My appoppan, K. Kuttappan of Kollantevadakadil house, was not just my mother’s father—he was a world of stories bound in mundu folds, Chandrika soap, and the smell of fresh upperi. He never travelled outside Kerala, except that one Bangalore trip to visit us, yet when he spoke, you felt he had carried entire worlds in his pocket. His descriptions of Tamarasheri churam’s winding roads, or a boat cutting through the backwaters, weren’t just stories—they were portals. Listening to him was like travelling without moving, like cinema without the screen. Though not formally educated, he had read deeply—Malayalam writers and philosophers. He carried their words in his speech, not like a scholar quoting, but like a man who had thought them through while sipping tea in the verandah. Maybe that’s why his stories always felt bigger than the narrow lanes of our village. He dressed sharp, always. Not in suits or fancy coats, but in the elegance of a mundu whose kara matched his shirt perfectly. Sta...