Hissss! Sizzle!! That was the garlic spluttering in hot coconut oil getting ready to season a pot of black-eyed bean stew. As the oil with the roasted crushed garlic hits the bubbling stew, a heavenly aroma wafts through the old-fashioned kitchen and into an L-shaped lengthy corridor where little Sannu is keeping herself amused with her dolls which were much-loved to the point of fade, wear and tear, an indigenous collection of toys and knick-knacks which she affectionately called as ‘ toyyo’ when she had first started speaking. She stuck to this even when she could coherently say the word ‘toy’.
Today, it so happens that grandmother has cooked her favourite stuff for lunch which she will feed Sannu shortly with a plateful of steaming rice porridge dotted with home-made ghee. Ghee makes one big and strong, grandmother used to tell her. Little Sannu loved the charred roasted bits of garlic and black eyed beans which grandmother would further mash between her fingers, blow gently on them to cool them down and feed each mouthful of rice lovingly, patiently, all the while narrating interesting folktales until the plate was polished clean. It was not yet the era of television and hand-held gadgets…fortunately!
Ancestral mansions have a charm, magic and homeliness of their own. This particular one was a rambling, sprawling one with rooms so huge that it could only belong to a certain era. Belonging to 18th century, of Portuguese or Spanish origin perhaps, high ceilinged, beamed with rosewood and skylights in the tiled roof. For Little Sannu with her pattering toddler feet it was too vast a labyrinthine space….and too quiet during the day with only her and her beloved grandmother. It was only towards evening that Sannu got to see her parents when they returned home.
Throughout the day, Sannu was only too happy to play along the sunlit, lengthy, unobstructed L-shaped corridor which was widely barred and which overlooked a sunken garden. It was next-door to the vast roomy kitchen where her grandmother would be most of the time and possibly as close as she could be around her while she went about her duties. Little Sannu eagerly awaited the moment each morning when grandmother decided it was time to unbolt the door to the garden and she would bound down the stairs into a low sunken sun-drenched space, full of shrubs, towering hibiscus plants with its thick woody, out-of-reach branches with blooms of various colours, which even grandma had to stand on tiptoe to pluck. There were some stunted, miniature trees which were as tall as grandmother and a host to a variety of birds’ nests. Mynahs, sparrows, magpies and the tiniest of them the names of which neither well-read grandmother knew.
At times, Sannu got to see new-born chicks in them while grandmother carefully drew back the veil of leaves to hide them again. The ritual every morning was to take a tiny basket to put the plucked flowers into for the daily prayers and for the offerings at the feet of God’s idols.
Everything was like clockwork, never missing a beat, and grandmother never missing a step. She worked tirelessly and enthusiastically all day. After half a day’s work was done and put aside, it was time for Sannu’s afternoon nap and grandmother’s siesta in the capacious, airy room which held a gigantic bed. Grandmother lovingly put Sannu to sleep, patting her back, and singing lullabies in the most melodious voice ever and lay down to rest for a while beside her.
Forty years back, life was without its cares and worries and much less stressful. The only people you knew apart from the people living in your house were your neighbours who lived quite a distance away. Houses were few and far between and more so the population of this quaint, rustic hometown was very sparse and everyone knew everyone. Life was simple and predictable and so were the seasons.
Every year, the end of May brought down a torrent of monsoons and for the next four months so, the people of this town never saw the sun! Dark, gloomy, wet and cold! Sannu was a sunshine person who loathed rains and the raincoats which she was made to wear. Sannu had started going to kindergarten for half a day. She missed being at home terribly, as do all kids in the initial days when they first started school and would look forward to going home to get bundled up in warm rugs after a hot meal and be pampered by grandmother. The afternoons were cloudy and dark with rain pouring down mercilessly. All around this ancestral mansion was a serene wooden area, full of fruit trees, coconut trees, shrubbery and greenery all around. These were home to much insect life, most commonly the fireflies, which flitted into the house this time of the year in Sannu’s and grandmother’s room, like little twinkling stars. Sannu imagined them to be tiny fairies with shimmering wings. She missed going down into the garden, which would be a rain-drenched slush this time of the year. It was during these afternoons that grandmother would teach her how to make boats out of paper. It was a monumental task for Sannu’s tiny inexperienced hands, but grandmother very patiently taught her every crease and fold. Sannu was a fast learner because she had a very good teacher in grandmother. Whenever the torrential rain come down even briefly during the day, much to Sannu’s joy, she and grandmother would go down the stairs into the sunken garden with their paper boats and look for clean puddles of water which had flowing trails, leading out of the garden and into the vast backyard beyond. Grandmother would very delicately place the paper boats in the moving trail of water, which was their imaginary flowing river, and watch them sail away. It was their one and only entertainment during heavy monsoons.
Days passed, a few years passed, a couple more years, and Sannu had now started going to regular, full-time school. She had formed a deep bonding and affection with grandmother, which brought with it a paranoia that someday grandmother would grow old and die, and that the separation would be permanent and inevitable. Little Sannu already knew the concept of death from the stories she had heard from and read, but that it would one day happen at close quarters to one of her beloved brought with it an immense foreboding. On a certain day like this, Sannu could hold it back no longer, and in all innocence, but to the horror of all present, pointedly told her grandmother, “When you die and go to heaven, you must write me a letter!”
Sannu was reprimanded and admonished for the rest of the day, and she knew not why such a big deal was being made out of it. She was told it was blasphemous to talk ill of the oldest living member of the family. But grandmother was calm and peaceful. She said that she certainly would abide by her devoted grand-daughter’s wishes. She would reply if Sannu wrote her messages on a paper boat and set it sail.
Years passed, a few more, a couple more, and now it’s three decades since Sannu is permanently estranged from her beloved grandmother. The ancestral mansion is long gone, the sunken garden dug up and in this nostalgic sacred place stands a looming, unfeeling, tall complex which even blots out the moon and its dreamy halo from a particular angle.
When the rains torrentially fall down these days, Sannu has no more sunken gardens with water trails to set sail paper boats on. But she plays the song which she most aptly came across one day and much to her delight, speaks of the very same emotion which had left a large void.
“WOH KAGAZ KI KASHTHI,
WOH BAARISH KA PAANI”
(Those paper boats, the rainwater…)
And as the soulful voice and music resonates, instantly, a warmth as subtle as the glow of a firefly envelops her and she has no doubt that her paper boat with her messages, albeit telepathically, has reached grandmother, and so has her instant reply arrived.
