wallacepolsom
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Discoholic šŖ©
I'd rather be in outer space šø
cherry valley forever
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Jules of Nature
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
oozey mess
ā£ Chile in a Photography ā£
RMH
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Kaledo Art
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Peter Solarz
Claire Keane
@theartofmadeline
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
NASA
PR's Tumblrdome
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@dnudnu1
The house that built me - 34
And then the scene changes. the child is in the verandah again, having come down from the first floor, climbing down the magic stairs which appeared from even behind a wall, even when they had been demolished several years agoā¦they were resurrected and the wall dissolved into thin air for the child to be able to relive his childhood. And now he sits in the verandah once more with the elderlyā¦
The house that built me - 33
The child smiles, and then laughsā¦a full throated laugh it is, he has seen through the charadeā¦he KNOWS that it is a game, temporary, impermanent, it will not last. The wall WILL break down, eventuallyā¦everything has a lifespan. The child in me has realised what the adult in me has forgottenā¦or never known. No walls, no boundaries, no divisions are permanent. The child can know, innately, throughā¦
The house that built me - 32
But the child persists, he will not leave his perch in front of the wall, the unyielding, unforgiving structure made of brick and mortar and ābad feelingsāā¦he can feel them, he does not know what it is but in his heart, in his soul, in his bones he can feel something is wrong. And yet he stands his ground, looking at the wall as if it will give way anytime and let him climb the now-demolishedā¦
The house the built me and the legend of Enūma EliŔ - 31
I turn away from the small room where Nanaji spent most of his life and walk towards the small, ill-lit passage which leads out, and where opens the steep and narrow stairwell leading to the first floor of the house. Just outside the passage, on the right side, is the door leading to the drawing room with its own treasure of curiosities for young children. But first, I must try to reach the firstā¦
The house that built me - 30
From the hospital room, my mind floats back to the iron gate where I find myself standing once more, living my childhood again, looking at myself running around the house, into the room, the kitchen, the dining room, and that small room where Nanaji livesā¦ The walls of the house have suddenly become diaphanous, and I can see through them, see the hustle bustle happening inside, while I stillā¦
The house that built me - 29
I sit with Nanaji in a hospital room, more of a hospice actually, which opens out on to a spacious verandah occupied by other family members who whisper amongst themselves and occasionally look at the two of us talking quietly. My mother is there, as is my maternal aunt, and my maternal uncles, all three of them, some of them with their spouses as well. Nani is there too, looking nonchalant, asā¦
The house that built me - 28
I am still standing outside the iron gate, looking at my life flash before my eyes, reliving my past again. I can see the young boy with soft, brushed hair, wearing a collared t-shirt, shorts, and rubber slippers sit by the side of the old man with white hair, and look up at him with curiosity, eager to talk to him, to initiate a conversation. āNanajiā, I start, ādoes God exist?ā There, I haveā¦
The house that built me - 27
I run, and skip, and jump and waltz as I enter the old house bustling with activity. Servants walk around finishing their chores, women are seated in a corner of the courtyard, talking, chopping vegetables, making pickles, peeling mangoes for chutney, gossipingā¦they sit around the lady of the houseā¦the one with the loud voice, and louder laughterā¦ āAnshuā, she exclaims as she spies me skip intoā¦
The house that built me - 25
The wind is in my hair, the smell of burning coal assaults my nostrilsā¦itās a happy smell, a harbinger of good times, and travel to far off towns. Along with the smell comes the sound, the cantankerous cacophony, sweet melody to my ears, of a steam engine groaning and chugging as it pulls the train, onwards and onwards, moving forward inexorably like life itself. We are traveling to Gorakhpur, toā¦
The house that builtĀ meā24
I sit at the laptop, my fingers frozen in airā¦unable to typeā¦unable to thinkā¦ What has happened? Is the story of the houses which built me over? Far from it. Have the creative juices, which propelled the words out of my heart and on to the laptop, stopped flowing? Why is it difficult to find words now? To find the flow, the rhythm? It is a hiatus, a break in continuity, a limbo in which I findā¦
The house that built meā23
But we will not climb the guava tree today, nor the dark and gnarled mango tree, which stands quietly on one side of the lawn, surveying the gradual and inevitable decadence of the house that built me. Decadence is a natural law; it is inevitable. What is created will be destroyed one day; what is born must die; what is built must be unbuiltā¦man or material universe, everything follows thisā¦
The house that built me - 22
I wake up, as if from a sleep, from a dream within a dreamā¦for wasnāt I dreaming of the house and then of my tour inside it to begin with? Hadnāt the past and the present dissolved in my dream to present a fantastic phantasmagoria of characters and events, expressing longing and sadness, and melancholyā¦hadnāt the past itself risen from the dead in my dreams and taken on a life of its own andā¦
The house that built me - 21
Now I have started to descend from the timanjil, slowly, cautiously, trying not to stir the other memories which lie along the way, between the layers of dustā¦yes, we must not wake them up for they will then demand to be heardā¦no, no, no we can not go on like this foreverā¦stories, and stories, and storiesā¦ Some stories must not be rakedā¦they must lie quietly amongst the darkness and the dust andā¦
The house that built me - 20
But we can not stay at the first floor terrace all the time, even though we seem to be enjoying ourselves playing cricket, and badminton, and scratch-your-name-on-the-moss-covered-wall gameā¦even though the terrace offers us a great view of the brick-paved veranda below with all its bustle, men, women, children, and animalsā¦even though many memories still lie silently inside the locked rooms weā¦
The house that built me - 19
I stand in the house all alone, surrounded by my memories and by the ghosts of days past, which whisper to me with hoarse voices from behind the cobwebs and from the dark corners of the now silent house. They speak to me of an old man and an old woman who no longer live here except in spirit, and of their children and their grandchildren who also no longer live here, except as shadows of theā¦
The house that built me - 18
When Babuji passed away, a cord was brokenāa tether that kept things together, which tied us to each other and to the house. The anchor that had stabilized the ships of our individual lives, the rudder that had given them direction, and the sail that had buoyed us out of our dark moments was gone. His passing away was a turning point for all of us, but most of all for Amma, his companion for moreā¦
The house that built me-17
The visions have all faded one by one, leaving me standing quietly in the brick veranda of the old house, immersed in memories, dreaming of days past, still listening to voices from an age that is long goneā¦the ghosts of the past float past me, circling, whisperingā¦and what do they whisper? The figureā¦the smellā¦mortarā¦cowā¦tubewellā¦Shivramā¦Babaā¦I am glitchingā¦my thoughts erratic, confused,ā¦