family

Stories a Brass Kettle

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Objects have character. Don’t they? This brass kettle from another era sat quietly, serving filter coffee and cardamom tea for generations. Imagine what it has seen!

Families growing, stories flowing, and lives unfolding—all while it stayed still.

Sometimes, I wish it could talk, spilling tales of the people and the times. But its dents and marks do the talking. They hint at the lives it touched.

So, I let my imagination take over and weave my own stories.

After all, isn’t that what character is—a silent storyteller of time?

A Pink Bicycle, a Green Canopy, and a Sunday Well Spent

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Sunday mornings have a different rhythm. A little slower, a little softer, and undeniably indulgent. The world pauses just long enough to breathe. And today, indulgence takes the form of a pink bicycle, resting under a canopy of green. A simple, striking contrast—bold yet comforting, playful yet serene.

There’s something about pink. It carries the spirit of childhood, the joy of carefree pedaling, the wind rushing past, and the giggles that follow. It reminds us that life doesn’t always have to be about speed. Sometimes, it’s about presence.

Green completes the picture. The colour of renewal, of balance, of quiet strength. It frames the moment, offering a reminder that the world is constantly growing, shifting, and flowing—whether we rush through it or simply sit and take it all in.

And so, this Sunday morning is just that. A blend of pink nostalgia and green calm, a visual pause before the week begins again. A moment to breathe, to absorb, and to be.

How has your Sunday been? Did you find a moment of indulgence before Monday’s gears start turning?

(at Mumbai, India)

“Papa, My Legs Are Touching the Sky!”

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The little miss and her imagination take flight long before the plane does.

She plants her legs on the airplane window, eyes wide with wonder.
“Papa, my legs are touching the sky!” she shrieks, her joy lighting up the cabin—or at least our corner of it.

I smile. Because, really, why not?

We spend lifetimes chasing the sky, claiming its vastness for ourselves. But if you ever do, remember this young dreamer who got there first—feet up, heart soaring.

Girls !

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Incredible. Obviously apparently charmingly incredible.


That’s how she is now. Her new found height holds the years that have gone by since we last we saw her and I blogged about ! She is “tall and pretty” will be an ultra conservative understatement that can best befit an exemplary miser whose currency is words.

Our niece. I was quite taken by the fact that regular readers ( three of you ), wrote in asking for how she was doing, based on my blogpost of 2006 ! Initially all chuffed by the hope that it was my writing that stayed in the memory for so long, but only quick to realise that it is about the ‘subject’.

This post is on our girls in the US !

Her process of choosing clothes can resemble a very conscientious accountant balancing his books. Exemplary care and methodicity in every step, and could often seem to last the time it took for a planet to evolve.

On another note, there are people that walk the earth with exemplary prowess in carrying off anything from a Zenga suit to a dhoti in manner that can be mildly put as ‘superlatively clumsy’. Then there is the other variety. Those , that can carry off anything from street clothing to designer wear with a degree of regality that gets all of the streets to turn and highways to take a bow. She belongs to the latter.

Her culinary skills are galloping away to mouthwatering results.. A knack of baking cakes and lovely milk shakes, always served with a tinge of lazy air and loads of love. By the way, made with one eye on the TV and the other on the oven!

Like the last time around, her accent is still American. Perhaps thicker. The English. The hindi. And the Tamil included. She corrects my pronunciation often and the English that the Britisher left behind and we ‘suitably’ modified in India, often inviting a shake of a head, a dash of laughter or a quizzical look. Our moments of discord went as far as that and no further. .

Swimming, Kathak and a whole array of activities, no t to mention academics, keep her and her parents busy ! Which is an equivalent of a Mt.Everest climb for me. Getting to work and back is a tall ask, and if I am in a good spirit after all work and the dodging of the quintessential jay walker, it gets me all excited.



Ah. There is one more addition. To the work that she does. That is to take care of her younger sister. A sister that has auto recharge dynamo within her with which she can generate ‘energy’ at will. A sister whose love for animals is a level beyond any combination of adjectives that I can hope to leverage.





A sister who is bright and bubbly, cute and naughty, rugged and sporty, fast and comfy. Easily enticing any who would care to play and getting them sufficiently tired in a few minutes. We saw her as a toddler years back. With energy bursting at the seams she is a package for whom your heart is perpetually warmed up for.

Together they make a pair that can melt steel ingots with sweeping hug and a simple word. They wear the chaniya cholis just as they wear those jeans. The twin liking for Jennifer Anniston and Abhishek Bachhan defining how equanimity prevails between the two culture whorls that they are in the vortex of.

To them, India is a ‘far away land’ in all senses of the word and the Californian air offers them a rhythm of life, that is so distinctly different than what lies within Indian shores. That is the place they call ‘Home’!

Their life and living is different. We may want to soak up their wonder years in our memory too, by watching it all in close quarters everyday. Questions. Exclamations. Playful shrieks. The purportedly tear jerking sobs, that announce a stomach pain precisely when its time to eat. All of it. And more.

But then their life is over there, ours is over here. Our rhythms are so different.

So, we soaked up a zillion memories and a couple of giga bytes of photographs, of a time with them. That should just about suffice, for now, to offset a desire that pops up about them ‘coming back’!

As I packed my bags and gave them a hug, it required no great effort to be acutely aware that the years will roll on as they have in the past. Each roll weaving in a layer of change over what I had seen in them the last time around. Intricately inter weaving and warping a boundless love that never fails to have us in such a bind.

The years ahead will add many more layers of life, love and living.

I wonder when I will see them next. I wonder how taller will they be ? What new English lessons will they teach. What part of ‘their land’ will I learn from them? What new fare will they cook up for us? I wonder.

And just as the suitcases were getting shut, she cocked her head on one side and asked ‘so, when are you coming back?’.

Just as I rolled my eyes as an answer, the dynamo kid said, with the ‘hands on hip’ stance : ‘Akka, why do you ask the wrong question always. Ask him, why does he have to go’ !?!

Ah, girls.

Honour in Strawberry picking

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It was a perfect summer morning. We were driving from somewhere to somewhere in California. This big signboard was significant enough to grab and hold the attention of folks in the car. STRAWBERRY PICKING.

In no particular hurry to get anywhere the mind didn’t need any effort to get enticed to alight and set afoot to do some picking. Strawberry picking !



It’s got some level of physical activity for all in the family. For the kids to run around. For the adults to run after the kids. For adults to become kids. And for kids to chase the new found adult kids. In between, of course, plucking and heaping up strawberries in small containers.

There were very few instructions to follow. This board illustrated all that was needed to be done. Which was as elaborate as : Come here : Go pick : Come back & Weigh : Pay up : Go !









Pick we did. With some gusto. Any first timer could have mistaken us for folks that have never seen strawberries before or for folks that have been kept restrained for long. Slowly the baskets kept filling. The red strawberries glistened to the background sounds of cars and big Harleys whooshing by, which in themselves were dwarfed by the shrieks of joy in finding a bigger strawberry !

Soon we were done. There was enough energy left in the nieces to pluck the entire strawberry. It was us adults, who were tired. And folks like me still calibrating the dollar-rupee equation and wondering how much we would have plucked for !


That brought me face to face with the ‘honour till’ as they call it. The concept is simple again. It goes like this.

a. You bring in the strawberries that you have plucked

b. You weigh them yourself

c. You calculate how much to pay

d. You open the till ( ‘cash box’, as is better known in our part of the world )

e. You pay the money

There is no ‘cashier’. In fact, no one from the store is around. There are no cameras. Nothing. The folks just trust you to weigh correctly and pay appropriately. Guess what, we lived up to their trust, in right earnest. Paying to the last dime. That perhaps is the model. Trust people to pay and they will ! That was interesting. To say the least.

Its about a month ago that we did all of this. The rain drenched Mumbai air provides a distinctly different flavor to the senses. Much different and much enjoyable too. Yet, dipping into memories of red berry dotted rows of green, is done with no difficulty.

The days when adults became kids and kids remained kids are not days that are forgettable. The expanse of nature and the fresh clean best complimented by an expanse in the trust of the ‘honour till’. The clean blue skies and the fresh stillness of farmland only to be punctuated by those shouts of joy from such adorable nieces.

Well, some memories are truly priceless.

What is this ?

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The nephew was here. And the past week was perhaps the fastest to slip away in a very long while !

Between playing, running around, providing for, and keeping a watch, there was very little time to do much else. He flew back yesterday. The marks that he left behind stay. Like the fingerprints on the TV, as he tried to knock it down !

With children, there is constant wonder. About the simple things in life. Things that adults have either taken for granted, or have an ‘established view’ in their minds. Established and firmly set.

One of the constant questions that seeped through this babble, was ‘What is this ?’ ! Pointing at several things. Including : Moon. Sun. Horses. Sea. Car. Bike. TV. Mountain. The missus.

In any case those are the elements that resonate very well with him. The last one included.

( A little short of two years, he hasn’t yet gone to Facebook to engage in very intelligent games like..”take this quiz to find out what kind of animal are you”. Or something like that. Thankfully.)

For now, it was easy to answer those questions. Giving him the labels. As he points to the moon, and asks ‘What is this ?’, you say : ‘Moon’ ! And he goes ‘moooooon’.

He is satisfied. But it sets me thinking. As to what really the moon is all about ! Or the disappearing hills around Mumbai, which he exclaims with a ‘WoW…Mooounnntaaain’ !

He still hasn’t got the complete hang of pronouncing all words and sounds. While in most parts the mispronouncing is hilarious, in other parts it is very, well, philosophical. What would you say, if he pronounced ‘purse’ as ‘curse’ !

And so it has been easy. To answer the ‘What is this?’ with just labels. And have him being reasonably satisfied with that. In some time, he isn’t going to be satisfied with just those labels.

He will dig for more. I hope to ready with answers, by then.

For instance, I am reasonably sure that someday he is going to ask me with a slant of disdain ‘what is this’ at how the world has been treating the environment.

Oh yes, as he pointed to me, and asked : ‘what is this’, i gulped.

“Kaaaviiii” is what he went with. The next time, he points to me and asks that question, i hope to have figured out a few things.

Seems like quite an ask though.

Of flowers. Noise. Colour. Fragrance.

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And as we sit in Bryant Park in Kodaikanal, the spectrum of colours that stand on green plants are just mind boggling. Theres this endless stream of red and yellow. And then, as we walk a small distance, there is a blue, violet, white mosaic.


I pause to click a few snaps. And in the lens appears what appears to be a Cartoon character. I look away from the camera to admire nature’s fine dance. Many more images seep through the lens’ to the hard disk.

Just then, a bystander says ‘if only these flowers had as much of fragrance like the Jasmine..’ and i seem to agree. Of course, why don’t these flowers have some of that hauntingly waffling fragrance of Jasmine. I think. (of course i love jasmine)

We move on.

In some time we walk to ‘see’ Jasmine meandering by. Peeking from a basket that a vendor carries. And by the time we reach the car, the driver has adorned the rear view mirror too. And the aroma fills the car. The question returns. And i wish there was some more colour !


A few days from then, we reach Madurai. And folks at home wear flowers. And this question of colour remains. Dormant. You don’t speak it.(of course not). Ah ! But the mind resonates with ‘If only there was some more colour to the flower…!

The next morning, i am on my morning jog. At the Corporation Park. They have many signboards. And here is one that i pause to read. ” Every flower has its own beauty, you cannot compare two flowers…. ” And after reading those two lines, i stop. To read the full signboard.


Of course ! Of course ! The Jasmine regains its unparalleled height in my mind. And so do the colourful tapestry of flowers from Bryant Park. Each reigning in boundary less kingdoms.

I laugh. Suddenly i feel handsome. Powerful. Light. Simple. A thousand life events zip by in those intervening second. Even ‘Kavis Musings’ with all its faults seems OK !

I quickly re-pass the resolution that i slip out of. Often. ‘Do whats to be done. And leave out the rest’

And so, i jog on. And as another man sprints by, i tell myself ‘Yes leave the rest out. The rest of it is noise’.