Around mid-April, many years ago, we would have been bristling in anticipation of what we would do when we went on our annual May holidays to my mum's maternal home in Dharwad (then Dharwar), in Karnataka. It was the high point of our school year. We left for our Dharwad right after the last examination, so there was often a small tingle at the back of our minds while on holiday, as to what the results would be. But frankly, my dear, I didn't give a damn.

Papa worked in Indian Airlines, so we used to get free air tickets. Sadly, he could never join us on this annual vacation — though he took us on a zillion other vacations — because it was the airline's busiest season. So it was my mum Indu, sister Sarayu, and me. We flew from Mumbai to Belgaum, took an "eshti bus" to Dharwad station, then a tonga home, opposite Ice Factory, just off Kittur Chenamma Park. My sister and I would always sit in the front of the tonga, alongside the driver, our feet planted in sweet-smelling hay. The first thing I'd do, is tell the driver sternly, "Chaabuk do" and grab his whip. I hated it when they whipped those elegant horses. Clip-clop we'd do, like in those old Bollywood ghodagadi gaane, the horse's mane flipping this way and that.