DEAD LETTER OFFICE Dear Amma, 1. Your grandson has done in 2014 what your son could never do his entire life. Kaunteya learnt to read and write in his mother tongue. Our mother tongue. He now knows all the vowels (acchulu), consonants (hallullu), consonant-vowel combinations (gunimtamulu) and consonant-consonant combinations (vattalu). The Telugu Chandamama now beckons. 2. Your other grandson Atreya was teaching four-year-old Shiv Om a Tae Kwan Do kick. He spun like a neophyte skater on ice and fell flat on his face. He had stitches at Joy Hospital, and is back to climbing walls now. 3. Our old maid, Shantabai, came to visit last month. She said you left too early. She is doing well at the age of 80. Her son, however, is addicted to the powder, and is undergoing treatment at the municipal hospital. 4. The coconut tree climber came over and removed 40 coconuts. He also cleared the dried palm leaves from the tree. Out of the palm leaves fallen on the ground emerged a small brown snake, with eyes that looked like miniature marbles. It made its way towards the empty house next door. 5. In the new year, can you send a couple of sparrows to the tree next to your room. I have not seen a single sparrow after you left. 6. We are running 2 loads of wash daily of late. This is because the kids are spending their winter break climbing the pile of construction sand near the house under construction. Then they scale the walls of the empty house no. 6., walk on the ledge of house no. 7, stealthily creep into the backyard of house no. 8 and jump into a puddle of water in house no. 9. One has to complete all these levels to get initiated into their gang. 7. There is this beggar woman and her daughter who stand all day long at the Punjabvadi traffic signal outside our colony. This past month, I didnt see the child in the evenings. This is because some students in the Tata Institute of Social Sciences located next to the signal are educating the beggar child in the evenings. They sit on the pavement, in between the cobbler and the flower seller, and teach her the alphabet. As of now, the vowels are done, A to Aha. 8. Can 2015 have more of such idealistic, crazy, impractical students who believe they need to be the change they want to see in the world? And on that note, I wish you Happy New Year, from Earth.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 14:20:16 +0000
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