Potions.

I'm like Bertie wooster, my favorite ancestors are father and his siblings.

Dodd kaka

Since I had a splitting headache at Akka’s place I started applying the navaratna tailum.

Akka’s grin took me back to when I was between 3 to 5 yrs. “yenee doddakakana magale” that translates to “what is it doddakaka’s daughter.” The memory is a bit a hazy.

But at the ajjarkaad house where we functioned as a joint family we had a small enclosure where the staircase began. It was a utility room,

P.N.Krishnamurthy Rao who all of us called Doddapapa and P.N.Venkat Rao who we called as DoddaKaka and then my father P.N.Srinivasa Rao all lived together.

Each one of the brothers had a quirk with papa and doddapapa it was perfumes but with doddakaka it was fragrant hair oil. The magic of those bottles he got seem so wondrous. To me (essentially I was most adventurous) the clear oil with some nostalgic fragrance I don’t know its name. Then there is the jasmine fragrance Tata, there was a reddish one again from Tata, and light green Ramtirtha oil. It was an effort to resist opening those bottles.

Doddakaka was meticulous he would have his bath oil his hair and lie down on the bed for a while. Now since he did not want the pillow case to dirty he would use a towel over it.

Saturday was the day he went to movies. When he came sometimes he would bring back Badam Halwa.

But the most affectionate gesture I remember is the bus from goa would arrive at 3.30 am to udupi I would get off at their house, he would make a cup of coffee and tell me”neenu malko I mageena kandkanthe””you sleep for a while I will look after the baby” later during the day my mother would pick me.

Doddakaka was never as flamboyant as papa or doddapapa but in his own quiet way he was very supportive. There are times that I am convinced that his quietness kind of counteracted his brothers’ hypervolatity.