Nostalgia has got the better
of me today. I sit here in this room, looking out through the white blinds. The
sky is grey, the ground is getting its colour back, after the sun took the snow
away. The big wide road in front of my house, occasionaly is graced by a car or
two. The houses across the road, all wear a glum look. A playground on one end
of this canvas, looks empty, waiting to feel the touch of a child. The Christmas
trees standing in a row, wonder what they are waiting for. Not a sight of a
single person. The silence deafens me. This is the United States and its
seventeen years since.
That place was Sampangiram
Nagar or S R Nagar to help write the address. A multistoreyed building stood at
the intersection of fourth main road and fifth cross. From the veranda of the
second floor, a girl in her eighth grade looked out. Sitting on a metal folding
chair. The road was lined with houses, with no breathing space between them. A
breathing space would serve as an open toilet. There are people everywhere.
Outside the houses, in the veranda, on the road. There are cows, and there are
dogs, no different than the people on the road. Amidst this maze of people,
people driving bikes, cars, autos, lorries, manuever so easily and find their
way, with one finger glued to the horn. It was the sound of the world, and never
once, deafened me. There was a constant array of people in the Kumar's hotel
opposite my house. The vegetable shop [grocery] next to Kumar's hotel, owned by
a Malayali, always displayed fresh vegetables. Next to it was a medical shop [a
pharmacy].
At the intersection of the sixth cross and fourth main road, on one
side was a stationery shop. A Shetty owned the shop, known to be a miser. Every
pencil, pen, eraser, notebook, crayons, graph sheets, I used in my learning
years, came from his shop. On the other side was a Fancy store.. yeah! wondering
what a fancy store sells - everything thats fancy! Bangles, glitter, bindi
[sticker placed on forehead for ornamental purposes], eyeliner, kajal, and what
not. There were hooks from the ceiling and all these things dangled from the
hook, giving the store a fancy look! This was the mini fancy store. Anything
that was not available in this store, could be found in a bigger fancy store,
three blocks down the road. There were three doctor clinics on this fourth main
road. In the twelfth cross stood a hospital - Sindhi Hospital. The place where I
uttered my first cry. A couple of blocks away, there was a temple, a chat
corner, and the post office with the big red post box.
The entire length of this fourth main
road, would not be more than a mile and we walked to each of these needs of
life.
My family spent about thirty years, five years before my
birth, in this one bed one bath apartment [as anyone who had a taste of the US
would call it]. About, six hundred square feet of living area. The place we
called home. The place I still attribute to the word 'home'.
Places have changed, people have changed, living area has
grown by leaps and bounds, but I long for those days, where the mornings began
with amma waking anand and me to get ready for school. While appa helped us get
ready, she made horlicks in this big steel tumbler. There was breakfast too. The
auto guy, came and honked downstairs at sharp 7.40 am. Amma announced 'auto
fellow has come'. After traveling for eight years or so, I learnt his name was
Raju, he was always referred to as Automan. An hour before lunchtime, the lunch
arrived in a basket and was kept at the regular drop off place, courtesy the
Automan. The basket had a small towel, a three tier steel lunchcase, and a
waterbottle. We picked it up at lunchtime and ate under a tree or in the
classroom. We got home by 3.30pm and amma was ready with snacks or a second
round of lunch. Or another round of Horlicks. After that we played with our only
neighbors who lived on the third floor of the building. The eldest, one year
older to me was nicknamed Babloo, the middle, was a girl, one year younger to
me, nicknamed Baby, the youngest, one year younger to my brother was nicknamed
Bobby. These are the only friends I have played with during my school years.
After that amma called out to us, to start homework. After homework, I'd help
amma in the kitchen to make dinner. Dinner was always chapathi [Indian flat
bread made of whole wheat], curry, cucumber and onions. Yumm. We watched TV
later for sometime.
I miss -
1, my mother's horlicks everyday morning with the Times of
India newspaper
2, fights with my brother, where finally amma called out
'aaaaanaaand, iiindddduuuuuuuu'.. and were feather touched with the Sumeet mixie
spatula, until one day, my smart brother trashed it.
3, infinte sessions of amma trying to teach me how to
calculate marked price.
4, power outage hours, where we sat on the veranda and
appa played 'places' with us. The game was one person said the name of a place,
and the next person said the name of another place whose first letter was the
last letter of the previous place. Later we sometimes, searched these places on
the atlas.
5, the second show movies that amma and I went to, buying
tickets in black sometimes ;-)
6, how appa applied ointment on my knees and ankle when
they hurt and I couldn't sleep in the night
7, the snack that appa made sometimes with poha and
sometimes with fried rice.. yumm!!
8, my cleaning sessions of the house, after anand made a
mess out of it..
9, the look on amma's face after I got back from an
accident with my neighbors
10, the joy on my face when appa bought our first
colour TV a fourteen inch nelco black diamond.
11, hugging amma and sleeping and her lullaby about
omanakuttan govindan..
12, the photo sessions by appa, usually when we got a new
dress. His umpteen corrections of pose, place your hand here, tilt your head
this way, look here, look there.
13, shopping for a new dress before March 25th and October
1st.
14, samosas that appa brought on some evenings from
Mangaram's on Commercial street, Masala dosa from Kamat, Kaju Barfi from Arya
Bhavan.
15, decorating a room for your own birthday with friends,
blowing the candle, cutting the cake. The maximum you got for a gift was a card.
And that was so precious.
The list is endless, coz the memories are endless. A song
from the movie 3 idiots plays in my mind -
Give me some sunshine, give me some rain
Give me another chance, I wanna grow up once
again.
:)
