I just want to be of some use“Bobby, you’re going today to teach aren’t you?” “Yes, of course, Guddu, I’ll die if I don’t teach.”

Kabir Kumar (Sun Kin)

May 08, 2026

As early as I can remember, my uncle Kiran ‘Bobby’ Kumar was a teacher. When I would visit my dad’s parents and brother at their Kirti Nagar apartment in New Delhi, I remember his afternoons being filled with kids learning physics and math at a very high level. He would deliberately move over to the desk with his walker and ask what his student was having trouble with. Bobby was a genius, and he was determined to share it regardless of how life had treated him.

Fast forward a few decades and Bobby’s situation had deteriorated. His parents had both passed. The last few years with his father (my Dada) had descended into verbal and physical abuse as Dada battled dementia, and this had taken a toll on Bobby. Here I’ll let my dad take the reins of the story:

After Dad, as part of giving Bobby a new focus, to have him meet more people, and have a structure to his day, I arranged for a physiotherapist and a speech therapist. We all pushed Bobby to exercise and do his speech exercises, but all we got was resistance and the response that it was all futile, he would rather be dead.Clearly my attempts to give him a semblance of a life and self-esteem were not working. In his mind, all these physical and linguistic exercises were futile, a waste of energy. He was just going through the motions.One day, I was so exasperated that I asked him, “So what the fuck do you really want to do? Just sit around waiting to die?”It was like he had been waiting for the question. He said, “I want to teach.”It was an epiphany. I had been approaching it all wrong. He didn’t want to just exercise his muscles and his palate just for the sake of doing it, he was just looking for a sense of purpose. He wanted to not be a burden - he wanted to be useful.In the early days of his being disabled and being at home, he had taught high school and junior college students and had loved it. He had also made significant money from it. Based on this experience, he got a teaching job in the Naaz foundation in Delhi. Naaz is India’s leading institution on LGBTQ issues, and apart from many other incredible things, runs an orphanage for children of people afflicted with AIDS.I got Bobby a car and driver, and he would joyfully go and teach these kids three times a week. From 2012, maybe till 2016 or so, was the happiest I had seen him in a very, very long time. I would call and say, Bobby tu padhane jaa raha hai na! And he would always say Guddu, main mar jaaonga agar padhaunga nahin. (“Bobby, you’re going today to teach aren’t you?” “Yes, of course, Guddu, I’ll die if I don’t teach.”)I went with him a few times to Naaz. From the moment the car pulled up to the main gate, the cry went out in the school, “Bobby Uncle aa gaye” (Bobby Uncle is here).He sat in his wheelchair, four or five children at his feet, his body tilted with his scoliosis-ravaged spine, somehow barely managing to hold a pen and solve equations and draw diagrams as he explained the core concepts of Physics, Chemistry and Math.In the process, without any cajoling or yelling, his fine motor skills started returning. In fact, he started being able to sign checks, which he hadn’t been able to do for years. He spoke with the kids so regularly and in such detail that his speech, slurred from years of being used so sparingly, became clearer than I had heard in a long time.I realized something that I, as an advertising guy, should have known all along. People don’t do things they have to do, people do things they want to do, their karma. Bobby was doing his karma to the best of his ability. And at last, in helping him fulfill his karma, I felt like I was fulfilling my karmic duty towards my brother.

In my lowest moments, when I’m worried about my career or the idea that I’ve ‘wasted’ my life, I’ve noticed that teaching has become a source of endless renewal. Any time I’m able to share the tools and tricks and philosophies of making music and art is a time when I feel true Purpose. Bobby’s and my skills were different, but the feeling is the same.

‘Of Some Use’ is out now. It’s the first single from Bobby’s Voice, the new Sun Kin album out June 5th that my father RP Kumar and I made to try to share Bobby’s thoughts and experiences with the world. The words in this song (and throughout Bobby’s Voice) are Bobby’s, re-told and translated by my dad, who was his closest friend. I composed, sang, produced and mixed the music, with drums by Dillon Von Auken. My friend Geoff Saba mastered the record, in addition to contributing some beautiful saxophone on this song. You can pre-order the album on Bandcamp, listen to the song on streaming and watch our lyric video on the Portfolio page.

Sun Kin will be performing the entire album on June 27th in Pasadena, so save the date! Announcement to come soon. Thanks for listening <3