate to have witnessed this even with you, I could feel your excitement, your heart beating faster as the countdown to the touchdown began. The way in which you had devoured the newspapers the last few days, knowing every detail about previous space sojourns by India was amazing to watch.  I, and I am sure so many others, hope that this will be a seminal point in the history of our nation. This will ignite many many young minds like yours. I am lucky to have witnessed the point at which these minds were ignited, the moment when there was that sp...

 Hi Koko,  So we changed our car. Yes, our favorite Honda City, in it's shiny maroon belongs to someone else now. While we have moved on to a majestic ride, can we take a moment to reminisce the beautiful times we spent in it?  The car was older than you. We purchased it the year I moved to Bangalore, so in many ways I was also emotionally connected with it though your father spent the maximum time driving it around. It was very truly an extension of his self.  The story of buying this car is clear as if it happened just yesterday, time flies and how! We were just married then and we were living with our friends, Kanika and Aman. I think Aman had also just bought a car and we were discussing over a weekend we should get one too. I was happy I could have the black Santro all to myself. So we went to the Honda showroom and we were looking at smaller cars, but we saw this maroon beauty and we were sold from the word go.  The car sales team did not have to work hard...

Dear Koko,  What is special about this summer vacation? This is perhaps the first real vacation you could enjoy, at home, lazing around, having no particular plans - spending long, sultry afternoons sipping on juice or, sheltered in a sleepy, curtained room. Every other year we either visit some place, or you go to day care or summer camp, but this year you just enjoyed and chilled out.  But that's not what was the most exciting part of this summer most definitely. Last year on your birthday I bought you the box set of Harry Potter - those 7 glorious books. When we were children and started reading these books, owning that red and yellow covered book with a boy with a scar on the cover was such a rush. Now the editions have changed and it comes in this cute box set where the pages have illustrations on the margins. I thought it was the best gift ever, and I have been told that perhaps it was more for myself than for you.  You read the first couple of books last year and w...

Dearest Koko,  It is so difficult to write about a person you have never known. A person who has existed only in photographs and very indistinct stories. My mother’s father, my Dadan, is a figure like that for me – a person shrouded in mystery. Yet I think it is important to piece together this very fractured jigsaw. When we were very young all that we knew or were told was that he died at sea and the family was not able to see his body after the demise. They just received a telegram and that was that. No one liked to speak about the incident or about him at all, and we were quick to learn that it was a raw nerve not to be touched. But he was not just that - not just a person who died at sea - he was so much more, and I think I would have loved to know him and be his friend. The first couple of things which come to mind when I begin to stitch this together are of course the smiling face in the photographs, the handsome man in a uniform, the aviators, the fountain pen with his n...

 Dear Koko,  I am guessing as a child grows up they show parents a reflection of themselves. Most of the times we are so caught up with counting our good qualities that we forget to talk about the little idiosyncrasies which really only the close ones know about. Like how you throw your feet about if anyone even touches a blanket to them, leave alone cover them, even in peak winter. Or how your nose crinkles in extreme concentration, how you suddenly feel sleepy when I mention homework and are wide awake if someone mentions football.  But these are all cute things, what about the not so nice things. Generally we forget them, push them deep under our memory so that only the good remains. That's an impossible person. No one is so perfect. Let's talk about your annoying habit which you may or may not have inherited from someone. I will neither acknowledge nor deny this if questioned later. The habit I am talking about is correcting grammar.  Yesterday I was texting my f...

 Dear Koko,  Sometimes when we speak about one thing, another distant memory nudges you. Something like that happened to me when I was writing the last note to you.  If we are talking football, we cannot deny the indomitable affection that we bear in our hearts for Brazil. Your Dadan and his entire fraternity are big Brazil fans. So even while they cheer for Argentina this year, we know who they started out supporting. I wanted to recount this tryst with the Brazilian flag that you had in your younger days (your younger days, imagine!). That's where the football references end.  Let me walk you back a couple of years when we travelled to Krabi. We had Mojo and his parents with us as well. Krabi is a beautiful island in Thailand, whose pretty picturesque beaches and clear waters are a sight to behold. We were completely enthralled with the breathtaking scenes and were enjoying a laid back and relaxed holiday. The beautiful AirBnB which we got was a perfect getaway esp...

Dear Koko,  Seeing as the end of another year is round the corner, I am in a pensive and philosophical mood. So you have to put up with it.  I have this box of currency which I had started building many many years ago. It is a tin box full of coins from different countries. These coins and bills have been made in a far off land, but they are sitting in a dark corner in my closet. I bring them out sometimes and stack them into neat piles, try and remember how I got them and them put them back in. For a brief moment, I am floating above my daily woes and am transported to a different land almost. I had forgotten how much joy this seemingly simple activity gave to me.  This year when the FIFA World Cup started, it was a similar experience. You have taken a keen interest in football, but I think this is thanks to your obsession with PlayStation. So when you would say that you want to stay awake to watch matches, I would laugh. Staying awake at night and watching matches was s...