bls31
November 5th, 2013, 01:49 PM
Years of Innocence
There was always a herd of buffaloes in the pond with just the nostrils and eyes showing above the surface. Some times the children would also gleefully jump stark naked and join the buffaloes in an effort to beat the heat
.
The well was also a popular venue for many budding romances and love affairs as also a meeting place and exchange of gossip for the village bellies, young brides and unmarried girls.
My earliest memories go back to the thirties, then five or six years of age, and to my mother’s village.
Memories of coming to the village of things, smells and sounds and that of the mud house of my maternal grand-parents
Also of those cold winter nights as I lay snuggled next to my mother under the rough home-spun cloth quilt heavy with cotton filling. I remember being mesmerized by steadily gazing at the pale yellow light emanating from Diva the sole source of light in the dark room, the flame some times flickering due the current in the air when some one opened the door and at others burning steady. I do wonder now as to what was going on in my mind while my mother, aunts and grandmother continued talking late in the night.
Deeply embedded in the memory are the summer nights; the Grandmother a JK
Rowling of her day, with her collection of fairy tales telling stories to the cousins
and me lying next to her all ears in rapt attention, the ink black sky as the back drop with myriad stars, some shining bright others twinkling bringing the fairies, demons, Rajas and Ranis the ordinary folks in the stories like the Dhobi(washerman) and the Tali (oilman) the animals like the fox and jackal all alive in my child’s mind with the imagination running riot.
The same stories requested and repeated night after night becoming more and more vivid and fascinating as our imagination grew. Slowly her voice would become faint, my regular response and acknowledgement to her narration, an essential part of story telling and listening, becoming fainter and fainter as I trailed back in to sleep and into the child’s dream world with the stories becoming real.
My Mama’s (maternal uncle) flock of pigeons was his passionate indulgence. He
had built a small mud abode for the birds on the terrace, reached by a wooden ladder, and had also erected a loft for the pigeons to perch upon. I would join him morning and evening to see him launch the birds one by one to fly in sheer ecstasy, do aerobatics in the sky and return when he called them back. The birds understood his language and he theirs.
The morning trips to the field with the breakfast consisting of salted ‘
Roties,’ ‘Gur,’white-butter and buttermilk for the uncle working in the field, tied neatly in a clean piece of home spun cloth, the aunt carrying it on her head, the pitcher of butter milk in one hand with the other holding my puny hand, balancing gracefully while walking on those narrow dividers of the fields. He on seeing us approaching would stop whatever activity was on - tilling, irrigating or weeding at that time and approach us with half a smile. We would sit on the side of the well under the shade of the tree or in the Sun depending the season. I would also get a share, a second breakfast of the day and it
tasted so different that still lingers in the mouth.
Being too young possibly I was not aware of the joy the two young souls were
sharing the few private moments, privacy in the village being at a premium. BLS31
There was always a herd of buffaloes in the pond with just the nostrils and eyes showing above the surface. Some times the children would also gleefully jump stark naked and join the buffaloes in an effort to beat the heat
.
The well was also a popular venue for many budding romances and love affairs as also a meeting place and exchange of gossip for the village bellies, young brides and unmarried girls.
My earliest memories go back to the thirties, then five or six years of age, and to my mother’s village.
Memories of coming to the village of things, smells and sounds and that of the mud house of my maternal grand-parents
Also of those cold winter nights as I lay snuggled next to my mother under the rough home-spun cloth quilt heavy with cotton filling. I remember being mesmerized by steadily gazing at the pale yellow light emanating from Diva the sole source of light in the dark room, the flame some times flickering due the current in the air when some one opened the door and at others burning steady. I do wonder now as to what was going on in my mind while my mother, aunts and grandmother continued talking late in the night.
Deeply embedded in the memory are the summer nights; the Grandmother a JK
Rowling of her day, with her collection of fairy tales telling stories to the cousins
and me lying next to her all ears in rapt attention, the ink black sky as the back drop with myriad stars, some shining bright others twinkling bringing the fairies, demons, Rajas and Ranis the ordinary folks in the stories like the Dhobi(washerman) and the Tali (oilman) the animals like the fox and jackal all alive in my child’s mind with the imagination running riot.
The same stories requested and repeated night after night becoming more and more vivid and fascinating as our imagination grew. Slowly her voice would become faint, my regular response and acknowledgement to her narration, an essential part of story telling and listening, becoming fainter and fainter as I trailed back in to sleep and into the child’s dream world with the stories becoming real.
My Mama’s (maternal uncle) flock of pigeons was his passionate indulgence. He
had built a small mud abode for the birds on the terrace, reached by a wooden ladder, and had also erected a loft for the pigeons to perch upon. I would join him morning and evening to see him launch the birds one by one to fly in sheer ecstasy, do aerobatics in the sky and return when he called them back. The birds understood his language and he theirs.
The morning trips to the field with the breakfast consisting of salted ‘
Roties,’ ‘Gur,’white-butter and buttermilk for the uncle working in the field, tied neatly in a clean piece of home spun cloth, the aunt carrying it on her head, the pitcher of butter milk in one hand with the other holding my puny hand, balancing gracefully while walking on those narrow dividers of the fields. He on seeing us approaching would stop whatever activity was on - tilling, irrigating or weeding at that time and approach us with half a smile. We would sit on the side of the well under the shade of the tree or in the Sun depending the season. I would also get a share, a second breakfast of the day and it
tasted so different that still lingers in the mouth.
Being too young possibly I was not aware of the joy the two young souls were
sharing the few private moments, privacy in the village being at a premium. BLS31