The Family Tree

JAN 27, 2026

Dear Chitalia Family,

On the way up to Matheran, I asked my mom to walk me through our family tree. I wanted to know exactly how I was related to everyone coming on the trip, who belonged to which branch, and which cousins I should have known better by now, mostly so I could stop smiling vaguely at relatives and calling everyone bhai just to be safe. She answered patiently, the way she answers everything. By the way down, I no longer needed the map.

That is what this weekend managed to do. It is rare for Janvi and me to watch our kids and my parents this happy on the same holiday, and rarer still to watch every generation in between fold into one another so easily. The planning was flawless and the food was delicious, and nobody found a single thing to complain about, which in our family is its own miracle. Conversations sprang up on their own, and the singing and dancing needed no invitation. There was just enough mischief to keep the elders young, and at one point we even pondered the meaning of life, for a few whole minutes, before someone mercifully changed the subject.

And then there was the early morning hike. A few of us set out in the chill and the dark, a plan that had sounded much better the night before. Somewhere up the trail, between complaints about the hour, I realized I was walking beside cousins I had barely known two days earlier. Then the darkness gave way to a bright, sunny morning, and we finished at the cliffs, exploring the edges and drinking in views that felt like a reward for simply showing up. It struck me on the way back that the hike and the weekend had followed the same route. You start in the dark among near strangers, and you end in the sunshine among family.

Somewhere between the singing and the second helpings, the trip taught me something. A family tree can tell you how you are connected to someone, but it cannot tell you why the connection matters. The tree lives on paper. The family lives in the laughter that carries across a verandah in the hills, and in someone insisting that you eat a little more. My mother has stayed rooted to where she came from no matter how far she has travelled, and in Matheran, I finally saw the soil up close.

And I learned something else about this branch of the tree. Watching Haarit mama, Kaushik mama, Chetan bhai, and Roopam bhai quietly make sure that every person of every age was looked after and happy, I finally understood where my mother gets her pakki planning from. It is not a habit; it is an inheritance. And every family needs an Abhishek, the one who takes initiative before anyone asks, who arranged the excursions and the horses, and who herded us all out of bed, in the dark, for that hike. Consider this letter my thank you to each of you, for a weekend where nobody had to wonder whether they belonged.

The last evening gave us the perfect ending. The drinks flowed, and we celebrated the 75th anniversary of Dukul bhai, my mom's cousin, with Panna bhabhi at his side and every generation in the room. Milestones like that are exactly why these trips matter. The people we love keep giving us reasons to gather, and this family, thankfully, never seems to run out of them.

Let us not wait until next year to make memories like these. Here is to having many more reasons to celebrate, and to a family tree I now know by heart.

Love,

Rumit