A NEW BEGINNING

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 43; the forty-third edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. The theme for the month is "LIGHT"

She waited.

It was nothing new for her.

Her patience and perseverance had always been put to test. She performed.           

It was nothing new for her.

That is the best she could do; she believed so, leaving the rest to her belief in divine and destiny. She would then pick the strands again, knit them, spin herself into the new knots and carry on with life and living.

It was nothing new for her.

Life and living held two different dimensions for her, often visited during monotonies of waiting sessions. She pondered over the Little Instances Full of Energy, Leaving Individuals with Fathomless Experiences - a co-existence, juxtaposed with philosophies and ideologies, preached and advised, one and only thing that perhaps, came for free in this otherwise mercenary world; the other was about collating the snippets springing from unknown corners, collaged to frame experiences.

But, today was new.

Her wait was different, unlike the week that passed by.

Grief is best understood by the grieving especially when every second makes its ominous presence while darting to escape into a hope that would flip the pages painting, yet again, bright and sunny. Hope is all one seeks to resurrect living and reflect on life.

She waited to inhale hope, effervescent with medicated odours and an eerie silence silhouetting the general ward in the hospital.

Today was new as she dared the stamp of an educated society with her ‘certified’ illiteracy by stepping out of ‘hypocrite societal boundaries hailed ‘sacrosanct’ to demean women but for their lascivious pursuits.

Today was new as she refused to be trampled by definitions of fate imposed on her reducing her existence into a living corpse.

She waited with a candle in hand, warding away the daylight shadows as her twenty year old tucked at her sari. The police were waiting. She held her child’s trembling hand to point out to the handcuffed fellow confirming him as the accused of…. The little girl trembled. The police completed their formalities and the Doctor signed the girl’s discharge certificate.

It was far from over and yet, it was a beginning of which she had no assessment. Today was new.

She made her daughter hold the candle, whispering a strong resolve “Happy Diwali dear” and together they marched out of the stony spectacle of silences.

 

 

 

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THE MOTHER ON PLATFORM NO. 10

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 38; the thirty-eighth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. The theme for the month is "The Woman on Platform Number 10"

Phew! she sighed. An acclaimed athlete that she was, I had never seen her gasping for a breath on the running track as much as I saw her doing now, amidst gulps of water. She had dashed through the arrival lounge straight into the car, leaving the shutter bugs far behind in the trail.

A lot had changed since the time we met first. She was the media’s hot spot now, a far cry, from the girl sporting a bunch of loosely – tied, uncombed hair, clad in a short blouse and a low – waist skirt flowing down till her heels, little exposing her over-sized slippers but… for her glistening eyes.

They were the same since the day I first saw them, epitomising the spirit of life and living against all odds, while I was waiting for my monotonous journey to continue in my forty-fifth year in this busybee world. They were the same since the second her hands were thrust into mine by a distressed soul, with a hurried whisper, “please take care..” only to vanish in the crowd.

They were the same since that moment I realised the woman in me shaping into a mother on this day, a decade ago, amidst the hustle and bustle on that platform no.10 of Chennai railway station, when my footsteps led me to build a home for her.

 

Today, I feel blessed!

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AND THE WINNER IS....

The rain was pouring down incessantly determined to execute a plotted revenge and the trees were swaying to the tune of the gushing wind supporting the cause. Nature seemed at its fury best to destroy the window pane that seemed to stare at it, being no less than a bitter enemy, and nothing seemed to salvage its pride and position than to shatter its transparent opponent into trillion pieces and force the particles vow never ever to resurrect again to becoming anything close to a brittle existence.

On the other side, the garden was anointed with a rainbow hue and every leaf was gently crooning to songs of promising good times; a scenario capable of setting aside worried brows and involuntarily coaxing a stone heart to break into a smile; a smile that signified the moment as the one for which life seemed to have been worth living leaving no more desires for the self than those sprinkled by a loving companionship.

I sighed, while handling my tumultuous mind and a heart in despair trying to share its space with contentment in the happiness of a dear one. What else I could do? When the Man in my Life, who, I thought, knew and together we, so I thought, could have scripted our love story, was busily giving final shape to the blockbuster release of his betrothal announcement to none other than my own sister!

Yes, Yes, Yes I was caught. My heart was saying “yes” and my head was saying “No”.

Sigh! Sigh!

A sister just about a year elder to me was more of a twin and nothing less than an elder sister too. We had shared almost all of the must-haves in a girl’s life. But not love, not the man in our lives; even Siamese twins would exercise their right exclusively. But destiny had planned otherwise. Never for a moment did we guess that the numerous nights we spent describing our own Prince Charming to each other was the same Abhay Chawla. This had to happen and I should have known it while scratching my itchy nose, rubbing my palpitating left eye and tumbling over Preetho, our neighbour’s one and only jet black cat on that black sunday.

Abhay’s family and ours had known each other for generations and it came as no surprise that we children also bonded well. If he is around, mom and dad never used to bother asking the routine around Where? When? With whom?... so on and so forth. Such was Abhay, to parents, to me and now I realized to my sister also.

It was one of the routine Sundays when I and Di, as I chose to call my sister, went out for our routine shopping accompanied by Abhay. We treated ourselves to a sumptuous Gujarathi thali at ‘The Rajdhani’ and trotted towards ‘Clothline’ our regular joint at the City Centre Mall. While Di moved towards the cosmetics I was busily rummaging through the newly launched chic summer collection when a glance at the shop’s gate revealed that I had been picking, trying, short listing, mixing and matching for couple of, which seemed, hours. Di seemed to have done with her shopping and strangely enough she had also paid her bill, evident from the bag that she was carrying from the shop. Both she and Abhay were standing near the railing overlooking the road and the cosmopolitan spread out, a pretty scenic view from the top floor of the mall.

I stood there rooted, staring at them and not normally and logically breaking into a quick wrap of my shopping session, for there they stood a feet apart from each other a minute back and now they inched closer, close enough to … My throat went parched and my hands trembled as I saw Abhay gently holding Di’s hands, seemingly pulling her towards him and positioning his fingers to shift her hairlocks on her left siding behind her ear.

Suddenly I found myself trying hard to shake myself out of a deviation which, while nearing the all-very- clear end of my love life, seemed to have caught hold of my hand. I tried hard but the grasp only grew stronger. My exasperated self took a turn to face and find Bali, the familiar and friendly sales girl, giving me a stern stare to tell me “Please take a shopping bag or if you do not wish to take them, please keep them back”. I was stupefied! Here I was trying to cope with a grim reality that had suddenly chosen to present itself before me, with no warning whatsoever, and this girl was speaking Chinese! Bali shook my hand again, to check if my look was one of a caught on camera. For sure, she could not have known, for I had transformed into a living corpse! Bali shook my hand again to let go of something and it did take me one complete cycle of a sand clock to realize that I had stuffed some of the clothings into my handbag. I mumbled and fumbled while coming to terms with my present and future and managed to hurry towards the door when the wish does-not-happen inevitable reached my ears “I love you, dearly”. At that moment the world came crashing on my dreams, naturally, and my love embraced another girl.

Every day and night there forth, conjured to face the reality. I ate, slept, blinked, breathed in and out. Atoms were coming to blows. Torrential rains dared to wipe out everything but for that thin stream of sunshine that fought back to keep chaos at bay. Di was my Di, dear Di, after all.

A pat on my shoulder shook my thoughts. A pair of puffed eyes greeted me with a faint smile; a scene, familiar, seen in the past few days in my own mirror as one of my desperate attempts to come to terms with love lost forever.

“Do you know the Prince Charming, I used to tell you about?”, Di asked. I looked around, lest I give away. But she was in no mood to stop and see but continue “He was none other than…” and before she could complete it, I in all my unconsciousness blurted out the name, immediately to be met by her “How did you know?” I hugged her “Oh! Di” and hid behind the cheer that crossed me from nowehere. “I am not his angel”, she rued. My eyes that had been soaking wet for a week hid a chuckle behind “Is it?” when Di continued “It is Shelly”

.

Shelly? Shelly? Did you say? It was my turn now. That poker nose, the arrogant lass who would look upon everyone and everything as a master of all that she saw and surveyed, who would not spare an effort to let out Preetho on unmindful simple souls like me. Only a weirdo like her could call a cat “Preetho”! The missing pieces of the curious Sunday were falling into place. My mind set upon the task of settling scores with Shelly while Di indulged in the details of the conversation that took place between her and Abhay over the railing in the Mall including the “I love you, dear” drenched in an act of brotherly affection.

Till now, I thought that only the world had come crashing down but now I wished for a big bang in the universe threatening to tear apart none other than Shelly alone.

We hugged, let out loudly the wails that had been hiding behind the tears. Together in hope, together in happiness, together in sorrow, together in comfort. It did not matter which won - the heart or the mind.

Di was Di, my Di after all and I was I.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda

LIFE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME

Life will never be the same, as if it had been so, till now. I floated, amused by this thought. It was a roller coaster ride for me and I could not have wished for anything better than this, this very moment, sitting in the balcony with him. He sipped from his glass and I swam in the pleasant sight of his chiselled cheek bones and physique, nothing short of being tall, dark and handsome.  

I had found true love and believed to have seen him reciprocating my feelings. The more I thought of it, the more I found myself thanking for the one and the only best thing that had happened to me – that sunny day when I saw him. I was at loss for words and senses.

It was not, mind my words, definitely not, when I stress to express the best efforts I put in, to seek his attention amongst many who were, I am sure, unequivocally fighting for the same cause and effect. But I was the gifted one in the lot with ‘histrionics’, as was chosen to qualify my demeanour, developed by the social environment where I had been born and brought up. The other inhabitants were nowhere close to me.

I was the ‘Chosen One’.

I wondered at the days and nights that had passed till this blissful moment spent gazing at him. Most certainly I had no clue about the clock and I realised that there seemed to be no place for any kind of spoken words between us as he seemed to be reading my mind, culminating into the desired actions. And now when I wanted to make a conversation, words failed me miserably. I was just about managing to Sigh! Phew! Yawn!, occasionally biting my teeth and scratching my head in misery, only to be washed away by his smile.

“Hi! Sweetie!!” someone called. We had a visitor.

He ran to the lady at the door, embracing her for a moment too long, so I thought. “Ah!” the visitor threw me a glance. “So, is this Mili?”, came the query, quickly followed by “My oh! My. She is quite impressive to easily pass off as a princess”, the visitor quipped.

I took it well, as a compliment for someone hailing from literally a no man’s land. But I definitely looked no less than a princess, clad in a snow white collared coat carrying the label ‘This was his choice and so had to be the best’. My man smiled and in line with the social etiquette that I had picked up in my new home, I was quick to extend a hand to the visitor. Leena, as she was known, mumbled and fumbled “It’s ok!” and went Pssst... Pssst.... Psssst... in my man’ ears.

The night was resplendent humbled by the aura of the full moon that chose to shine alongwith him.

“I was wondering” he began “if we could give you a makeover.”

I did not quite understand him till he excused himself to rumble the drawers to retrieve something with which I had a close shave in the past.

“Leena suggested...”, he began.

I groaned at its sight and he understood that I wasn’t happy undergoing the process, though doing so, would have helped to bridge the gap between me and his world. He stroked my hand and then my head, twisting and curling, making amusing patterns with the hair. The uniform bunches stuck to my skin, in return, enjoyed the ruffling of his fingers, enough to cajole him to put that thing away.

But it refused to let me be in peace with myself. It assumed a monstrous proportion as I began to view it as a seductress. My fear seemed to be coming true. He was hardly at home, away before my sunrise and rarely returning before I slumped into the bed for the day. Each time I persuaded myself to brush aside my apprehensions, I found myself trying to connect the dots scattered around that thing and his mysterious disappearances in the backdrop of Leena’s whispering that blared loudly in my head, until that fateful night of the party.

He declared his wedding with Leena.

Alas! I wished I had opted for my hair removal with that thing. She would not have then dared to address me as “a sweet little monkey” in the party. Princess, indeed!

I decided to return to my elements. Life will never be the same, as if it had been so, till now.

This post is a part of the Gillette Satin Care contest in association with BlogAdda.com

HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR HIM......

Couple of steps up and down the platform and cursory glances at my wrist every now and then, did not do much to get the train to the station. When already running late, I wished the rest of the scheduled events to happen before time and at that moment, it was reaching Rajinder Nagar station, lest hubby runs late for his dental appointment. My impatience was turning into low grunts when …

He: Delhi Metro?!? (Pointing to the logo on my folder)Wow!

Me: J

He: so you are a qualified engineer?

Me: yes, working as systems engineer.

He: married? I guess

Me: (nod in affirmative)

He: Children?

Me: not yet...(Taking a deep breath)

He: (offered) I work as a freelancer.

Me: Oh! Ok.

He: (Laughs out loud) in everything... that is what is called freelancing. Isn’t it?

Me: (manage a smile) well...

He: consultancy in legal and corporate affairs.

Me: Oh! A lawyer?

He: Yes, from ………

The announcement of the arrival of the metro train cut the conversation preparing us to gear ourselves for pushes and shoves during the peak hour of that evening.

Suddenly they were there all over me; a bunch of hoodlums, thanking the overwhelming crowd in the coupe who, unwillingly and in blissful ignorance seemed to support their ugly motive.  As the doors closed for the train to move and pick up speed, it became ‘the more the merrier’ for them; barely a breath away, squeezing my right arm that was huddled in the pocket of my blazer which, was wanting to free desperately to either catch hold of the pepper spray lying in my bag or relieve my throat from the dryness that threatened to choke the vocal chords to silence.

Then he appeared, from nowhere, with a loud “Hey!!” that made them all turn their heads. He made his way, excusing himself for stamping on toes and like a mannequin I was carried by him to be escorted to the seats just near the door, amidst “Haven’t I told you to give me a call when you reach the station. Stupid girl!”

“You know (what to do)...” he blinked and I nodded fervently, gathering myself with the help of the holder that was dangling from above.

He: So where were we? Oh yes!! I am from Kanpur.

Me: sorry (picking up the strand) but your accent defeats your origin (managing to hide my shivering voice)

He: (smiles) call it love for the ‘firangi’ language (enacts the symbols of quotes).

Me: Ok!

He: Want to make some money before indulging full-time into my love.

Me: J

He: How about you?

Me: (put a questioning look)

He: Hobbies?

Me: oh well, have been running around....

He: (interrupts) in circles?

Me: (puzzled)

He: It is ok. Happens J

Next station is RAJINDER NAGAR....came the announcement followed by recorded instructions to keep a safe distance from the doors.

He was standing behind me, holding on to the bar. The crowd which pushed me in helped me in my exit too.

“How come you did not board the ladies coupe?” hubby enquired.

“The crowd was such that....” I froze at the volley of thoughts that pushed me back, little in time, to assimilate the occurrence of an incident in the metro train, before I finished my sentence.

‘Had it not been for him...!....’ flashed the scene.

I played it in my mind and to hubby in the next three hours that we spent commuting to see the dentist, waiting time at the clinic and way back home. I did not ask his name. Neither did I thank him.

‘Was he handsome? Like me?’ hubby was certainly curious and maybe, jealous too while putting his best efforts in putting me at ease.

I managed a smile in answer. I was happy to be back home…. sweet home.

 ***************************************************************

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda

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LOVE YOU DEAR.....

Dear..... I run my hand on you; your firm yet gentle epidermis, giving way to a million pages that had been, once, a witness to my grief, joy, thoughts, images, ravings, rants and what not. I realise that you had much more to it than just being a patience receiver of me and my musings Birthdays, anniversaries, travel plans are just a few to mention of the countless things associated with and withi...n me that you were so adept in recording, even the fine details. You would, with ease, flip through my thoughts wherein lay answers to the troubled soul. I would rummage through files and folders like a hurricane trying to put the missing pieces together in answering the biological and physiological questions thrown at me by our family physician and all the while, you would keep staring at me giving me enough time and space to vent out anger at my own lack of orderliness, to fall back on you, exhausted and exasperated, naturally.

Until one day.......

I do not recall exactly when it happened and how I found company, if I can call it so, in a body starved of patience and reticence, who would not spare a moment in churning out warning signals of his incapability in keeping his promise of doing his bit to keep this companionship, leave alone offering to stand by, lest he crashes devoid of energy pills. You never ever let me know of any of your own trying moments including something as miniscule as wanting to energise yourself with a few morsels of food or a nap. As always, you maintain a dignified silence, as if, when some things are swept by the ever ticking clock, it is better to flow with the ebb and tide rather than trying to retrace the footsteps; they no longer remain there, wiped by sands of time.

I run my hand on you; your firm yet gentle.... that is all I had known you while you had all along known me much more than myself. I wonder if you still consider me worthy enough to be offered a chance to pick up the strings once again and this I say so with a doubt on my own abilities. Yet, I know nothing can take away the warmth that transpired between us.

Love you Dear....................Dear Diary.

LIFE - a wishing tree

23 December, 2011

Life – does not miss an exclamation mark. Death – does not miss a full stop……

The pen paused and Narmada drew a deep breath. She could not bring forth anything onto the diary as her mind circled back in time. The old wooden swing, the long corridor from the main door to the backyard, the clanking vessels, the dangled paces to the temple, prying through the window to catch a glimpse of passer-bys, sour buttermilk and homemade shampoo for the hair, the dingy store room, the adjacent pond, the reverberating school; all seemed lost forever with her grandma's demise. What remained was her last living visual when Narmada visited her uncle’s home. She was glad that her daughter could meet her great grandmother.

Memories kept swinging in her mind coupled with seemingly futuristic worries. She wondered if she could muster courage, like her mother, in a similar situation. The very thought gave here tremors eased by wishful thinking. Her daughter’s gurgling laughter kindled one of those. If Life was a wishing tree she would have asked for all her beloved ones to be with her always, living sans loss, grief, pain, sorrow, time to be constant, go back to best moments at will…..

“She had a peaceful end”, Uncle said when Narmada called him in the evening. They had just got back home from the cremation ground. The grand old man who lost his companion, had been quite calm, she was told.

She reflected on her thoughts that had wandered tumultuously through the night and the next day; her way of coping with the loss, perhaps. She said a small prayer and went back to her diary to the jotting of the previous day and wrote.

Life is a bountiful wishing tree; the sore fruits make the good ones more delicious and precious! Death is  just a pause to thank life and move on….

THE STONY SILENCE

“Hey! There you are. I have been trying to get a sneak peek of you. But these palings are so high till I found these partitions in them suitable.”

He was startled. Was it addressed to him? He tried turning to his right, a little backward, but his neck refused to budge. Vertebral disorder? Damn! The result of being amongst humans for, the Divine knows, how long. He cursed himself, as if the existing one for which he was serving his verdict was not enough. The voice had, by then, gone.

********************************

The next day:

“Hey! I am back. By the way, I suppose you don’t talk. Well, no stone talks for that matter. But I will talk to you. It’s fun! You know, for once I can speak in open and aloud and someone will listen, just listen in silence, a stony silence. "

He strained his unyielding neck to have a glimpse of the source of the voice which, had chosen to qualify his demeanor as a stony silence; a pleasant looking girl with a pair of talking eyes tainted with a blue hue and as tall as not even half of the wall over which he had been leaning for light years now. She seemed lost gazing at the evening sky.”Avian!!!” Came a call and she glided down the stairway without looking back.

********************************

The next day:

“I told my Mother about you and she asked me to stay away. Well, I am neither afraid nor bothered for I love this independence of hearing my own voice, crisp and clear. My Mother is a sweeper and my father is a mason. We are slaves, betrayed by money and life. Ah! I thank my stars for letting me here to this Cathedral for work. Are you wondering why am I telling you all this?  Your stony silence adds colour to it.”

He listened to her while she swept the place; the mention of stony silence pricked him. He wished too, to pour out his grief that had added to the aura of the silence since that day when he was ordained to be in his present form. His plea for mercy had fallen on deaf ears of his Master, the King of all that was surveyed. The sweeping broom seemed like gnawing at his wounds.

********************************

Another day:

“Oh! The city is so beautiful from here - the tapering roofs, the unwinding roads. There! It is so appealing to see the Royals and Nobles appear like crawlers. I have seen them scowling at my father for no fault of his. Oh! How I wish I could fly and see what lies beyond?” her words broke into a soft hum.

Beautiful did she say?  He felt helpless having been turned into a hapless piece adorning the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in an endless wait for his moment of salvation, all for that one display of a forbidden mortal behavior that had rubbed onto him. Had he been allowed to remain, history would have been written in golden words.  Now, he smelt the brewing revolution which would leave nothing but a trail of blood. He scorned at the thought of his Master.

********************************

It became a routine soon. The companionship was a welcome change - her persistent rattle for him and his stony silence for her, through autumns, springs and summers. He watched her keenly from the corner of his eyes, his neckline still adamant at its rigidity, while she continued her routine of sweeping the place, collecting the red flowers with a yellowish tinge at the corners that fell from the overlooking tree branch, coherently with her daily rants. Some of them dived in what she described as her philosophy of good living, ending with a prayer.

O! Voice divine, thou speak to me,

Beyond the earth, beyond the sea,

Let me hear and sing to thee,

The hymn of truth and love.

She hummed without any inkling of what lay in store and he could do nothing with elbows firmly rooted on the cement railing, chin resting on palms and a protruding tongue tied down with despair and desperation, but foresee the unfolding of hatred and bitterness into a violent turmoil. Often, he got a pat on his feathered back in return for the stony silence.

********************************

It was nearing dusk and yet there was no sign of Avian coming. He could see the Bastille burning and it would soon engulf the Cathedral and the rest of France. Is she safe? Could he do something? Just then, did he hear her whisper?

“I came to bid adieu my dear silent friend. We have to leave this town before nightfall. My Mother is missing. They killed my Father...."

She trembled against his back as tiny tear droplets trickled down his shoulders.  

In a carriage, ambling its way out of Paris to safety, a Mother wept inconsolably for her only lost child. Her misty eyes, while seeing the plundered Cathedral, failed to watch Avian taking off, safe under the wings of her protector.

The stony silence had been broken, at last!

THE BEAT GOES ON.....

Everyone in the family was present there in “Kazhakkitthe Veedu” or East house, as had been translated to the current youngest generation of this house, a part of the huge battalion who had gathered there and had never visited a typical countryside house in a small village in Kottayam district, Kerala. What best could be offered as a holiday retreat than in one’s own family home?!

Ah! It was a reunion finally happening after six months of preparation, thanks to Binu Uncle, mom’s brother who had taken care of maintaining the house for more than a decade. It was a homecoming for my mother and her siblings and for me a nostalgic trip down the memory lanes of the extensive summer holidays during which we cousins camped here. Here I stood, one among the first few to arrive, at the footsteps of my maternal home, kazhakkitthe veedu; true to its name the sun rays lit the sloping path and footsteps leading upwards to the main entrance of the house till the house chose to create its silhouette stretching upto a kilometer from the main door to the one leading to the backyard where, the sun continued to spread its light. Coconut, tamarind, jackfruit trees flanking both the sides of the house stretched the silhouette to create a scenic shadow which had been captured by an amateur artist in the village on a canvass that adorned one of the walls of the central room.

Let me not get into the names and description of this house; the long sit-out, the rooms guarded by rosewood doors, the windows that opened a view of the fields stretching far and wide and the wooden pillars that supported the house, both in terms of architecture and aesthetics, the central open space inside the house flanked on top with small glass panels to allow light to streak in during the day and the age old furnace in the kitchen where delicacies were dished out; as a young girl what interested with me was the open courtyard which breathed life into each one of the dozen cousins who gathered there every year during summer holidays.

The courtyard had enough space for us to play and also allow string of visitors who would come to visit Grandpa seeking advice on land and agricultural issues which never mattered to me then and continues to be so. All my focus then used to be not to spare even a moment from indulging in my favorite games and activities, a mix of traditional and city bred games –hide and seek, ludo played by drawing squares on the floor and rolling the dies made of brass, blindfold man, hop and catch or taking turns to fly on the wooden swing that Kumaaran, the servant boy would tie for us in between the two branches of a tamarind tree. The ghosts that were believed to be haunting the tamarind trees during the day bothered us a little as we found comfort in making merry when many.  How could I miss the “house-house” game? Grandma would ask Kumaaran to bring the tiny spoons, stirrers, vessels, hand grinders, some made of wood and some of clay and mud totaling to twelve such pieces, one for each girl. We would then divide the courtyard into portions demarcating each one’s boundary. Dressed in typical outfits of mundu (white dhoti) and blouse, we girls would cook while the boys would go the field for work. We would borrow little portions of rice grains and pulses from Grandma. Binu Uncle shook me from the peel of laughter which I seemed to have broken into. “What happened?” he asked to which I smiled. Well, he would have understood the weird symptoms of living a busybee life as an investment banker in Mumbai.

Food then, for us, was a ritual that had to be carried out, lest we were not allowed to play outside. Ah! I miss those delicacies made out of fresh garden veggies - spinach, raw jackfruit, raw banana, snake gourd, the fresh tender coconut water. Kumaaran and his family who had been serving the family would constantly be engaged in dishing out sweets, savouries and pickles for us to eat and also to carry when it was time to return to our own routines.

Not to forget the bed time stories that Grandma used to narrate to us, ranging from Mythology to Panchatantra till the twelve of us dozed off in the central open space while the elders would retire to their rooms. I gazed at the collection of story books that I had bought for my nieces and nephews. Little did I realize the response that awaited me, “I read this story on the net”. Thank God! they did not say ''on kindle''!

After lunch I walked hurriedly towards rubber plantations that stood at the backyard. The only thing missing now was Grandpa’s umbrella to shield me from the hot sun and sometimes, serve as a walking stick which then stood tall till my waist. A solitary walk, through the quiet yet rumbling trees interspersed with cooing birds and colourful butterflies, remains with me till day, except that the rubber plantations have given way to the park near my apartment in Mumbai. I gently walked on the dry leaves, enjoying the ‘crunch’ sound that they made. Old memories were imprinted in my mind, yet there was something new and novel that awaited me in that backyard. I took a deep breathe allowing a whiff of air carry the familiar scent to me but maybe the change was just too much for my nostril as I let out  aloud sneeze. I could not expect more, spending   most of my time either in artificially cooled indoors or surrounded by dust and suspended particles. But now in kazhakkitthe veedu I felt like Alice in Wonderland. How lucky I was to have got to spend my childhood in this place? I saw my nieces and nephews hustling and bustling in the vast courtyard, a far cry from the cramped cities; no compromises in the form of parking lots, no vehicles, no fear of the dark.

I continued jumping on the dry leaves, crackling them till they fell silent, just like I used to do as a small girl when “Amrutha”!! I turned around to find Koel, my cousin and my best buddy. I had lots to catch up with the band of cousins whom I saw making a beeline into the house, especially Koel but the very next moment I was disappointed that this holiday will soon end and I will be thrown amidst the crowd that promised me money and prosperity. I will be soon sucked back into the black hole where kazhakkitthe veedu will be reduced to nothing more than a miniscule of a long lost memory.

Well, good things always come to an end, sooner than we would wish them to be. For now, I was happy to be away from the busybee world, atleast for a while.