Enthralling Trails

My husband’s aunt Kakakka turned 90 years old a few months back. She lives in Mumbai and can speak English, Hindi, Konkani, Malayalam, Tamil …and the list is endless. She doesn’t look a year more than seventy. We have always seen her wear bright coloured saris with her curly hair coiled into a tiny bun at the nape of her neck. She is young at heart and not an old soul. These days she has started wearing long gowns but her face has the same vibrant smile with a well-kept set of teeth. Recently her son gifted her a smartphone and the first thing she learnt to use was’WhatsApp’. It gave her a great opportunity to connect with her family in Kerala. She joined the family group and began updating herself. During the lockdown, she also began using video chat. My husband has been her favourite nephew. My husband goes to meet her once in a while and they chat for long hours. Sometimes the conversation goes on till dawn and during these long sessions, she would take my husband through the ...

Ruskin Bond began narrating his stories on All India Radio at 10.10 pm since yesterday. It is an endeavour to keep listeners engaged during the lockdown owing to the COVID 19 Pandemic. We decided to sit in the balcony that faced the garden of the building and listen to Bond. The tiny expanse of the garden would usually have families and kids hustling and bustling noisily but these days there is no one in the vicinity. The uncanny silence helped us listen to the low voice of Bond with clarity as he narrated his story. Bond’s stories revolve around the magic of childhood and this story was no exception. He narrated the story of bonding with his father who would talk about umpteen things when they rambled on the streets of Delhi. The quietness of the night and the narration propelled me to my childhood.  My family was a large one with four siblings and the extended family was much bigger than that. My father had a treasure of stories to narrate. He had one for every...