I always loved my vacation trips to my mamma’s house- in Coimbatore. Motion sickness made me hate travelling by road, so our (mamma and me) trips were by train, mostly on Bokahro Steel City express, from Ernakulam to Coimbatore Central. The preparations usually started two days before…packing, re-packing, re-checking whether anything has been missed; and me, getting yelled at for stuffing my books into the suitcases, which was ‘unnecessary excess weight’. However, I usually got my way; a sulky face always managed wonders on my dad’s heart and inturn my mamma’s decisions.
Though I’d wait for the day we left in anticipation, waking up by 4.30 in the morning to catch a train (the usual departure time then was 6.50am), was the only thing I never really enjoyed about the trip. But once we reach the station, I am all excited and raring to go. Dad, during the waiting time, would take me to the little book shop at the station and buy me a couple of books and comics to read through the 5 hour journey. The train would have pulled in by then, and then the rush to board and find seats.
Whenever it was just mamma and me travelling, we took the sleeper class as it felt a lot safer than air conditioned coaches with tinted glasses and people encapsulated in deafening silence, brooding behind thick blue jacquard curtains. Waving bye to Dad, we would settle down (the coaches were empty half the time), me invariably at the window seat, ready to start a journey of sights, sounds and dreaming. The train would have picked up speed.
I could look through the window for hours, not getting bored or tired, because I loved the way how one sight dissolved into another, at the speed of the train. People fascinated me- those living in houses near the tracks, those waiting impatiently at the crossings, those walking through the adjoining roads- different people doing different things. Along with the people changed the colour of the soil, from pale brown to dark earthy to bright reddish clay-like to white sand…I marveled how Nature changed colours every one hour of my journey. Passing through bridges built on winding rivers was an experience- and still is- I would say exciting and frightening at the same time. Heights always scared me, but I love water. Maybe that explains the mixed feelings I experience when I watch the train from an angle, slithering through the black iron structures on water, like a cautious snake.
Every station came with different sights and sounds. Even the tone of chai vendors changed station after station, the local ‘twang’ would be evident in their calls. Long stops bored me; that is when I turned to my books. And later, when the train starts moving, back to sights. The transitions were never jerky; it was just drifting from one world to another, both mine.
I liked to travel in the month of July. It was the way soft pitter-patter of rains in Kerala gave way to lusty whistles of winds in Tamil Nadu.
The Ghats start appearing once we cross Thrissur; and the rocky hills would mostly be topped with white clouds, like whipped cream. The wind would get stronger and less humid; and hours later we would enter the deep green forests of Walayar- a small stretch that's ruggedly beautiful. The wild buzzing of insects and chirping of birds echoing in spirals from the woody hollow sounded like darkness, even in daytime.
Then comes a stark change in geography- the lush greenery melting into thorny, sparse patches of shrubbery and parched fields studded with hay huts and gleaming white-washed houses. The land would look different in a matter of minutes. Enter Tamil Nadu.
The first glimpse of Coimbatore is a cluster of factories. And then comes the city. Silver city service buses waiting at the crossing, bustling roads, stacked buildings and the bakery at an elevated building that tells us the Station is approaching.
A lump of happiness would swell in my chest each time the train pulled into the station. I was at Coimbatore, my mamma’s hometown, my birthplace. The cool winds would welcome us, with a gentle embrace. The feeling of belonging would overwhelm me. Through the platform, through the steep fleet of steps, we would reach the entrance and there was the city waiting- big, colourful and busy.
The auto ride home was always a joyride. The yellow bug speeding through the winding roads, lined with hundreds of shops was like frames of the city on fast forward. Cloth stores with mannequins smiling behind glass windows draped in vibrant silk sarees, dusty motor spare parts shops in colonial buildings,‘pure ghee' sweet shops where people thronged like bees, roadside sellers selling everything from brightly coloured plastic toys to shiny steel vessels to peanuts- the sights were like kitsch in motion.
Finally, we would reach the road to our house in Saibaba Colony, a quaint residential area, lined with gulmohar, bougainvillea and marigold trees. My Grandpa would be standing at the gate, a slight smile curled up at the corners of his lips, leaning on his walking stick, waiting for us.
He was a person who never expressed love. Maybe he did not know how to. But my Grandma did know how to. She is so full of love all the time. All of just 5 feet (I was taller than her by the time I was in the 6th standard), she greeted us with the warmest of hugs.
She would hurry us to freshen up and have food; the appetizing smell of her mutton and drumstick curry (the drumsticks grew in our backyard) was enough to make me hungry. Later, after a fulfilling lunch, I would dart off to the bedroom at the front, which was bright and airy as it had windows all round, with my books. I need to read to sleep. And read till I slept, my heart brimming with a special feeling- something between happiness and comfort.
My mamma and grandma, by then, will be fully immersed in an animated conversation. Evenings were the time to go out. Just a walk to the adjacent road took us to one of the most bustling streets I’ve ever seen- a place that sold almost everything. The ladies fancy store always caught my imagination- I used to love hanging around there, looking at all the stuff stacked in shelves extending to the ceiling. From there to the department store, and then to ‘Doughnuts’- a small bakery that smelt of vanilla cake. My favourite was the Japanese nut cake- the sweetest part of my memory.
Trips were different when my cousins were around- my mamma’s brother’s children. We would play through the day, watch movies, go out and have fun. We fought like cats and dogs but would make up the very next second. Days were more exciting then, there was innocence and love.
But as years passed by, I guess we grew up to become just cousins.
I loved going for walks in our lane. It was that freedom I loved the most.... skipping through the road, trying to figure out which flower grew in whose garden, I fluttered around like i had wings- life was good and light.
We had guests coming in all the time. Mamma’s relatives, friends, neighbours- I liked people coming over, but never really to go house visiting, except a few. Some were loving and genuine; whereas some annoying. I generally escaped from them.
Shopping was like a grand, well-planned event. Saree shopping for my mom was something I enjoyed a lot. Endless stacks of sarees in all hues of all colours lined with gold and silver mesmerized my eyes and heart.
One thing that caught my interest everytime was women selling flowers by the road. The way they tied flowers dexterously - jasmine, roses and marigold- into beautiful and fragrant garlands was an intriguing sight, which i felt was straight out of an R.K Narayan book.
Another memory- a fragrant memory- is the enticing smell of freshly ground coffee at the ‘Narasu’s Coffee Powder Depot’ located the corner of our lane. The whole area would be filled with the rich smell of coffee beans being roasted and powdered. A memory i still can smell if i close my eyes...
Evenings are like festivals in the city. Road sides lit up with petromaxes in hawker stalls, sellers calling out loudly, ladies with long braids and garlands adorning their head buying groceries and bargaining with vegetable vendors, children eating from corn cobs, buzzing vehicles- frames that will never fade from my mind.
Days would pass, and I would be enjoying a life so different from that of Ernakulam, which i think is subtler and a tad arrogant in nature.
Slowly, the day of the return journey would get closer; and mamma would be busy buying stuff “you don’t get there”. Grandma would be packing pickles and chutney powders into bottles, trying to fill in more things than the bag can carry.
The return day would be a hurried one. Grandpa strongly believed in the ‘on time’ theory, and to keep up with that we had to leave not just early, but very early. We would land up at the station with double the luggage we brought, and mamma would find a porter to help us put everything in the train.
As the train would begin to move, and as the last platform of the station would disappear, everything would go on a rewind. The wait to reach Ernakulam would begin, the wait to reach home. And the hope that I’ll be back soon, throbbing in my heart.
As I grew bigger, the frequency of my trips to Coimbatore reduced- probably just one or two a year. Exams, classes, other things…everything ate into my time to visit my mamma’s house.
Years flew, one after another, like birds.
I could never go there after my marriage in 2005. Until I got a call from my Dad on the 3rd of July 2007 to rush to Coimbatore. My Grandpa had succumbed to a severe cardiac arrest.
That time I travelled to Coimbatore by car, with my husband, through the night, from Bangalore. Weighed down by sorrow, darkness, I think is the best word that would describe that journey.
As we drove into that road early morning, the sun just rising, I looked at the wicket gate of our house…just incase he stood there, like he always did.
Dried leaves on the road crackled under the tyres like a whimper.
The trees were unusually full of flowers that day.
My mamma brought Grandma to our house after my Grandpa's death. But i knew she always missed that house. Mamma took her there once in a while and stayed for a month or so, for her happiness.
But by then, the house had become a ‘property’ to be divided and sold.
It had become a commodity.
This March, when I came home, the desire to visit my mamma’s house kept growing stronger in my mind. And I did go, twice. I took my Son, though he wouldn’t remember when he grows up, to that house- his Grandma’s house. Life had taken a full circle.
I stayed there, went on walks in the evening, went to the bustling road behind our house, and took in every sight into my heart. I was reliving my childhood days at my mamma’s house.
I savoured every minute of my stay.
The day we left, I did not turn back and look. I did not want to cry.
Last month the house was sold for an ‘amicable’ price.
For me, 30 years of memories were exchanged for currency notes.
I’ll never go there again.
For my mamma’s house is now no longer my mamma’s.
