life

The big old house exhaled ageing in every inch. Unkempt courtyard with a creaking gate gave me the first impression of confusion, “Do anyone stays here”? As being there, often, my mom confidently walked ahead with me tailing her quite uncertainly. It was more than 10 years since I have gone there and the picture in my memory was totally different from what I was seeing. There was an adjacent building with lot of big white pillars all around instead of walls, with polished stones coloring the floor in black, white and red, where we as children used to dance and play. At the corner there was a big statue of Krishna which made me confuse it even as a temple.
Now I found the whole structure converted as another house with a different entrance.
There were walls between the two houses; i could feel myself getting a sort of gloominess...like entering into another world...

Nothing happened when we rang the door bell except the noise of chirping birds which I hardly find musical at that moment. To my annoyance mom again rang the bell and before I could scold her I heard a feeble voice. “Who’s is there?”...The same question got repeated in different voice modulation all indicating a week body as its source…I couldn’t hear what my mom talked over that wooden window, I could hear only muffles.
“Open the front door, it is open”-I was again surprised as I obeyed my mom’s word and pushed the front door open. This was the room that made me teach the meaning of the word elegant .It is still afresh in me the moment I asked my dad why he said this room is so elegant. And from then it is always this room that comes to my mind whenever I think or compare elegance.
But now to my utter disbelief the big spacious room was made small by walls, once shining floor has been cracked, cobweb adorning the ceilings and a big table occupying most of the room with bundled up books and newspapers all over it. The only things I found familiar were the old clock that still strike the time correctly even though the faded glass make it difficult to read and the ‘tamburu’ which was kept at the corner ,sheltered partially with a dirty cloth, showing its broken strings covered in cobweb.

The startling cough drew me to a nearby room; he was there, without tooth he resembled an innocent child. His eyes twinkled with his old smile but I felt a pain .He was urging all of us to sit and was talking this n that. When silence crept in I jumped in with some silly questions …But there was moments when there was nothing to converse. Silences... Silences making us feel a drift, meaningless in talks which we carry on and I couldn’t make out the feeling I saw in that old man’s eyes – shyness of being weak, agony of being helpless and something more which I label as acceptance.

Sometimes we long for intrusions, at that moment when topics dried up there was a loud noise near the big pool. Door swing open and an old lady came in; one of his relatives who stayed there to look after him…She was fine-looking though age and life made lot of dark shades all over her face. .I found the same note of resignation and lost sparkles in her smile n words…But I was surprised to see how much care she put to make us comfortable...I can without doubt call her loving.....

I sat there sipping my tea, simply listening to my mom... she was talking and making everyone smile, telling many old stories when they all were young, how lively they were n d place …enjoying their holidays like festivals...Slowly all started to talk and smile happily again recollecting all those wonderful days, explaining to me each n everything.. Showing me the old photographs and big paintings that filled the walls...at that moment I envied my mom so much….She brought a warm happy feeling back to that small crowd...She used to go there only for vacations when she was small, still she is so close to everyone…Knowing all the people around , stories around .. Sometimes I feel she talks too much but she talks so naïve and straight that I couldn’t feel like stopping her...


When I walked back to the gate, I asked my mom what happened to them. And I got lot many strings of answers... government regulations that tied most of their land, confused siblings who struggle between traditional convictions and new world, heavy bundles of customs and culture that made them too weak to move forward, inability to break the walls made by caste n way of life, lack of exposure cocooning them to their own world..And finally she told me with a sigh, “They forgot to change with the world and finally got lost”…

Strangely I thought of that old clock which welcomed us with a foggy shadowed glass...Time is moving but no one can easily make out time correctly with that faded glass….

As we drove back home, I felt like I missed lot of things…not me alone but we, the present and future generation…
Just like my world sometimes seems both strange and amusing to my mother I too find her young life lot of different from what I had and having…I doubt if I could ever bring anyone to any place like my mom have lead me there.… A place with lot of greeneries, river, temples, ponds, birds and familiar people all round....with lot of stories and so much loving and sincere blessings…
But the journey kept on reminding me the words on my office desktop calendar which I never noticed before
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change” –Charles Darwin

Ye, though very sad to admit that is life all about…