6. The House Which Was All My Own. 21May 2014

The house in Pune was where I really became aware of something dwelling inside me. It was a place where I became aware of a spirit inside me who was so familiar; more familiar and intimate than the persons around me. Certain sights and memories have still remained with me. From what I remember, it was a house facing the west, because I remember standing in the balcony on an evening, watching the golden light fallen on a huge cloud. The cloud had taken on a marvelous shape in the sky and it remained still, absolutely without shifting its shape, for quite some time, as if it was a marble rock sculpted in the sky into a shape of an ancient Indian sage lying on his back. The golden tinge playing into his tufted hair, tied into a knot above his head, and the waves of the golden light flowing down his chin into the long strands of the beard falling upon his chest, his loin-cloth, his legs and feet, everything was marked like an ethereal sculpture carved in the cloud. It was a massive shape, spreading over some eight feet in length as I recall it still very vividly. I think, I was not yet five years of age then, but I was mesmerized by the sight.

Standing in the balcony was a favorite pastime of mine and most of my experiences and moments of awareness were related with that balcony. I was not allowed to climb down the staircase and step into the world flowing incessantly out there. So anything that dropped down out of my hand went straight down the abyss as it were, lost for ever!

The scent of the morning had a peculiar feel there and remained with me, sunk deep in memory. It visits me at unexpected moments and demands a total surrender. My whole being unwinds like a rope that was twisted and some presence accepts me in an infinite embrace of love.

Another peculiar memory is associated with that balcony. My parents would visit us on week-ends and go back late in the evening. The late evening twilight was associated with the sound of the horse-cart, bringing them to the staircase, and then on another evening, taking them back to the railway-station of which I had no awareness at that time. Standing in the growing dusk, anticipating their arrival and on the day of their departure, after they had hugged me and disappeared down the dark staircase, the memory of running to the balcony to catch sight of the horse-cart rumbling into the dark—these have become archetypal motifs of waiting and letting go.

My father was a teacher of English and Sanskrit and mother taught English and French. It was a complementary blend of the east and the west. But later in my life I learnt English and Sanskrit and because of a very busy life my mother led, I had no opportunity to learn French from her. I remember, once my father had brought some examination papers of the Sanskrit language, and for the sake of amusement, he was asking me to guess the meanings of some Sanskrit words, many of which were already a part of my vocabulary. Then he put forth a word which I did not know then. It was a Sanskrit word: ‘Nabha’. I remember, I looked at the sky and spoke, as if I had always known the word. I said, ‘sky’. The answer was correct, and it did not take me so much as a guess; it was as if I knew it. My father was surprised. Fortunately, no such weird surprises were in store for me later.

  

5. The House Which Was All My Own. 20 May 2014

This house too had a wooden staircase, far more sturdy and stable, unlike the wooden staircase of the house in Bandra. The staircase of the house in Bandra had a greater privacy though, as it opened on the rear side of the house, out of the sight of the passers-by. The staircase of this house in Pune opened right in the face of the busy road. You stepped right on the pavement as you took the last step down. My grandmother Radha often told me how she saw an apparition of a Moslem woman clad in a black burka come up the staircase and walk stealthily in the direction of my grandfather who was thoroughly engrossed in reading the newspaper. According to my grandmother, she and that apparition could see each other. They were even scared of each other. But all the while my grandfather was totally unaware of what was going on. That woman was trying to tell my granny that she meant no harm and that she had come to meet some Hamida bano. It was only when my granny shouted at the top of her voice in a fright that my grandfather awoke from his trance and looked around. He gesticulated as if to scare away the ghost whom he did not see. The woman walked back to the staircase without turning her back upon my granny. According to granny, the woman disappeared-- or that was what my granny felt-- as she reached the top of the staircase. Thank god, my granny told this story to me long after we had left the house for good. This incident had taken place years before I was born. It could be that the woman was real and she had mistaken the house for the one she wanted to visit. But my granny was of a firm belief that was not the case because my grandfather did not see any woman.

After my grandfather’s death my granny had to make a choice. Since she would be the only person now staying in the house, she could either give up the residence of the house completely and stay with one of her children, or continue to stay there by herself. Somehow, her daughter-in–law, the wife of her eldest son who was childless, agreed to stay with her and my granny continued to stay in Pune. My parents left me and my younger brother in the care of the two of them and went back to Bandra. Now we were the four of us left to occupy the house--my granny, my aunt, me and my two years old brother.

That is how the house came to belong to me and I belonged to the house.  

The House that belonged to Me Alone All of Us 4.

18 May 2014     All of Us       4.

4.

The House That Belonged to Me Alone

That was the home where I stayed for barely three years, but it claimed me like nothing else could in my life. It is strange to develop relationships with houses and realize later that those relationships have sustained you like real human beings. This was the house that belonged to my mother’s father. It was in Pune, the place where I was born. This house was somewhat like a beloved over whom I would not allow anybody to stake a claim. I was very possessive about it. It was as though I had counted every brick of every wall of that house and was responsible for every wear and tear in it. If the house in Bandra taught me that one could love something that one did not own, and one could love that way with a continually expanding feeling of sharing without the grasping hold of the ego, the house in Pune gave me the experience of losing something which one had just begun to love when one did not even know what it is to love.

My mother’s father Krishnarao Jaywant had spent the major part of his life there in that house in Pune with his wife Radha and his three sons and two daughters. I was the last of his clan with whom he had developed a tie of affection, because he died after I was four years old. He had thirteen grandchildren in all, but I was the only grandchild who was born in Pune and the first and the only grandchild who came to that house straight from the hospital where I was born. Although I did not know all these things then, since this fact did not have the least bit of significance, I perhaps knew it unconsciously. I think I came to that house with a certain inborn sense of belonging. I have a feeling that I was connected to him and if I had dillydallied in coming, we would not have met. I even feel that I knew the hour of my coming although I know well it is just a feeling.

My mother was the youngest child of Krishnarao Jaywant. She was, as I knew her, fiercely independent, both emotionally and intellectually. But I always wished she had a little more of the gentleness of her parents. That was the decadence of his life when Krishnarao Jaywant saw my birth, or rather felt my birth, because he lost his eye-sight just before I was brought home from the hospital. So, he could not see me. Those must have been days of a deep trauma for all, and perhaps the reason why my mother was not able to love me in a normal way.

But I have very loving memories of my exceptionally brilliant grandfather. He had belonged to the inner circle of the Theosophical Society’s Lodge in Pune and even after he had lost his eye-sight, the members of the Lodge met regularly in our house in Pune.

He taught me to sing some devotional songs composed by saint Meera, one of which I was made to sing often for his amusement. Its opening line was something which meant, ‘O parrot, I adore you because of your quick insight and wisdom. You are a very bright bird, indeed!’ ("Popat panchhi chatur sujan")

I remember his bright smiling face as I held the other end of the walking-stick he held in his hand and led him from one room to another, feeling foolishly and vainly proud as I did that, the stupid thing that I was and have always been since then.

All of Us 17 May 2014

There was hardly any dialogue at a visible level between my grandmother Ahilya and my grandfather Vasudeo. Whatever exchange I noted between them was through someone or the other who happened to be around and the family being very large, they could carry on in this way without any hindrance. Most of the time my grandfather’s needs, which were kind of bare necessities like an occasional cup of tea,or some such odd things, were taken care of without even a demand. I wonder if being surrounded by so many was really an advantage or a barrier! This continued right through till her dying days when she had to be confined to bed for nearly a month. I remember him on that day, and among most of the faded memories the image of him sitting aloof, maintaining a stoic silence all through that day, still lingers in my mind as I think of that day.

I came to know later from one of my elder cousins that my grandfather had fallen in love with Ahilya when he was living under the shelter of his paternal uncle back in the ancestral village called Saral in Konkan, the coastal region of Western India. He had lost his parents very early in childhood. His uncle was opposed to the marriage. Living a loveless and aimless life there in the village was no good for him. He gave up his share in whatever agricultural landed property they had in the village and came to Bombay with Ahilya. I was rather amused when I considered this romantic aspect of their life which was little known and of little concern to us, the grandchildren.

In those days of the British rule in India when he landed in Bandra to seek new avenues of life, one could get a good job with education up to matriculation. As children we were not supposed to show undue curiosity about the financial status of the elders of the family. So all I knew was that he held a responsible position in a shipping company and was considered one of the well-to-do persons in Bandra in those days.

The silent relationship between the two of them was imbibed by the house thoroughly. The house bustled with the constant coming and going of people, but unconsciously, the presence and the silent relationship between these two, characterized the life of that house while they were alive.

In my memory of the house, I remember mostly the afternoon warmth of the winter, the smoldering heat of summer and the sounds of the winds, the rustle of the leaves and the sudden sweeping rainfall after the gathering of dark grey clouds in the rainy seasons, and in all the seasons of the year, the house was engulfed by a certain calm and peace that was reflected in the sounds of the steady footfall on the wooden staircase at all times.

It was a beautiful house in the memory of all who came to it carrying different auras and vibes at different periods of our lives and without knowing what the house did to us, we came to belong to it, to be owned by it. Like a gust of wind flowing vibrantly through a wood of bamboo trees, the house sent its sounds and silence into our minds even as life forced us to move away from it in space and time.  

All of Us 16 May 2014

The house at 39, Turner Road had taken on the personality and the character of our grandfather. This, I realize today as I try to define those characteristics for the sake of my clarity and understanding. He was the spirit of that house and the house lived in him. There were certain silent and stoic attributes to both which could hardly be defined. I don’t remember my grandfather smile or laugh with abandon. The house too bore an appearance of impenetrable quietude. Both he and the house appeared to shelter an atmosphere of days and a life not known to all and both seemed to be living under the shade of some ancient tree that spread its shade indifferently over all without showing any particular preference. It was a two-storeyed house with a front and a back staircase, both wooden and both a bit trodden-down as far as our memory can visualize. The steps had become shaky and with some practice of sensitive listening you could make out the character, personality and the state of the mind of the person who was coming up. I wonder how many footsteps, of how many different persons had walked on the surface of the mind of my grandfather. On the whole, now as I look back, he seemed to be always on guard against intrusion and was defensive of whatever secrets there were, which he would not like to share with anyone. Maintaining and sustaining links among the members of the family was a job he had left to the care of our grandmother. She did it in her own peculiarly disinterested manner. I have never seen her napping or even dozing off for a few minutes during the day. Her acts of indulgence were reserved mostly for her sons and daughters but hardly ever for the whole new tribe of her grandchildren whom she treated with a certain aloof kindness. I always had a grudge that I was deprived of my share of affection from her. But when we, the cousins, tallied notes with one another in our grown-up days, I found that almost everyone harbored the same feeling.