Where Do I Begin??

The King told the White Rabbit in the book Alice in Wonderland, “Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” He perhaps thought he was giving simple instructions. But where is the beginning? I think that is something that has puzzled people over the years. The iconic song from Love Story echoes the same sentiment: “Where do I begin, to tell the story of how great a love can be?” 

I am faced with the same choice, though I may not be telling a love story – at least not in the traditional sense. I am telling the story of Kreeda, but in many ways, Kreeda, is, for me, a kind of love story.

It is Kreeda that kept me going through the myriad ups and downs of the family, when we despaired of things going right, when we worried about people, when we cried over a crisis. Kreeda gave me a joy that is rare and wonderful.

Kreeda kept me from losing my sanity by giving me a creative outlet and those who know me best know that I am never happy unless I am doing a million crazy things again. Kreeda gave me that chance – to come up with wild and wacky ideas and see them to fruition.

Kreeda gave me the ability to bring together two seemingly disparate parts of my personality – the Madras Ponnu, (Madras girl) anchored in family, culture, and tradition with the girl, who had travelled widely, read a lot, and believed in a global life.

Kreeda gave me a reason to get up and go every day, no matter how down I was, because there were games to be made and people wanted to play them.

Kreeda, gave me a sense of identity beyond mother and daughter and wife. It gave me a sense of who I am, and numerous people still call me Kreeda rather than Vinita, a fact that amuses me and thrills me at the same time.  

Kreeda also gave me a sense of pride because all of us, no matter how humble, believe that somewhere when we pass on, we must leave a legacy of some kind. I would like to think the numerous children and families who played these games will carry happy memories of them and be a legacy of sorts.

Yet none of this explains where I begin to tell the Kreeda story.

Did Kreeda begin on August 22nd, when it was in the stores, and the first article about Kreeda, written by my dear friend Chitra Mahesh, was published in The Hindu newspaper?

Did Kreeda begin the day my father called up to suggest this name for my idea to revive traditional games? A name that was simple, Indian, meaningful, (Kreeda means play) lyrical and rolled off the tongue very easily.

Did Kreeda begin when I came up with the idea of creating traditional games, of putting them in the market?

Did Kreeda begin when I fell in love with traditional games – caught by their appeal, their timelessness, and strong anchor in the traditional Indian ethos – and started writing about them and talking about them.  

True, many of these could be the beginning of Kreeda, but to me, Kreeda began earlier. Kreeda began when my grandparents moved to a little apartment down the road from me.

My grandmother was an incredible woman. She was traditionally clad in a nine-yard sari with a large pottu (bindi) on her forehead, and two diamond nose rings, one on each nostril, large diamond earrings in each ear and a pair of thick glasses. She looked like many Indian grandmothers. But she was a maverick of her times, espousing philosophies and ideas that were surprising and even sometimes shocking. She read widely, her nose buried in her book, almost touching the pages. She watched TV, listened to the radio, and not merely soap operas, but news events from across the world. She surprised me more than once by her knowledge of things in far reaching places.

We called her Akka (elder sister). The name had a legacy to it. Her youngest brother was almost the same age as her first born and so the name came into being. Children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and strangers alike, all called her Akka, thus lending her a sense of youth, of fun beyond the traditional grandmother, and she lived up to it.  

It was to this grandmother that I turned to for help with babysitting my children when I went to work, and she accepted it willingly and gleefully, for she loved children.

And so, I think that’s where it all began. With my grandmother – Akka.