It must be
blistering hot right now, the unforgiving heat beating down and coating the
skin like melted jaggery. The frangipani flowers in the front garden, scenting
the air with their heady fragrance. Do you remember how we used to swing on the
creaky iron gates, my sister and I; faster and faster, till we were dizzy with
joy? How we used to chat with our best friends, the adorable twins, who were
miraculously the same age as me, leaning over your walls, lined with soft moss?
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| Swinging on the gates. |
You were interesting, with cozy nooks and
corners in unexpected places, where I have spent many happy hours, lost in the
world of books. I would love to sit once more, at the long rose wood table and scoop
up tangy steaming hot sambar (a lentil and vegetable stew) with crisp pieces of
ghee dosas or watch my grandmother light the puja lamp at dusk, its soft glow
giving her face an ethereal radiance.
Did you know
that each of us in the family had a favorite spot to call our own? I had more
than one. The spring chair which creaked a little, with soft pillowy cushions
which seemed to gather me in its gentle embrace, placed near the window, in the
upstairs study. I loved sitting by that window and being a silent witness to
the goings on in the opposite house. The three little dachshund dogs being
taken out on their daily walks around the colony; valliamma (we called aunty, valliamma)
sitting in her beautiful garden and chanting her prayers; in a crisp starched
mundu veshti*, a perfect circle of sindoor the color of hibiscus, dotting her
forehead.
The mango tree in the back yard, with its
trunk curved like a gleaming mahogany planter’s arm chair; which gave me hope
that the ‘faraway tree’* may exist after all. The oddly shaped bedroom, which
was bursting at the seams with cupboards, suitcases and all sorts of odds and
ends; so that the bed looked like an afterthought. It would seem that each of us
had left a bit of ourselves there.
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| My sister and I, with the house in the back ground |
Your walls have soaked up my laughter and tears,
my dreams and fears; the very essence of my childhood. When we bid you good bye
and moved to a new place, my sister cried for days afterwards. You are special
to us, as within your four walls we will always be children. You will never
know us as adults. For you, we will always be the pigtailed little girls, swinging
on the gates without a care in the world.
*Faraway tree: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Faraway_Tree
* mundu veshti: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundu
