Cakes and Kites of the Past!

It used to be a ritual you looked forward to, going to your grandparents’ place in the village during summer vacations. Now you are there after many years; you still feel the house is welcoming you with a smile. Soon the memories come in a flash, like a pack of cards disregarding the order of time!

There you are with uncles and aunts celebrating your 8^th birthday and mom next to you beaming with pride. You never noticed how beautiful she looked. You sit on a stool and relatives come to put a tilak on your forehead and hand some cash. Through the corner of your eyes you look at it and total the cash. A local sweet hastily arranged in the form of cake is something you bargained as a boy from town.

From being a shy child, you turn into a performer next year. You had crammed some jokes form a children’s magazine and at any request, you recite them to bemused aunts. Today you wonder why they always laughed at the same jokes. Maybe you were their mirror to a different world, maybe they just loved you with all their heart.

Your father has bought you a kite but you do not know how to make it fly. An elder boy is given this task by your mom and you are jumping with joy when the kite kisses the sky. He hands it over to you and you pull the string suavely as if you are an accomplished kites’ man.

This year your grandfather has turned this into a pukka house. He is energetically giving all of you tour of this house and there is a twinkle in his eyes. He has made this house and you can sense his pride. Something tells you he left us years back.  

The new pukka stairs, made of stone were pointed and steep and you had to be careful when you climbed; mom kept repeating watch your steps. You loved to be there when roof was washed with water after hot summer afternoons. All slept on the open roof and often there were stories of spirits and shadows. Many vouched to have seen them and shared their experience. With each story your interest grew and you held tightly to your mom.

Once there was a thunderstorm and it rained all night. All were squeezed in a small room and elders hardly slept. They talked about their lives and when you woke up, they were still discussing something. Your mom gently caressed your forehead.  

Now everyone is playing Holi, and faces are hard to recognise. You are eleven this time. Everyone is smiling and there are happy faces all around, you could sense a warmth that existed in middle class extended families. You led a gang of children, hiding in the corners and surprise people with your fish shaped water gun.

You now remember some of them have left this world. Your aunt who was the most active one that day, gave in to cancer. The family got six months to bid goodbye. A boy who was just becoming a man would die before entering thirties. Wherever you looked at that house, people smiled at you saying hello from the time passed by. It is an eerie feeling, to realise so many people who are part of your memories are not around. You are jolted out from your dreams.

Now you feel house is not same anymore. There are odd extensions everywhere, an extra room carved out here, the open area behind covered to a great extent. Unknown tenants stay in parts and they look at you curiously. You try to find a familiar face but you cannot.

You look at your grandmother, she has wrinkled skin and every time your meet her, she grows even older. She puts a hand on your forehead and mumbles something which you find hard to decipher. She asks about an ailment that you had as a child and you wonder if like your memories, she has also lost sense of time. Your son is excited to meet her and asks her zillion questions. She hardly answers but is happy at his exuberance.

She came in pair with your grandfather and after he left, you find it difficult to accept her individual existence. She needs support for everything, to sit, to walk. She cries when you leave and so does your mom; you feel a growing lump in your throat and avoid looking at her for long.  Every time you see her, there is an unsaid thought that this meeting might be the last. She is a gateway to your childhood; she is your gateway to a time gone by and you want her to carry on and on!