For at least three of his nieces (Priya, Daisy and myself), and possibly more, Kulwant Uncle was, in addition to being an Uncle, the Uncle- who-was-there!!! There at the bus-stop, the railway station, or the airport, either to drop us off, or to pick us up and bring us > home. To HIS home, which we, his young relatives, had converted into something of a transit camp!!! This fact was brought home very poignantly last week by Babli Masi and by Daisy, the latter recalling a time nearly a quarter of a century back, when her train from Ajmer would get into Delhi at 5am in the morning, and Uncle, as usual, would be there. I myself made a new rule when I moved to Varanasi in 1991. I insisted that I was now a big girl, and could to and fro without needing Uncle to hold my hand. Less than two years down the track, Uncle broke that rule, and defied tradition too, when he was at the airport and the railway station to collect Daisy and me on two sweltering days in May. He was there, because our lives were shattered, we were little girls all over again, and we needed more than an uncle: we needed a father-figure to hold our hands: and Uncle stepped into those shoes! Shoes that are becoming increasingly hard to > fill !!!