Day 18 | Do you remember?

Annu (dad),

• those mornings when you would shave and I would stand right next to you talking nineteen to the dozen?

• when you would smear after-shave on my cheeks to scare me that I would grow beard just like you and I would freak out?

• when you, Ajja (grandpa) and I would read newspaper simultaneously sitting in a circle and pass on the sections that we had read clockwise till all three of us would have read the entire newspaper?

• the time when we would solve crossword along with Annamma (grandma)?

• those nights when Amma would have cooked something boring, you would go out on the pretext of finishing some pending work at the shop and return with Biryani or some other delicious takeaway from Shetty Lunch Home?

• the numerous times that you bought me clothes in various shades of yellow in the quest for that perfect shade that would suit me?

• the Harry Potter books that you brought for me whenever you returned from your Bangalore trip?

• how you never failed to buy boxes of Kaju Katli for me as it was both our favourite. (It is Mannu’s absolute favourite too. I told you she is your replica, didn’t I?)

• the time when you took me out in your car early mornings to teach me driving as soon as I turned eighteen?

• how you would tell Sindhu (my sis) and I that you would even go to the extent of bringing tigress’s milk for your daughters’ sake, if need be.
• Annu, would you please bring me my dad’s love back?