A Swedish Professor at Natural History came out to the farm to ask me for help. He had come to Africa to find out at what stage of the embryo (胚胎) state the foot of the monkeys begins to differ from the human foot. For this purpose, he meant to go and shoot Colobus monkeys on Mount Elgon.

“You will never find out from the Colobus monkeys,” I said to him, “they live in the tops of the trees and are shy and difficult to shoot. It would be the greatest luck should you get the embryo you want.”

The Professor was hopeful. He was going to stay out till he had got his foot, he said, even if it was be for years. He had applied to the Game Department for permission to shoot the monkeys he wanted. The permission he was, in view of the high scientific object of his research, certain to get, but so far he had had no reply.

“How many monkeys have you asked to be allowed to shoot?” I asked him

He told me that he had, to begin with, asked for permission to shoot fifteen hundred monkeys.

Now I knew the people at the Game Department, and I assisted him to send in a second letter asking for a reply by return of post, since the Professor was keen to get off on his research. The answer from the Game Department did, for once, come by return of post. The Game Department, they wrote, were pleased to inform Professor Landgreen that, in view of the scientific object of his research, they had seen their way to make an exception from their rules, and to raise the number of monkeys on his license from four to six.

I had to read the letter over twice to the Professor. When the contents at last were clear to him, he became so deadly shocked and hurt, that he did not say a single word. To my expressions of sympathy he made no reply, but walked out of the house, got into his car and drove away sadly.

When I was a kid, I was close to my dad, but as I grew older, my dad and I grew further apart. We always had totally different opinions. He thought that college was a waste of time, but for me it was important to finish college. He wanted me to work my way to the top as he had done in his field, but I wanted a different life. There was a time when we did not talk with each other.

Two weeks after moving back, we bought a boat and started fishing again. Fishing was one of the few things that we did while I was young and that we both enjoyed. It is strange but true that as we are fishing we are able to put things that have kept us apart for so many years behind us. We are able to talk about things that we have never talked about before. Fishing has been healing the old wounds that have kept us apart.

It is not important how many fish we catch. It is about enjoying the relationship that we have not had for years. I’m 62 and he is 84. When we are on the lake fishing, it is like two kids enjoying life. It is far better to find a way to put the unhappy past behind. I am so lucky to spend the happy time with my father in his last years. Now my heart is filled with love. A smile always graces my lips.

Every auntie I know has a kitchen drawer containing a carefully maintained collection of yoghurt dabbas. Dabba is Indian word for ‘box,’ but it refers to all manner of containers, too. Dabbas are saved and reused again and again most of the time.

When I was a kid, my mother cut no corners when it came to food, sparing no effort to cook the meals—after a full day at the office. The leftovers would inevitably(必然地) find their way into yoghurt dabbas.

But just as every auntie cherished her dabbas, every uncle hated them. My own father, a generally easy-going man, carefully avoided the drawer of dabbas. When he felt annoyed at the dabbas, my mother would shoot him a look that would surely have killed a weaker man and place her dabba carefully back in its drawer. Occasionally my father would get fed up with the overflowing drawer and clear all the dabbas. But my mother would simply start the process of collecting them again.

When I went away to university, my mom used to cook food and send it back with me with strict instructions to wash the dabbas and bring them home. But when I did so, I felt embarrassed with the eyes of my roommates on me. Eventually, I found my way to a big company and had a family of my own. Like my mother before me, I’m also the proud owner of an extensive dabba collection.

They truly are the most useful of objects, with uses ranging from food storage to toys for my children. It is a source of a strange and indescribable comfort. When I married my husband, my mother was concerned. “You know, you come from very different backgrounds,” she said. Dealing with cultural differences is surely an adventure. But the other night, I heard my husband yelling in the kitchen, and the next morning, I found my dabbas in the recycling bin. I narrowed my eyes a little as I fished them out, washed them up and replaced them in their drawer. I was practising my mother’s death stare.