There was something about the house. It had a lot of ventilation, light, space..... It looked bigger than it was. It some how had more space than the actual feet it measured. During holidays, it could easily house my entire extended family of 18-20members. It had 3 bedrooms, well 2 actually, cos one was permanently converted into my Dad's office. My sister and I shared one of the bedrooms, for most of our growing up years. My brother slept in the drawing room, and had a study table in dad's office ( which no one was allowed to even touch).There was a huge living room area. This was were we spent most of our family time. All the important talks, the important decisions, dinners, lunches, the dance/song practice ( for competitions), the diwali poojas, guesting, everything...has happened in this room.
There was Ganesha, painted by my sister on one of the walls. I remember the days when she was painting it. I was so jealous of her talent, and at the same time, so proud of her. There was our colored sony tv. The living room was separated by the dining area by delicate curtains.
I had my own nooks and corners around the house. I loved our huge Balcony. Mom had some potted plants....and I loved each one of them. I tended to the plants, cleaned the Balcony, I spent most of my time at home in the balcony. We called it "chatt". This is where our family gathered every evening for evening tea and snacks. All through the summers, we slept under the sky and yet in the privacy of our home, on this chatt. We spent our winter days sitting here,basking in the sun, munching on plate fulls of salads...
This is where I have memories of fun times with my elder brother and sister, when we were kids, we would fight, cry, laugh, tease each other, trouble each other, and then there were no egos. I once fell from a table top. The sight of me, on the floor, holding my forehead, crying, blood gushing though my fingers....was enough to make my sister ill for several days.
We went to school together. During winters we came back and sat on the chatt to soak in the departing evening sun and munch on sweet sugarcane. We experimented with waxing our legs on our own. My sister even tried her hand at giving me a hair cut! Thank God she gave that up after a few trials. We gave each other facial massages, oil massages....fought over who would sleep on which side of the bed, who would make the bed, we fought over clothes...on every opportunity, when she was away, I would go through her stuff as discreetly a possible, but she always found out.
She would hatch plans of troubling my brother, when ever he was home. I was always party to her mischief. Sometimes, I switched loyalties and went into my brother's team, together we would drive my sister mad. We made such a ruckus around the house sometimes, that my mom had to go to the neighbor's house to sit in some quiet, gather herself again, and come back after the war was over, only to find me crying in one corner, the older ones not on talking terms anymore, slippers, brooms, remote etc etc thrown all over the place...
This is where I spent time with my Grand dad. He would wait for me to come back from school at 3:45. He would open the door, and greet my with a huge smile and would say "aa gayi mera Nehu beta school se"...I would quickly change and prepare his evening cup of coffee and sit down beside him, while he sipped his coffee and the rest of the household slowly woke up from their afternoon siesta.
This is the home. Where I celebrated most of my birthdays, where we organized a surprise party for our parent's 25th wedding anniversary.( it wasn't much of a surprise cos mom saw through our preparations)...
This is home...there are so many memories...so many cherished moments....I hope to capture some of them here...
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