What Growing Up Also Meant

My windows at home had blue stained glass. Amma said the architect who built it 30 years ago had suggested it because it was in fashion then. I loved them too. Beyond fashion, it also seeped the light from the road, bluish white, like a blue night's sky filled with moonlight - yes, I loved them too, in my room.

Home was small, small boxy rooms. But I had loved growing up there. I had loved my room, facing the small lane in front of the house, with greenest of green trees near my window, and from where I could hear rain falling gently singing melodies on the steps leading to the upper floor.

Home smelt of prawn fry, now when I smell back. It also smelt of amma's sarees, neatly folded in a huge trunk, with sachets of sandalwood powder bought from Kerala's art emporiums. It also smelt of rain. That earthy smell when the first drops hit the ground. I had loved it back then, and yearn for it now.

Home was Achan's folded arm chair, still intact. Amma's wooden wardrobe with secret cabinets. It was sweetness of red juicy guavas from the only tree in the backyard. It was Ammini aunty's chicken curry, and Lissy chechi's beef stew for Christmas.

Those were lovely days.

When playing with Mary chechi meant learning how to make ulli papaddom. Walking to the dance class lazily, to be pampered by Shyamala aunty and Surendran uncle, and their parents. Being naughty and forgetting dance steps, and singing all the wrong notes in Salim sir's music class. Walking back in anticipation, craving for Amma's chicken curry on Sundays, with potatoes soaked in the chickeny gravy, to be had with soft Modern bread, and washed down with hot milky tea.

All my teeth was plucked by Thekele Aunty. She had a weird Kozhikode accent. Later, she also fought with Amma and Achan about something trivial, and then we had to build a huge wall separating their house from ours. It was also Thaatha and her beautiful daughters, who put mailanchi for me in beautiful designs.

Home was all that.

Home.