Bedtime Stories

11

I don't know how the stories started. Like colours old memories fade from even most rugged surface. Maybe this was occasioned by Baba reading out from a book from his colleague and good friend Gosh uncle's house. As far as I remember, my father has always been a loner and so whatever few friends he made have been really close. I might have failed miserably when it comes to imbibing his best qualities, but his aloofness and love for tea I have inherited in good measure. Baba was born at a time when independence was still a good decade-and-a-half away. So like all impressionable young men of his generation he was inspired in particular by Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement. Gosh uncle's children when they grew up turned over some of their books to us. These ranged from school textbooks printed in United Kingdom to The....