“Akka” (“ Older Sister”)

Puchimada Karumbiah and Angu had four children; Latha, Vasantha, Jaya, and Pushpa. My grandmother (Thai) is the oldest of the lot.

I only know her as Thai, but to Vasantha she is Latha Akka. When she heard he was sick, my grandmother, who seldom leaves our home asked me to take her to Coorg (some 280 kilometres away from Bangalore). Obviously, I agreed. I saw her drop a few decades that weekend. Everyone who knows Thai knows of her tremendous ability to heal and care for those around her. I got to see her pour her 82 year old body into the care of her younger brother and it moved me.

I do not have siblings. I have only ever savoured the lack of someone who could have witnessed my growth from the time I was a child with a few missing teeth to the version of me that will wear silver hair, and yet again, be missing a few teeth.

In some life I want to be Latha’s sister.