Uppa has three sisters. The eldest; the stern and sound Ithatha. Every conversation each vacation begins with a scolding for not keeping in touch just as much as he should and without difference ends with a pictorial description of how she was the one who used to bathe him as a little boy. By the time she reached this point there was always a quiver when she would be overtaken with her emotion. Her Malayalam has been without her knowledge tainted with Hindi after many years of living in Bombay and later in Mumbai. Uppa seems to love to listen to this rant every time with freshness. He allows her thrust her authority of next in command to mother on him. He smiles all along. Sometimes you could see a twinkle of a tear drop in the corner of her eye. Uppa adores her. She taught him in her lessons on the streets of Bombay then, to live street smart and has been a very protective umbrella over the rains of his childhood and teen hood.
The second was a happy bubble, Ithava. She was the singer of the family that even her laughter rung with the rhythmic momentum of her claps. She would laugh loud, and clap louder; it always looked like her body was dancing to her own joy. You could not help laugh with her and be thrilled at that happiness.“ Ente Jabi”(My Jabi) she would say each time she saw Pa on TV, no matter how many times it was relayed on screen. She was the chirpiest, the happiest, and an embodiment of child like innocence. She was gone away too soon.
The third, the very level headed, Amina. Even though Uppa is five years younger to her, he calls her by name. Among the conservative Muslim women of Northern Malabar, she has been exemplary of the caliber of women when she was elected Municipal Chairperson of Thalaserry. She is fair as winter, beautiful like a rose. She can all at once envelop you in her love and cradle you in her warmth.
Sometimes I want to know which of his sisters he loves most like I always want to know if it is Julie he loves more than me, every time I pull a fight at home. They are all beautiful, each with stark features. Ithatha with the pronounced dimple, Ithava with beautiful hair and Amina with cheeks as red as an apple. Who Uppa? Who is the best among them? Each time, he would begin a narration that he would swell in a feeling that so effortlessly animated his face. Sometimes, I thought of it as pride, at other times of love uncontained and at all times,. I like to think of the reply, little as a response and more as a lesson in selfless love, I will carry with me throughout life. Uppa says, “I love them each in such measure that I want each to feel that they are the most loved of the three. “He loves them for being the coolness of his parched childhood. Each of them equally. Each of them abundantly. Each of them beyond all
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