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.
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