Home

Even though its been more than four years since I left this place and the transfers have geographically dislocated us, coming back home always sends me on wave of nostalgia. So please pardon me for the nostalgic high in the coming days. I feel like a school-kid writing a composition about home.

Home is the place

where every morning I wake up to the sound of the conch being blown at the nearby temple, even if it is as early as 5.00 a.m

where I learnt my first lessons in monopoly from our local fisherwoman Cicily and later, monopolistic competition when a new fisherman arrived.

where every nook and corner of the house reminds me of something in my growing up years

where I can’t resist rummaging through my parents’ old collection of books and unearth rare ones. ( those second-hand Russian books of the seventies are surely worth a read)

where I ensure my li’l treasures remain undiscovered

where I’m with people I’ve known for a lifetime, whose family folklores are enough fodder to write a novel

where I get the ‘freshest mathi‘ from Sreekariyam market

where I’m not a slave to the TV remote or internet

where the unforgivable speed of the PC doesn’t matter at all

where my comfort zone or stressbuster is in the corner at the terrace, under the shade of coconut leaves where I spend hours in the company of books, dreaming, thinking or just observing

where weekend bliss means sunset at ’shangumugham’ beach

where I read all those journals I’d written years ago and laugh at my idiosyncrasies of those years

where friends and family are just a ‘local’ call away

where to satiate my taste buds all I need to do is pluck a few ‘kanthari mulaku‘ from the backyard and smash it in kanji

where the most of the things in my room remain untouched and unmoved, which seems like a frozen memory of the time I left this place.

where I know its tea time when the evening bhajan starts at the temple

where I get to revise random tidbits of those old school lessons listening to Sreekutty studying in her verandah

where life seems to move at a much slower pace

where I wish ‘everyday was today’

where I can snuggle into the comfort of my bed and sleep peacefully without being disturbed by vehicles zipping past throughout the night

where I don’t suffer from an identity crisis

where I can be free and claim that its my own right to be here than having to endure the ‘you bleddy mallu’ attitude

mathi- sardines

kanthari mulaku- bird’s eye chilli