Trigger Happy

Suddenly a trigger
Triggers memories of Appa:
A blue street sign proclaiming
Kandappan street
Takes me back
To Summer holidays with cousins
And Appa’s bedtime stories:
Kandappa, the hero
Kudumi, his friend
Mushtikaran and Chitrakullan, the villains
(After we kids were asleep
The adults would help themselves
To our pillows)

A younger generation of cousins got
Not Ali baba
But Puli baba
And his son, Kili baba
Appa’s greeting to my cousin was
Never Hello or Nalla irrukaya
But Ho ho ho Puli
How is your son, Kili?

Our boys would squeeze in
On either side of Thatha
For “Story-time”
And when they threatened
To doze off
Patti would evict them
To their own beds

His last Story-time was
On the night before he left here
For home
Promising to be back
In a week or two

That return was not to be
That’s the end of this story