Joy Of Remembrance

A going back to childhood

As I was sitting on the terrace of my house, I was drawn to the memory of being at the grandparent’s house during childhood; it was a village. The house; the land; the separation between the home and the kitchen: yes there was a gap between the kitchen and the home — a gap good enough for 3 children to walk holding their hands; the firewood stove in the kitchen and the smell that surrounded the area when something was being cooked by grandmother, the smoke; the outdoor bathroom; the well nearby to the bathroom: it was near the well that grandfather used to offer his prayers to the sun after his morning bath; the grandfather’s room which was always kind of dark — even the bulb was a soft intensity color light; there was a kind of peculiar fragrance around grandfather’s room, but I could not quite remember exactly what it was.

It was almost like I was drawing the house and surroundings again in the blank paper of my mind — bringing it back to aliveness. I am pretty sure I did not bother to appreciate those moments at that time; I was probably lost in the thoughts of the end of the vacation, the anxiety of going back to school, restlessness, frustration for not able to find someone to play cricket with, angry with my brother for getting on my nerves, and whatnot. :)

A week or two later after this remembrance, one of my little nieces (my brother's daughter) came up to the terrace where I usually sit, with a long packet with her pens kept inside it. It was an empty incense sticks packet. She left it there on my table and went; it is still here as I write this. A couple of days passed, and then a gentle breeze transferred the fragrance still present in that incense stick packet on to my senses — suddenly taking me back to the fragrance around the grandfather’s room. Now I know — it was the fragrance of incense sticks that he usually burnt as part of his prayer rituals.