But I digress from - I remember.
Who did I re-member?
What did I re-member?

I re-membered the tikozi — don’t even know if that is how it is spelt—in my life. My grandparents used it. They had a kettle. One with a long neck—long curly neck. Wisps of white steam would rise out of it in perfect white curls every time my grandmother poured tea in and put the lid on. And then my grandmother would cover the kettle with a tikozi and call us to the table. Chai thandi ho jayegi. Jaldi aao. The tikozi had a nice pattern of a girl carrying a flower basket on it. And a Santa Claus cap-like white—what is it called—fur thing on the top. It was conical and it folded nicely. It had to be dry-cleaned.

Both my grandparents are dead now. The house they built also got re-membered. Literally. My uncle sold it off to other people. My widowed aunt who stayed with them—despite their attempts to re/de-member her—moved into their new house. She took the tikozi along. I hadn’t known.

The other day I went to my professor’s house for tea. She made some Chinese tea and put it in the kettle — nanima walla kettle — to “brew” — a verb I had never encountered in action before. And lo! (as my Eng Lit prof is fond of saying) she put the tikozi on the kettle to assist the “brewing”. I said: You have one of those! My nani had one! What is this called in English? Tea cosy, she said. (It had been an English word all along.)
Some remnants of our colonial past that I like to preserve, she said. (Oh, it is truly English then?)

I asked my widowed aunt if she knew where one could buy one of those. She said that she may still have my nani’s. But don’t you need it? No, no one uses those anymore.
Give it to me!

The tikozi is now re-membered on my dining table. Some remnants of my colonised memory that I like to preserve.