a cousin visits and so many memories get rekindled. the oft repeated tales, the family lore - playing hide and seek in the old maternal homestead with its sprawling rooms and dark hidden corners. the large wooden chest on which were stocked all the mattresses and linen. the space behind the large wooden cupboard with a the long mirror on its front, where it was scary to go to, but it was such an excellent spot for hiding that you had to win over your own fear and weigh it against being found early and having to be the den for the next round.
the room at the back with an oil lamp in front of all the Gods' pictures with its many shadows and recesses. and the scariest place of all the nook where the coal was stored, because it was likely that you might run into a mouse there.
so much fun, so many squeals of delight and peals of laughter.
so much excitement.
then all the cousins going to sleep in the living room on the mattresses that were set out in a line, where we could roll around for hours and tell ghost tales and scare the heebee-geebeeies out of one another. all the giggling.
grandma was never particularly nice to me. it was just an archetype that i hankered after. she told me once to get some dry Bhel from the grocery store at the corner. i went readily, pleased to be trusted with an errand. i envisaged being rewarded with at least a handful of the Bhel upon my return, but she just took the packet from me without a thought. she must have registered the look of amazement and hurt on my face and gave me some of the change that i had brought back. but that was not what i had wanted. however i did not have the courage to ask her for any of the Bhel and in my hurt was also an element of pride. i was not going to beg for something she did not willingly want to give me herself.
so i walked away rather miffed and decided that the grandmothers' in story books were just that, the stuff of fantasy and fiction.
The famous tale of the three of us Me, Medha and Swati sitting on the rocking chair and rocking away faster and faster and faster. I had my face to the back of the chair, Medha was sandwiched between Swati and me and Swati was the last one holding on to her sister for dear life. When the rocking chair toppled as it had to for all the abuse we were meting out to it, Swati hit her head on the floor. My leg got entangled in the chair and Medha escaped unscathed, except for the shelling, the shouting we got from our respective mothers.
A visit from Bhai mama our oldest maternal uncle, who had an impressive personality looking ever so dapper and handsome in his police uniform. He would lift us up turn by turn and throw us high in the air and catch us with such self-assurance that we felt ashamed to feel scared. The exhilaration of the ride and the joy of being held in his arms were mingled with the sense of pride in his achievements and the warmth of his presence.
Another cousin is getting married and the larder is stocked with the hard laadoos (sweet round balls an Indian confectionary). So every now and then one or the other of us would sneak into the store-room behind the dining room and steal one or more the delightful laadoo. We would keep a tally for ourselves and at the end of the day compare who had consumed the most!
the room at the back with an oil lamp in front of all the Gods' pictures with its many shadows and recesses. and the scariest place of all the nook where the coal was stored, because it was likely that you might run into a mouse there.
so much fun, so many squeals of delight and peals of laughter.
so much excitement.
then all the cousins going to sleep in the living room on the mattresses that were set out in a line, where we could roll around for hours and tell ghost tales and scare the heebee-geebeeies out of one another. all the giggling.
grandma was never particularly nice to me. it was just an archetype that i hankered after. she told me once to get some dry Bhel from the grocery store at the corner. i went readily, pleased to be trusted with an errand. i envisaged being rewarded with at least a handful of the Bhel upon my return, but she just took the packet from me without a thought. she must have registered the look of amazement and hurt on my face and gave me some of the change that i had brought back. but that was not what i had wanted. however i did not have the courage to ask her for any of the Bhel and in my hurt was also an element of pride. i was not going to beg for something she did not willingly want to give me herself.
so i walked away rather miffed and decided that the grandmothers' in story books were just that, the stuff of fantasy and fiction.
The famous tale of the three of us Me, Medha and Swati sitting on the rocking chair and rocking away faster and faster and faster. I had my face to the back of the chair, Medha was sandwiched between Swati and me and Swati was the last one holding on to her sister for dear life. When the rocking chair toppled as it had to for all the abuse we were meting out to it, Swati hit her head on the floor. My leg got entangled in the chair and Medha escaped unscathed, except for the shelling, the shouting we got from our respective mothers.
A visit from Bhai mama our oldest maternal uncle, who had an impressive personality looking ever so dapper and handsome in his police uniform. He would lift us up turn by turn and throw us high in the air and catch us with such self-assurance that we felt ashamed to feel scared. The exhilaration of the ride and the joy of being held in his arms were mingled with the sense of pride in his achievements and the warmth of his presence.
Another cousin is getting married and the larder is stocked with the hard laadoos (sweet round balls an Indian confectionary). So every now and then one or the other of us would sneak into the store-room behind the dining room and steal one or more the delightful laadoo. We would keep a tally for ourselves and at the end of the day compare who had consumed the most!
Blackie, the black dog could not have been much
bigger than an average mongrel, but memory mixed with fear had made him into a
large dog the size of an Alsatian. The first welcome he gave my mom would be to
jump up and down on her and it terrified me as it was accompanied by a lot of
barking and a lot of yelling by other members of the family to get him to shut
up. He stayed tied to the bench in the central courtyard which was large enough
to enable me to navigate my way around him well out of his reach to get to the
various other rooms like to kitchen and the dining room as well as the toilets
from the main living room.
The renters who lived downstairs were a Gujarati
family and they had a big swing in their front porch, a coveted experience was
to swing in the big swing and sing any ol’ song. Swinging had to be accompanied
by singing otherwise it did not feel complete.
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