My Grandfather's Biography - {Silver Sunday Story Writing Competition 2020}

My name is Khushi S and I am 8 years old. I live in London with my parents. I interviewed my maternal grandfather, P Kumar, who turned 70 this year. Since he stays in India, I spoke to him over video call on my mum’s phone. I chose to interview him because we have something in common. Any guesses? We share the same birthday and both our names mean happiness!

Khushi with her grandfather

He comes from a place called Hassan, which is in Karnataka, a South Indian state. He has 4 siblings - 2 brothers and 2 sisters. His favourite subjects in school were Science and Mathematics. His school friends called him “sakre kaddi” (a word in Kannada language) which means sugar stick because he was adorable. He completed graduation and worked in the telephone department for a jolly 37 years. He married my grandmother and they have 2 lovely daughters - My mum and my aunt.

I am sure you all are familiar with the keyboard on your laptop. But do you know what a typewriter is? Well, back in those days, people used typewriters to type letters. Back to the story, my great grandfather started the first ever typewriting school in Hassan district 88 years ago! I know, mind blowing!

Here comes another question, what is a landline telephone? In olden days, people couldn’t carry their phones in their pockets like we do. They were installed in the house and when it rang, people had to go to the phone and answer. There was no texting or video calls. I couldn’t believe what I heard! My grandfather was one of the engineers managing these phones. He also worked with telegraph, morse code, mobile phones, bluetooth and the Internet. He taught me about Morse code and this is how my name looks in Morse code:

K -.-

H ….

U ..-

S ...

H ….

I ..

Now let's talk about his interests. He is a great athlete and won many trophies in multiple sports like table tennis, chess, cricket and badminton. Boy, you would have been lucky if he were your teammate! Another one of his interests is solving Rubik's cube. He taught Rubik's cube to my mum when she was young and now my mum taught me. In his free time he likes listening to music and watching movies. He showed me his old tape recorder and audio cassette.

Even at the age of 70, he is an active person and is the president of his apartment community. He still plays badminton with his friends and jogs every morning. My grandparents visited us last year and I took them around the UK.

He is funny and comes up with so many names for me. His favorite one is TAL-GA. Any guesses what it means? It means talented girl Ha ha ha :) He buys me lots of toys and sweeties.

All in all, I love him. He is, well, AMAZING!

I like spending time with him.

THE END