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| Home is where you're one, no? |
“Kyunki aam phalon ka raja hota hai,” my daadu explained with the cutest possible
made-up expression to participate in the excitement of kids hovering around
him. What followed for the next 20 minutes, I don’t remember particularly, for
I was busy in my head absorbing the new-found fact and comparing every possible
fruit that was ever dear to me with this now-reclaiming king of fruits.
There was apricot with the most perfect blush, there was majestic guava with its sneaky seeds that would trouble you for hours after eating it, and then, of course, there were grapes in all colours and glory. So many of them! But then, the garden at my grandparents’ house was a realm in itself where all fruits could compete for the juicy throne.
Most of my favourite stories from my grandparents’ home
revolve around the mango trees- The night it was so hot that we decided to
sleep out under the big one, only to wake up with rain and storm and lightening
so bright that it may have been our best family photograph till date. The day me and my brothers spent fighting, in its entirety, over the division of mangoes from the garden (Eventually,
we each owned a certain type of mango, another solution by daadu). The afternoons I'd spend with relish on rented
comic books I devoured along with the kachha
ambi picked directly from the trees. The times we would place our charpoy
under the tree post afternoon meals to listen to sharbat chacha’s exaggerated stories. Or the time I tried climbing
a tree for the first time and had a nap in the wooden, wise arms of one of the
oldest lives in the garden.
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| Right before the storm. |
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| Right after it. |
You can’t find any grander entrance than the one to my
grandparents’ house back there. The place is nestled right at the feet of some
puny and some not-so-puny mountains. Lazily settled between a village and a
town, my hometown is everything that would make you feel away from the city
life and yet just there.
Two minutes before my home and you can find yourself ogling
at the magnificent garden of mangoes and litchis.
Take the turn into the locality and I promise every household, no matter how
far away they are stretched out (there are farms and puny canals in between
most of the houses), would take a peek to find out and give you a shout out if
you’re recognized too. Their pets soon follow the suit, of course.
Hit the gate
and there’s a good 600 feet of wedding aisle like green pathway with fields on
either sides, directing you to the real entrance to what we call home. A verandah as big as a society playground and
a byre good enough to be our adventure home welcomed you to the rest of the
house. But my favourite spot was always the terrace where the night was so
purple and the stars so yellow that it looked like I had been colouring my drawing
books with a wrong sky all this while.
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| From the charpoy, under the tree. No filters whatsoever. |
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| On your left, from the verandah. |
And amidst all this was Johny. Sitting under the jackfruit tree, Johny loved watching
(read scanning) the people approaching and mostly scaring the shit out of them.
In my on and off 26 years of summer there, we’ve had chicks and rabbits and cows
and buffaloes and baby birds (picked as patients post a storm) and dogs and
cats and even tadpoles; but Johny was my favourite out of them all. That weak,
slimy-eyed, ferocious son of a bitch almost went to dog heaven as a pup when a
jackal picked him once for a nice midnight snack. Thank god for my aunt who did
not seem to agree with the jackal about his diet choices, and thus Johny stayed
with us.
As little Johny grew up, us kids realized he’s not the usual
hungry-for-love dog but rather selective-with-one-and-all kind. He may have
been a dog but I often suspected he was a cat’s soul in a dog’s body. His
trickery and the art-of-suspicion was no match for ours. Feeding him wasn’t a
free pass, one needed to win his love first and foremost. The all-black fur and
growl at a moment’s notice didn’t help much either. But once you won the free
pass, he was all yours.
However, what we enjoyed most was our non-negotiable yearly
ritual. His bathing ceremony. The entire year, Johny came under the hygiene
radar none but once- when I would visit home. In a household of 20 members
(come summers), I was the only one he listened to, a fact that never failed to
put a rather pleased grin on my face. He never allowed anyone to bathe him and
depending upon the frequency or rarity of his swimming escapades in the canals,
his fur could be a homogenous mixture of sugar, spice and everything nice (Just
kidding!).
It needed my brother’s help to pick him up and my firm
resolution to have him bathed, because nothing else would work. He always acted
rather miffed with me post bathing, which evaporated by the time he dried up, always
in all the eagerness to show off his newly cleaned fur and catch a cozy
afternoon nap with me. Too much of love always made me feel special and
uncomfortable at the same time. And I stayed special and uncomfortable for
years to follow. Later, during one of the summers I missed going home, I was
casually told on a call that Johny was dead. And just like that, I was ordinary
and comfortable once again.
Today, it feels like all this just happened yesterday.
Except it didn’t. Ever since daadu died, every little character in my stories
evaporated too soon to preserve a proof that they existed. Grandma stayed with
us for a long time afterward, so all the cattle and pets were given away or
sold. Gone are the malpuas that my
daadu cooked specially for me every time I went there, and so is the rental
comic store, for who reads comics these days! The lavish farms are now handled
by someone else, and sharbat chacha now struggles with an advance stage of parkinson’s
and keeps all the stories rather to himself.
The mango trees, however, are still alive. Quiet, but observant.
And they still remember everything. Hopefully.
