Nostalgia : My home
I left my native home and village in
1963. I was 17.
It was my
parents’ home.
A middle-class-farmer’s house, in Southern Kerala.
Never again I
stayed there for more than a month at a stretch.
Yet the image of this home
with leaky tile roof, wooden creaky
attic,
a cattle shed and hay stacks,
remained as that
of my home.
The place that I grew up and had siblings,
grandparents and parents
and
played with early friends around the yards,
With all the
uncomfortably hot and dark interiors,
rice and
grains in all nooks, the dust, high ceilings,
the cattle ‘moos’ and goaty 'bahs'
the sweaty
nights of summer,
the grandma-instilled
fear
to open windows at night
and love of darkness.
All etched a
foggy fond memory to call it my home
until the
last of my parents , my father, died in 2008.
Until then I
used to return to my home regularly;
I
do go there often now, but I do not ‘return’ home.
The image of
my home. It evaporated slowly.
..............................................................
My children
grew up in the residence I built,
Where I stay
now, in Mysore
They come
once a while for a few days; new nomads.
Yet I know, this is their home.
And me, am I homeless?
