Home!!!I am going HOME!!

Remembering the old, old house with the big black gate and the magenta bougainvilleas tumbling all over it. Remembering how Appa used to lock the gate after he drove me out to school with a stick… while I bawled at the injustice of it all…my first encounter with harsh reality ;-)

Remembering the ‘rice balls’ Appa made…how he invented birds and convinced me that each rice ball was really the egg of an exotic bird. And how I’d forget all the fuss I’d just made at eating and gulp down the ‘eggs’ greedily. First instance of stupidity!:-D

Remembering the sprawling land and my walks there with Appama. My first best friend…

Remembering the bright red shoeflowers…how I picked one and put one away in Acchacha’s draw thinking I could have it with me forever. And then, how the next day I came to have a look at it…remembering how I sobbed until I choked when I saw it had withered. My first inkling of the ravages of time!:-

Remembering how Appa gave Akka and me whisky at their wedding anniversary. I was three and Akka six…and we were so drunk we did a strip-tease dance for the guests and Amma was hopping mad!!!! First encounter with parental differences of opinion’!! : ))

Remembering how I always managed to learn Akka’s lessons much before she did!! The birth of a prodigy :-D (I just got stunted somewhere along the way :- )

Remembering playing with cousin N….so many, many games….how we stumbled accidentally on the ‘difference’ between being ‘I am a boy’ and ‘I am a girl’. Remembering how we exchanged copious notes in the dining hall till Kochamma scolded us. Remembering how we never really UNDERSTOOD the difference but understood that this was taboo. First consciousness of gender differences! :-

Remembering coveting the golden cup with the blue ribbon that the person who recited best would get. Remembering how I got the loudest claps and yet how the Principal’s granddaughter with her cute toy T.V. (she was from ‘foreign’ and had a funny accent that the rest of us didnt understand and she was unbelievably cute to boot)won the prize. My first scrape with injustice. (Ugh!!I still HATE THAT GIRL!!!) X-(

Remembering Timmy…the only pet I’ve ever had… a black and white mongrel named after Timmy from Doordarshan’s ‘Famous Five’ series…remembering how he went for a romp in the fields got bitten by a rabid dog and how I never saw him again…remembering how Appa-Amma lied that he’d run away…remembering how for the next two years, I called every black and white mongrel ‘Timmy’ certain that it was him cos I didn’t think that my parents could lie!!First instance of parental let-down! : (

Remembering the 25 paise coin I cheerfully swallowed making believe that it was pepper-mint. My first night in a hospital! :-D

Remembering falling off a forbidden cupboard while pretending to be a monkey and breaking about 3 bones, but being so petrified of telling my parents that I suffered in silent agony for two whole days until my mother realized I was walking rather strangely!! :p First instance of having to pay for eating forbidden fruit!!

Remembering how we went for A’s wedding and everybody telling Amma how pretty Akka was. The first time I realised I was the ugly duckling of my swan family. (Shan't tell if I turned out to be a swan like the duckling did in the fairy tale)

Remembering losing my first tooth biting a ‘champanga’ (still donno what it's called in English!) LOL! My first lost tooth! See, see, see? :D

Remembering Amma reading us nursery rhymes and fairy tales, if we ate enough food. Remembering being petrified of Wee Willie Winkie and refusing to sleep alone in the dark…. (still am. Still don’t :- )

And soon, very soon, I’ll be back there. To my ‘home’, a home I haven’t visited in the last 18 years…so many memories… Leaving a lump in my throat and stinging my eyes. Through the haze of bittersweet nostalgia, they have an edge that cuts almost as much as it heals. Oh God, I do wish I didn’t have to grow up….and grow old.

I have three gray hairs as opposed to the two last year. I'd like to think that it's all cos I am 'wise beyond my years'. But deep down, I do know the truth. I am growing ancient. Soon, very soon, I'll be the dead aunty whose picture will be hanging in my niece/nephews oldest and most unused cupboard.

:-

I want....