I suddenly thought of the things that delighted me when my daughter was young..

One day, she came to me crossly and said, “NOW what shall I do? You’ve already gone and married Appa.”

Once she asked me if I had paid her school feeses.

She wrote the following in some essays:

1. In school, we have a uniform. We have to wear a skirt and shit.

2. When my class went to the Zoo we had to take admission forms.

I was checking her Maths paper (she was in Class 3) and she got a preposterous answer for one sum. “You taught me how to borrow!” she said proudly. She then explained that she had borrowed…a number from the next sum!

We went to see “pathinAru vayathinilE” (“At Age 16), a Kamalahasan and Sridevi Tamizh movie, where Kamalahasan wears a kOmaNam (langOti), or loincloth. “That’s a different kind of underwear,” she announced, confidently…and loudly.

The first time she saw a hospital nurse, wearing white stockings, she came and told me in a hushed voice, “That lady has powdered her legs all over!”

Always having seen photographs of Indira Gandhi with her saree over her head, she saw a bus full of nuns with their habits, and said, “A bus full of Indira Gandhis!”

Her father had had a heart attack and had gone through several procedures, and then we moved briefly to Madurai. When she saw the board that said, “Bypass Road” (the road bypasses Madurai town and goes to Tiruchi), she asked, “Is there also an Angiogram Road?”

She wanted to play at home once, but we forced her to come with us, and took her to Chikpet. While we bargained for light fixtures and other household-related stuff, I didn’t want her in the congested shop, so she was sitting in the car in front of the shop. She started crying. “Why are you crying?” we asked her. “We brought you because wanted to spend time with you.” “But you aren’t, that’s why I’m crying,” she replied.

My bebby…I had about 22 nicknames for her, and I still do occasionally use them…I am still only on my third nickname or so, for KTB!