Memories on the vine

Although I have exams next week, yesterday I watched two movies. One directed by Aparna Sen and the other by Shonali Bose- Mr & Mrs Iyer and Amu. Both have accounts pertaining to riots. After news came about the Paris Attacks yesterday, it dawned upon me that my life has been so sheltered, away from the grimness the previous decades had. Maybe because I am not directly affected or involved in any of these gruesome events. But that also made me question if my generation or me, are we rebels without a cause?

Then today, I was fiddling with my new phone, trying to understand its workings when I accidentally set up some theme which has a serene scenic background as my wallpaper and a bright blue cup with a rusty silver spoon laid on a dark blue table cloth on a mahogany table as my screensaver. Because I love intricate and antique things I like having them on my phone or computer as wallpapers. And I have taken quite a fancy to this bright blue cup. Somehow it makes me feel that the sweet aroma of ginger tea will awake me from my senses and that silver spoon reminds me of the ones my grandmother had in her kitchen. My granny's kitchen always smelt of freshly ground spices. She had a huge stone mortar and pestle which always held a very prominent position on a pedestal in a corner of the kitchen. The three doors that led to the living room, the storage room and the corridor outside through the kitchen were like a maze to my young eyes. Me and my cousins would frequently run with top speed through these rooms that seemed never ending back then. I remember colliding with my aunts carrying food and water ennumber of times.The curtains that fluttered with the wind and us kids running through them usually bursting with laughter seem like a bygone era now. This memory is frozen. Now my granny no longer lives at this house she built with my grandpa. They grew an orchard and garden full of lemon, pomegranate, guava and almond trees. The front steps and the coarse ground lined up with magnolia and chinese roses in pink and white made for a pretty sight. The Madhumalti known as Rangoon Creeper adorned the blue gate of the house and went all the way up till the terrace. One of my favourite things in childhood during summer holidays was sitting under the lemon tree and reading books, while looking up occasionally at the pink Madhumalti flowers. I have always treasured this image in my mind. So many of my childhood pictures are clicked around the lemon tree and the madhumalti! My grandpa always sat on a chair in the gallery reading newspapers and books. He was visible right from the bend of the corner of houses when I would scream his name at the top of my lungs from the rickshaw. And he would stand up, laughing heartily, arms flung wide open for me to hug him. I miss this memory. I wish he had lived a little longer.

While watching, 'Listen Amaya' and hearing a character talk of writing a book on memories, my own mind travelled through all those summer vacations spent at grandma's home. There was a different ring to all those events from that time. Twenty years of memories! Those that I can remember vividly that is. Somehow I see shadows moving across the dial of my memories, some that seem so real that I see  myself standing there and witnessing those memories again. Not reliving, but witnessing them like a third person. Its funny how our brain and our mind separates all these moments and memories and make us remember every small detail that we might have missed on the course of its happening. What can I say! Am I not glad to relive my grandma's kitchen memories so brightly now than while making them, years ago! I once wrote an article for a competition for kids that wanted us to write on a place that makes us happy. I wrote about my grandma's home. The past as I recollected in my short child years and the future that I hoped would be. When I recited that article to all the ladies in the kitchen that included my grandma, aunts, my mother- I beamed with pride and so did my granny. The paper smelt of grounded spices. I had to rewrite that article on a fresh paper. Perhaps, I need to go back over that Madhumalti vine and smell the old memories once again.