My father passed away in 2005, and my mother signed off seven-and-a-half years later. For nearly a decade and a half, my sister and I have been custodians of an inheritance of anecdotes that bear witness to their capacity to embrace surprises and not play by the book. We find ourselves retreating into these memories, particularly during moments when nostalgia seems to be a balm against shrinking spaces and the gradual erosion of the free spirit.

One of these accounts goes back more than 50 years. One evening, the two had hopped onto a “four seater” — World War II Harleys converted into taxi bikes — that would take them from their workplace in Mandi House in New Delhi to Karol Bagh. The refugee settlement was undergoing a transformation of sorts. Punjabis displaced by Partition were beginning to put their bad days behind them and turn their modest dwellings into income-generating properties.

The prospective landlord had laid down one condition before renting out the one-room second-floor tenement: No fish or meat. The restriction, he had said, was meant to honour the scruples of the family with whom my parents were to share the floor. Eager to set up their home, the soon-to-be-married couple agreed.

Their first neighbours turned out to be a couple from Tamil Nadu, part of a steady stream of administrators, teachers, entrepreneurs, doctors, clerks and artists who had made Delhi their home in the decades after Independence. They struck an immediate chord with my father, who had left his Lucknow home for work. My mother was a natural at........

© Indian Express