This is an ode to my beautiful house, a place that will remain in my heart for a lifetime.
This isn't really a blog post for anyone to read. It's more like a word vomit of all the things I don't want to forget. And it'll probably be super long.
Our story in this house began in the year I was born. My grandfather bought it from an old Gujarathi Settu. It was and still is known as Settu-nde veed. The architecture, everything was built around their Gujarathi style, something that would enrapture all those who visit us.
I spent the first couple of years of my life in this house, and most of it is mostly blurry. Like an old video cassette playing with a lot of static. There are bits and pieces here and there that I manage to piece together through photographs.
Climbing the old guava tree, making mann-putt and crushing leaving to make fresh mailanji on the muttam, tending to the chickens in the backyard, a super cool dog house with sliding doors for Tommy and Julie and later Judy, hunting for kuzhi-annas in the car shed, waiting excitedly at the front door for my acha to come home, my sister teaching me to ride a cycle, skinned knees from falling off the cycle one too many times.
Two big pots in the front steps, one which fell and broke when my dad to into a tussle with someone, my amma in a pink saree cutting my nails sitting in the side steps, the big guava tree my sisters and cousins would always climb and the swing that hung from it, the little guava tree that I'd climb and hours atop alone because the big guava tree was way too big for my little arms and legs....I’d managed to romanticize the house a fair amount based on these tidbits of memories.
I don’t remember how I’d felt when we suddenly left for Sharjah a little after my 7th birthday. I remember parts of the birthday celebration but... was I sad? Did I walk through the house saying goodbye to
all the rooms? Did I shed tears over the guava tree? I wish I remembered how I felt then.
The memories waned as we built a home in a foreign country that had no guava trees or chickens in the backyard.
When we’d come to India to visit during the summer holidays, the house had lost all appeal to me. It had new inhabitants now, my dad’s cousin and family. They had made it their own, not a trace of our memories were found anywhere. It didn’t feel like ours anymore. Our cozy little flats back in UAE, that was home now, not this broken down old place. I’d grumble whenever we had to visit my cousins. We'd turned into smooty lil NRI kids, I guess.
Even then, when there was talk of selling the house, I’d plucked a
leaf off of one of the trees and saved it between the pages of a diary, where
it still remains.
The house then went to my dad's elder brother and family who stayed for the duration of his daughter's wedding. The first wedding in the house. I still felt nothing.
A few more years pass. As our lives in the desert moved forward steadily, the house once again came into the picture. It was time for my eldest sister’s wedding – the first wedding of the family. It was decided that the house needed a makeover. The previous inhabitants had moved out. My mom and dad set out to turn it into a home.
Everyone was excited. We initially only had 2 bedrooms. The large hall upstairs which had been a kind of playroom/partyhall/dance class area was going to be turned into 2 bedrooms. I was still in high school then and I was kinda excited about having a bedroom of my own(a luxury that had never been bestowed on me) even though it would be years before it would actually turn into my room for real.
I remember picking out the colours of the tiles. My
sister- the bride- got to pick the posh-est one, royal maroon, and my dad even agreed
to put a bathtub in her room. I wanted grey. I don’t know why. I somehow
thought grey sounded cool and adult-y I guess.
We did it all over again for my 2nd sister’s wedding and even held pennu kannals at the house.
After that wedding was over, my parents once again prepared to lock up the house before returning to UAE. I headed back to college. During short college breaks, I’d go to my grandparent’s house in Palghat, which felt more like home than this house had. When seniors asked me where I was from, I’d always fumble between Sharjah and Palghat and Thrissur.. Because I wasn’t sure what the answer was supposed to be. Which was home?
Post my
sister’s marriage, we once again found relatives who’d move into our house – my
dad’s cousin’s parents. They moved out a few years later. And my parents left UAE for good and finally moved back into our house of 24 years in 2009.
Both my sisters had been pregnant with their first child at the time, and my parents began prepping the house for the first of many more tiny offspring.
When we brought home our first baby – K, my
nephew, from the hospital, it turned into the happiest place in the world.
A tiny little child in the house – it was such an alien concept for me, me
being the last child our house had known. Our house was finally turning into a
home again, with chickens and plants and heaps of toys and a crib and actual
furniture. Guests were pouring in again. I would rush home from hostel every
chance I got, carrying the baby around the house, showing him the birds and
trees and stuff. There is a washing rock, a place where I’d sat with all of my
kids to expose them to some morning sun to bump up their Vit A level. It’s one
of my warmest quiet memories of the house.
We brought home two more nieces L and J after that straight from the hospital into this house. Both of whom spent their first few years growing up here. It’s such a wonderful place for a child to grow up in, with lots and lots of space to run around and play hide and seek, mud to roll around in, trees to climb, and critters to discover. And I got to experience the house all over again in a whole different light while I ran about and played around with these kids, kind of like reviving those old blurry childhood memories.
We brought home our beloved Bolty and later Coco, because every house needs a dog. We did have Tommy, Julie and Judy way back when we were kids too. And they all had their own set of adventures in this house.
I learned to drive and would practice in our front yard. Broke a bunch of pots. I attempted to climb my guava tree again and fell off it. I went to my first job interview from this house. I received my first appointment letter in this house. I had my many pennukannals in this house. I got ready for my wedding day in this house. Stepped out of here crying thinking I’d not be seeing much of it anymore. Everyone still laughs at me for that. I found out that I was pregnant while I was under this roof.
I came back
to this house in my 8th month of pregnancy. I remember standing out in the
front yard in the morning with my shirt hiked up, belly protruding to catch up
on my Vitamin A, along with my little niece J, who’d do the same.
I would walk around and around the yard every day, sometimes calling out random baby names. When my due date was nearing and my baby was refusing to budge, I remember adich vaaralling the muttam inspired by an old movie.
I brought my baby girl home from the hospital into this house. My mom welcomed her like she'd done for all the kids who'd come before, with a vilak and thaalam at the doorstep.
I then, like my parents had done for us, set out to turn it into her home for D, the only one she’d known. I was so excited that she was born in the same hospital as me and then brought into the same house as me. I lived there for the first 7 years of my life before moving away and she got to live here for the first 8.
Motherhood was scary but having seen 3 other babies brought up in the same exact spot, I kinda felt like I knew my way around a little bit. There was a lot less fumbling. We had a room specifically for newborn babies and their mothers. Cupboards that had held baby stuff over the years. The coil and hook for the crib were never taken down.
D took her first steps here, said her first word, learned her first song, cut her first cake, got ready to go to her first day of school.. and so so so many more firsts under this roof. While the memories of all my childhood firsts in this house are blurry blobs, all of hers are crystal clear to me. I’m so glad that she got to spend a good portion of her childhood running free among trees, rolling around in the mud and dancing in the rain just like me. I hope she holds onto those memories.
D and I moved from room to room. After spending the entirety of the 2020 lockdown in a tiny room downstairs with no windows, we finally moved upstairs and turned it into our little kingdom. The one with the grey bathroom tiles I'd chosen. I scrubbed and cleaned like a maniac and little by little turned it into our cozy little sanctuary. I put up a canopy of sorts, strung fairy lights, and decorated it with art and plants, and made it my own.
No one (other than the kids) would visit us there, we could be as loud as we wanted and dance as weirdly as we liked. My windows didn't need curtains - we could walk around naked and no one would care, we could stay up as late as we wanted and no one would know. Sometimes D and I sing out loud in the middle of the night while lying in bed. It was our own little isolated world.. and I'll miss it so much.
I was supposed to finish writing this before we moved out of there. Didn't. It's been almost two months since we moved and I still haven't gotten around to finishing this.
I don't know what more to write
Ok, now I'm just going to list down all the stuff I can still see/hear about the house when I close my eyes.
Yellow petals falling in the rain from my kanikonna when it rains, the ground covered with yellow, the sound of my window creaking when I open it every morning, sitting at the front door when it rains, drinking coffee sitting on the front step, sitting with D in the balcony almost every night before bed listening to music, sometimes dancing around in the dark while I carry her on my hip.
The marapatti who'd walk around in the attic at night. The morning sun hitting our big mango tree, how the light would beautifully sneak through from in between the leaves. The feel of the bark of the old mango tree. How everything would be so extra green when you open the side door of the house after it rains.
Sitting on the washing rock. The smell of guavas. The smell of pacha maanga. Amma's excitement when her roses bloom. Acha walking through the paramb with his walking stick, Coco in tow. The thumping sound when the kids hop up the stairs. The smoothness of the banister. The creaky sound on almost all the door hinges. Tiny drops of light here and there.
The crows and the squirrels feeding on the rice we leave out for them, the excitement we'd feel when we spot a Rufus treepie or a parrot or owl or a bat - all of whom we'd named. Random snake-spotting. Watching Coco run all the way till the gate his ears flapping about. Hosing down the kids with the garden hose in the front yard. The song from the temple. Amma watering the plants in the evening.
Night walk to get the milk packets from the gate, the squeak of the gate, the coolness of the round smooth pebbles we'd collect, the quietness of the morning in my room. My balcony filled with plants and the way they'd look in the morning when the golden light pours in through the windows. My bedroom wall covered with drawings by all my kids. My parent's bedroom wall with all of the kid's height markings over the years.
The rain - I know the rain isn't part of the house but rain always felt better from the house. The smell of it when it hits the ground. The sound of it hitting the roof. The way it makes all the leaves glisten. The way the roof changes colour as the rain gets heavier. The way the trees shake about wildly. The many many buckets and pots we'd keep out to catch the leaks. The way the floor would instantly get cooler. The feeling of rain when it falls on my face when we sit at the front door, huddling under a blanket. The muddy puddles we'd jump into. The way we'd run through the yard getting drenched.
I did not miss the rats and the giant spiders and the ants everywhere and definitely not the kodhus but mentioning them here as they were common occurrences too.
We've made a lot of amazing memories and quite a few bad ones too in this home. Hundreds of life lessons were learned and countless hours were spent laughing, crying, playing, dancing and just being. Nestled between two humongous mango trees, our almost 70-year-old house stood strong with us through it all, providing comfort during the good times and the bad.
I don't know if this is the next phase of growing up. If it is, then I hate it. I hate having to let go of this. This feels worse than a break-up. How does one get closure from a break-up with a house? Where are the books and articles and videos on that?
2023 was a tough year for us. When the news first came that the house was being sold, I didn't give it much thought. Because this has happened many times before and it always fell through. But as the deal got more and more concrete, I started feeling uneasy. I was devastated when I was told we'd have to leave within 6 months. All of us went into a sort of mourning for a while. We made every second count when all of us got together during the summer holiday.
But then we were hit with one bad thing after another and the grief over the house was put on the backburner. As our family struggled not to crumble under the weight of all the bad stuff that was thrown our way - I realized losing our house isn't the worst thing that can happen to us and my friends were actually right. It's the people.. like my sister and I would repeat to each other whenever one of us starts feeling too sad about the house. It's the people, we still have the people who are in the house with us.. Our big chaotic family.. and that's all that matters.
