Saturday, July 19, 2014

Of monsoons from my childhood



The monsoons of 2014 have been bleak. Almost every visit of mine to my home the last two times has co-incided with the monsoon arriving. Barring this one. Monsoons. They are the reminder of my childhood, my fantasies that still trail around the inner recesses of my mind. The place I drift away to when I am worried about something my adult life is dishing out to me. Monsoons were the time I watched nature and everything in my dadu’s garden. It seemed everything was suddenly pulsating with a life that wasn’t so visible through summer or winter. Monsoons were precious to our joint family of my father’s parents, my four uncles, aunts and their children all together for that one time of the year taking breaks from the monotony of their urban lives. The time when power black outs made the family huddle together to exchange stories, tell jokes and hear my mother sing old Hindi songs while my dadu championed her, adding his generous “khub shundor”.  These family rituals weren’t forced upon by the accidental darkness interrupting our flurry of familial activities. They were sought out mutually and sincerely when all we could have done was stick to our corners of dadu’s home or indulged in our own little chit chats. Thank goodness, we didn’t have a computer, no cell phones ……just Doordarshan on TV. Our sit outs around the invisible bonfires, a clan proudly exercising storytelling and observations on science, nature, politics our history were almost ritualistic practices of tribes as it were. Sometimes in the damp thick darkening daylight  and other times when entire nights were flooded with the customary darkness of rainstorms and fierce winds. A tribe’s bonfires replaced by the old fashioned wick lamps and tin lanterns my grandfather so carefully oiled, polished and saved in his cupboards waiting to be brought out for these occasions.

 I love monsoons because it’s that one time of the year when the earth, the sky and the very air itself here in Bhubaneswar has reached its fruition. Every element heavy in its natural state coming to a full cycle after gestating a year of varying seasons, nursing moisture and winds from far off lands. The red soil typical to this region runs wild in narrow cylindrical long stems at first and then accumulating, joining fellow rebels almost to form thicker gushing long winding streams of water across the garden, the porch, the roads and into the dangerous half open drains. Black dark storm clouds curdled up flashing dangerous streaks of blue and white blinding lightning, upon which my dida exclaimed “The Gods are fighting a new war amongst themselves.” And the air. Whatever I say to describe the air will fall short to what my brain is experiencing taking in greedy whiffs of its wholesomeness. A hundred different flowers, leaves, smell of wet earth, water hitting different points of laterite stone, moss, barks – altogether! If only I could bottle up all of it together! The very essence of all my associations with my home, my people, my roots…. my solace.
I am home after being away in Mumbai for almost two years through which all I seem to have done is scurrying from one mode of conveyance to another, anxious through my day at work and nervously fidgeting through my phone ending office mail etiquettes. Every day in a big city far away from the reality of what a small town beautiful to its very core makes me even more aware of what my hometown does for my heart .It makes me so very happy to be here amongst all these elements in their purest form. To wake up to the koel fiercely calling out at 4 AM. To see my mother tinker around the kitchen, my father gardening with all his focus till 11 AM. This time, the monsoon visit has been less luxurious with sparse rains and halting showers. But we are all home together my parents, my elder sibling and I after a gap of 4 whole years! And so we make the best of it. We try being respectful of each other’s space but invariably drive each other crazy with our rules, our needs and our level of comfort with being around each other – 4 very different people all struggling to deal with each other now that my sister and I are no more kids. We huddle up in the afternoons after lunches, munching the sweet ‘nodiya supuri’ paan that is the mandatory must have and gossip about relatives, political news, trivia and science. We make tea for each other, one strong, one Darjeeling, one without milk. We bring out old pictures that need to be digitally saved into a systematic database that will hopefully provide the generation after, a glimpse into the Mitra clan and their sometimes maddening yet delightful lives. We make lists of furnitures that need to be sold, teach our mother to navigate through OLX and make up her mind about new items that the home needs.
  
These are but just a token gesture. A miniscule amount of the duty we as children are able to fulfill, gifting them our company, our time, our love and gratitude for being our parents. They love it at first. But nag us and taunt us about the life we lead. About the life that women, daughters and sons of their friends are leading, some even younger to us .” Everyone in our peer group is busy with not one but two grandchildren during summers. What do we have to look forward to?” We stare back with blank expressions of guilt, of our lives playing out as we see out of our control of plans that would help achieve the perfect family, husband, kids routine. We dismiss their sadness as customary expressions of old age and we distract them with ‘must do tasks’ this time now that we are together after 4 long years, “lest we aren’t together like this soon” . The family portrait we lack on our living room wall. “The incomplete family”, my mother adds. “Your love and affection is fine but where is the circle of life? The next generation to take care of you and look forward to once we are gone?” I agree with her in my heart silently and look away at the sky. It’s paler today and likely to shower for a bit. I am waiting for that massive downpour I remember from my childhood. The one that blanks out every sound, every thought, every movement around me. And lets me drift away to the inner recesses of my mind.