My elder sister

I think everyone around me has fond memories of summer vacations, spent at their paternal or maternal homes, along with lots of cousins to play with....memories of games and pranks and meals and lazy afternoons.....

Those things did not come easy for me. The fact that I was the 2nd child of the youngest son to my grandparents, and thereby the 26th of 28 cousins didn't help much. I had no one at my same age and my other cousins spent more time with the others since most of them were either 1) too old and had children of their own or 2) all in Bangalore. The only ones around me were my own siblings and I had already spent enough time with them throughout the year. Holidays in India were meant to be spent with the other cousins.

This post is for my cousin....L-Jo, the one I could say I am closest to. No, not J-Lo, but L-Jo. :-)

The very first memory that I have about her is me complaining to her mother, my aunt, that she preferred playing with the other cousins and not with me (I must have been around 6 or younger) and her getting a few beatings to "be nice and play" with me. She still complaints about this to no end. The "games" I wanted to play were simple. We used to wear straw mat sarees. Not that you could wear them like sarees, but then....after the beatings, she'd play pretty much anything I wanted to.


We actually got close after my family settled back in India and she came to spend her summer holidays with us....all 2 months. With no other cousins for her to choose over me....we bonded over never-ending chats at night that lasted till my mother would warn us from the next room. We'd sleep in in the morning, trying to avoid any work my father would surely throw at us.

We enacted scenes from Hindi movies...you know the ones....heroine receives upsetting letter from hero, runs to her room, throws herself on the bed and cries....those ones....This particular scene was repeated a zillion times, running from a 10-15 feet distance and finally landing on our bed.

Finally, when I completed my academics, I moved to the city and stayed with my aunt for 2 years (of which a short stint I stayed in a PG - more about that later). We continued bonding over weekend shopping, evening walks, stories, dumb songs.... We went to GK Vales to get my "proposal photos" taken - those are still hidden and apart from my parents and Lindo, she's the only other person on earth to have seen them. We learned to drape sarees and learned to walk to church in them...we were each other's company on Valentine's day...

For me, she's my big sister cum best friend. Okay, not much of a big sister but the age gap is perfect and we get along so well. If someone was to continuously listen to our conversations, they'd get bored after say 3-4 days. Mainly because we still laugh about the same things, the same stories, the same songs.

Its been a while since I have been in touch, but I remembered her a few days back and missed her lots and I thought I should share this with you all.

Love you L-Jo....God bless everyone with a relative like you.