Come, Putta

A To Let board

Priyanka and I began our life together in Indiranagar, in a good apartment on 13th Main. We were happy there. But when we decided to start a family, I began looking for a house — something with more room in it, in every sense.

Priyanka was young then and used to walk around Defence Colony. She loved that area. So did I. We had quietly agreed that if a house ever came up there, we would take it.

One day, on one of those walks, we saw a To Let board. We enquired. That is how we met Dr Nilima and Dr Vivek Kadambi — and how we met Vivek's mother, Kadambi aunty, who was in charge of the property.

She showed us around herself. She told us everything — not the polished version a landlord gives, but everything — and then told us to speak to her son.

Dr Nilima and Dr Vivek decided to give the house to us. I still remember the line they used. When they were young, they said, looking for a house as a couple, they had wanted to live in a good house, and they had wished someone would give them one. And someone did. So they felt we should also get what we were hoping for.

That was our introduction to the Kadambi family. It began the way everything with them began — with generosity offered so plainly that you almost missed how rare it was.

The alarm clock on the fourth floor

We stayed in that house for a long time. Our first son was born while we lived there. We celebrated his first birthday in those rooms.

Kadambi aunty had a way of addressing people that was entirely her own. The children were always "Raja."

I used to tell my friends, only half joking, that I did not need an alarm clock. I woke up when Kadambi aunty woke up. From the moment she was up, she was active — machines running, everything checked, decisions being made about what would happen that day and what would not. If a milkman or a vegetable vendor passed below, she would issue instructions from the fourth floor. You could set your watch by it. Oh, that is Kadambi aunty. It must be seven-thirty.

She visited us often. Somewhere in those years she stopped being our landlady's mother and simply became part of our family.

"If you think I'm your son"

At some point she told me she considered me her son. It was said simply, the way she said everything, and it has stayed with me.

So one day I tested it, the way a son would. If you think I am your son, I said, then help me find a property in Defence Colony.

And that is exactly what she did. The moment she heard of something, she called me.

That was the whole of her, in one gesture. Endlessly curious about everything and everyone. Always ready with a helping hand. Energy that never seemed to run down.

Prasad, always

Long after we stopped being her tenants, we kept visiting.

"Come, putta," she would call out — come, son — every single time. And she made sure I never left without prasad in my hand. Not sometimes. Every time.

During Covid we were able to serve her a few meals. Small thing. We count it as our fortune that we got to do even that much for someone who had done so much for us.