My heart leapt when I read this...my childhood memories are of my cousins, plenty of them, a houseful of them, of all ages and sizes...

No holiday was worth it, if it wasn't spent in the company of cousins. Come to think of it, the cousins were divided into three groups - the adolsescents, the young things and kids, the bah kind! 

Devanthi, Parthi, Hari and I formed the adolsecent group - the kind that was given the freedom to dictate terms to the little ones, to choose the movies to go to, the music to listen to, the fruits to eat, the game to play, the corner to sleep in, the mattress to lie on, the time to bathe, the work to shirk,  the task to choose to do...The other two groups watched us, fuming and fretting while we held sway over all the fun at aaya's house. 

Devanthi was my buddy, we shared all secrets, we discussed everything under the sun, we held opinions, we fought, we hugged, we liked wearing similar outfits, we liked talking, walking, playing rowdy games, liked running errands for aaya and maami and liked to take part in adventure activities like swimming in the well and running on the sloping roof of the adjacent building and rigging up tents on hot summer days. We could be silent for a long time comfortably together and were even more comfortable calling each other 'di'. 

Parthi and Hari were the comedians, always up to some mischief and fun, always there to offer help, tease, frighten and pull at our plaits...they really did. And, sometimes, methinks, because there were fewer boys they mistook Devanthi and me for boys and included us in all their madcap capers. They were inseparable, they performed cabarets, they hid our things, they drew moustaches on sleeping aunts and cousins, they robbed us of pillows and bedsheets at nights, they made everyone laugh at their jokes and endeared themselves to maami by grinding chutney and gravy mix. They never slept during the daytime, but were always busy doing something or nothing all the time. 

Geeta and Mythili were those caught in between - being neither here nor there. I remember their quarrels and their fondness for one another. 

Kayathri, Karthikayani, Sadha, Yamuna, Sudhakar were the bah! kids...always getting into our hair with their baby games...or so we thought. They knew where their perimeter ended and never encroached our territory. I now feel sad that in the arrogance of youth, we thought they were too small and too young to be included in our games. 

There were the babies - Uma, Vijai, Nalina, Moni, Shivi, Poorani who were there to be petted and pampered as babies. They were there to offer their fat cheeks to be pinched by us...Lord help them, if they cried...we only pinched harder. 

I do not know why, but Krithi for me was a kid sister who, I knew better as an adult...her sweet nature and kindness to all made her larger than life...Thambi was a strange, mystical figure with his pocket sized books filled with philosophical thoughts even when he was in the third standard.

I know my life has been made richer by my cousins . Those days can never come back again, but how colourful and joyful my memories of childhood are ...thank you, dear cousins. You all mean the world to me. 

Today, we are all married, have weathered well and are surrounded by our own extended families, but each of us carries a nugget far too precious to lose. My biggest fear is - what if I lose my memory to age and cannot recognise these people who have given me so much of happiness...well, if that does happen, remember that you enriched the life of a cousin in a way that can never be appreciated enough.