Yesterday was my brother’s birthday and today is my mom’s. My mother turned 51 years today. I had plans to celebrate her birthday with me in Pune, but she could not make it to come with me when I came back from Valsad. It was a very different experience during this stay over there. I did not roam around much, did not meet any relatives, stayed home almost all the time and had a good vacation. Charvi too, enjoyed a lot with her cousins.1st June was my father’s birthday and he turned 54 years old that day. Somehow, plans to celebrate his birthday, like we did last year(entire family was present), could not be accomplished as well, because he came back from Delhi the same day and was totally tired. But we did small celebration at home. That was a fun too. That morning when I was talking to my grandmother and we were awaiting my father’s arrival, she told me about an incident which had occurred several years ago. My father was 16 years old then and it was his birthday. My grandfather got annoyed about something and slapped my father for the first time in his life. My father left home and went to Delhi to my grandfather’s elder brother’s house. My grandparents got worried and started searching for him everywhere. They were informed by their relatives in a week’s time(they had no phone). My grandfather immediately left for Delhi to bring my father back home. Meanwhile my father was asked by his uncle to go and bring his cousin home from her in-law’s living in some city in north. He was kidnapped by some goons on his way, and he realized this when he gained his consciousness back near Agra. He managed to fool them and escaped from their tangles. After all this adventure, he came back to Delhi and was brought back home to Valsad. My grandfather promised him that he will never hit him again. I could never imagine my father to be so rebellious. Well, several other small stories were shared by my grandmother.
The house where my family lives as of now was bought by my father 23 years ago. On 18th June 1988, we shifted into this house. It was an old architectural built up. We had bought it second hand. Earlier, my father had bought some fresh property but due to the large distance between our school and that house, he sold that off and decided to buy this one which was a fifteen minutes walk from our school, ten minutes walk from the station, and twenty minutes walk from the main market. I crisply remember the layout of this house as it was then. Wooden gate to the garden made the main entrance to the house. There was enough open area on all the four sides of the constructed living space. About nine large trees and lots of small plants, weeds and it was green everywhere. To recall, there were two mango trees, one curry leaves tree, one custard apple tree, one banyan tree, one tamarind tree, and papaya tree, one guava tree and one more, but I don’t remember that one. Main construction had about six rooms and two store room kinds on either sides of the house. As a kid, it seemed to be a large house then, though the one which we had left before moving in this, was also a big one with gardens on three sides of the house, servant quarters and lots of trees, but that was a government quarter given to my grandfather. Over the period of years, this house saw lot of changes in its basic structure. Except one mango tree and a custard apple tree, all other trees were chopped off to bring up more seven rooms which were rented out. Wooden fencing which separated our house from our neighbor’s, turned into a concrete wall. Neighbor family on our right hand side consisted of almost sixty members that time, it was a huge house and a big family. The great grandmother of that family was very fond of me, she use to call me Indira, referring to our late PM Mrs. Indira Gandhi. She would always be seated on the wooden bench kept outside her room in the garden and would often call my name through the wooden fencing and ask me to get her betel box from inside and help her do her pan(betel leaf). Her youngest son, whom we called Anna chacha, would always tease me and say that he would never have a baby girl because girls would turn out to be naughty like me. Once irritated by his repeated comments, I told him that he will have five daughters in his life. I never knew my words would turn out to be true. Five daughters were born to his wife and then he passed away. All his daughters are truly beautiful. I saw them all together for the first time during this stay. I did not live much in this house as I went to live with my maternal grandparents in Ahmedabad for studies. My teenage began and ended in Ahmedabad. But I still have many beautiful memories attached to this house. My siblings, my cousins and friends, we all played lots of games in the compound of this house. This house has seen different times throughout. Lots of ups and downs, achievements, loses, ill-healths, accidents, celebrations, gatherings, good-byes, lazy days, awaken nights, birth( baby boy was born to a tenant twenty years back) and death( my grandfather passed away in 2008).
My father is very fond of animals and mother is fond of trees. After being chopped off initially, few other trees were planted over years. Until last year, among others, one coconut tree used to be the grace of the house, but this year, it was not there. Now, this house has one mango tree which is the oldest amongst all and has been walled in, in a room without a concrete roof( we call this room ambe-wala room), a new curry leaf tree, one belgiri tree, one guava, one pomegranate, one banana and one shoe-flower tree, lots of small plants, all of them standing in the least space they could occupy. I spent lot of time with these trees during this stay. Mornings were beautiful with the chirping sound of the birds living on these trees. Cool breeze through the day made summers pleasing. Only disturbance this time, were the new guests who made our mango tree their home. The cranes, they made the whole place white with their shit and spoiled lots of fruits, but their numbers decreased with the rains, probably they flew away for better accommodation.
Entertainment for the kids were the animals who frequented our house for their meals. Cows and dogs for chapattis(made specially for them) and bread buns(my father buys for them everyday), Squirrels and birds for grains, and a naughty cat who does not drink any other milk but Amul gold( she is overly pampered by my father, an irritation for my mother and Charvi’s best friend in there). Everytime charvi talks to my father on phone, she enquires about the cat’s well being. She has named her Toma. Charvi and her cousins kept my father busy this vacation by making him feed and over feed the animals, making him buy them chocolates three-four times a day. They would ring the temple bell all through the time he does his Puja and in his absence they would make a mess of all the things in the temple. Charvi had fun to the content of her heart. And the best part was the everyday treat of mangoes. Valsad’s mangoes are very famous for their unique taste. Every three days, my mother would get 40-50 kg raw mangoes and arrange them to get ripe and then serve us all at every meal. She filled my car with the mangoes before I left home. We are still relishing them. I gave some to my neighbors, maids, cook and friends, and it gives such a happy feeling to know that they all liked what my mom sent.
Everything was so pleasant and fulfilling this time, except for my mom’s repeated insistence to sell this house off. She is so much done with it. She wants to move in, in a smaller place. She feels lonely without kids. Though she keeps herself busy with many social activities, but still sometimes she behaves like a complete loner. In all, they are three people living there. My father, mother and grandmother. Grandmother keeps herself busy with puja and T.V all through the day. She remains in her room most of the time. My father keeps himself busy with his business. And my mom tries to kill her time in her bhajan-madli activities. I talk to her very frequently on phone, sometimes she sounds very energetic and positive about life and sometimes she seems to be tired and so much done with everything. These days, she only talks about either selling this house off or redoing it completely as it is a very old fashioned one and she gets tired keeping it upright, especially because getting a good maid is a big problem in that area. Lets see, what it turns out to be? Whether they sell it off or reconstruct it, I will miss every part of it.
