the fragrances that used to hit me when i would walk from the bus stop to her house ....were sooo very unique ... it used to be a long walk to the estate ...and on the way there was a bunglow belonging to an Ex Officer from the Navy ... and i would always wonder how remote that place was for someone so used to town postings and the sea ...
my aunt's house was a long way away from the sea ...there were ponds there ... and one on the premises itself ... i keep asking my aunt about the trees in her compound ... i knew them sooooo very well ....they were huge and the ground littered with fruits ....two of the trees had the fruit which bore the nutmeg as a seed ...
there were a large number of cashew nut trees and we cousins would go pick up the casuarina fruit and get it back to the house and separate the nut from the casuarina apple and make a small bonfire and roast the nuts and then get our hands all dirtied by breaking the nuts and then sit around and eat it ...
being chased by a python once and then there was my favourite tree of all ... the Ilimbika tree near the toilet ... recently when i was talking to my aunt ... she said that uncle had bought that tree on one of his trips to north Kerala and he has cared for it quite a bit till it started bearing fruit .... my cousins unfortunately did not care much for that tree and the youngest boy of the house cut it down a few years ago ... i felt so bad to hear about that tree getting cut down ...
it was one of my Favourite trees ...
to the backside of the bathroom on the outside of the house ...were the clove trees and the fragrance in that part of the property was even more Awsum
to the left side of the back entrance was the breadfruit tree .... a huge one at that and it always bore a lot of fruit ... then there was a big cow shed near it and the spare rooms there got used in the later years when they uprooted the casuarina trees all around and planted rubber ... then there used to be a machine of some sort ... and a room to dry the rubber sheets ...a little away from the bread fruit tree was the big cement tank ...more like a man made pond and there two nutmeg trees right next to that water body ...
my aunt keeps lamenting that since there are no workers to pick the fruit ... it keeps falling into the pond and rotting in the water ... earlier they would make pickles with the outer covering of the nutmeg fruit ...
Mace looks sooo Brilliantly beautifull when one breaks open a nutmeg fruit ...it looks shiny and quite like plastic and i would find everything in their house sooo exquisite and fascinating ...
then there was the terrace farming ...
their house was in a bit of a valley ...kind of ... from the main door to the road in front of the house there was a steep climb ..and to the left side of the driveway ...was an area where my uncle had introduced step farming ...
there was purple yam and other horticultural crops planted and i loved the root vegetables which were a staple part of the diet ...
to the back of the house were extensive farms and to a little distance to the left of the house were the banana plantations ...
exploring the property was one of my fav things to do ... and walking in the water running through the drains dividing the paddy lands ...
so much to see, know and explore ...there was no TV in their house and we never were in the house enough to ever get bored ...
if it rained we still would be out in the fields ... in the evenings we would sit around and play board games and talk and we always wound up early ...as everyone woke up before the sun as the cows were always milked very early before sunrise ...
my aunt would start cooking very early as there were soooo many farm hands to feed and colossal amounts of food got cooked everyday ...as by a half past noon all the farm hands would troop into the house after a wash to have their lunch ... after they left ... my cousins and i would eat lunch and either go out again or sit around and play games or talk ..sometimes we would argue and time always passed sooo quickly when we were at Kotathala ...
To the north of the main road was the Bhoothataan mala aka the ghost mountain ...sometimes my aunt would drag the lot of us to the temple there and make us all pray ... and she would offer special puja in all our names ... that was fun too ...the rocks on that Ghost mountain were jet black and warm to touch and i would run around to my heart's content ...
years later when i was having major stomach pain when working full time in the college next to my house ...my aunt cut up jackfruit and dried it and then had it ground and sent the powder to me ...
it helped me with the stomach pain ...and i felt so gratefull for her having taken the effort to go out of her way for me ...
my dad and all of us kept calling her to come to Pune and she never wanted to even visit any place ... she is sooo tied to her land and house ...she has been looking after it for soo long all by herself ... during 6th grade exam time ...there was news that her husband was backstabbed by the greedy conniving people in that locality and so he just walked out of the house and that place and no one ever heard of him ever again ...
no one knows what happened to him as he disappeared into thin air ... the people in that locality are really ungratefull and mean ... he did so much for the progress of that remote region ... he was a contractor and used a lot of his own money to build access roads and ensure connectivity ...
that uncle's brother was shot down by the police for being a communist in the early 80s and i remember seeing this aunt and her entire family's photograph in a Malayalam weekly ... sitting in an Air Force station in a remote part of Pune... i thought that were quite well known ... in a tragic way though ... i never ever saw that uncle's brother ...
that uncle always bought really brilliant dress materials for his kids ... and i loved all the clothes that my cousin Molly owned ... i would borrow her clothes when i went over as they were long skirts with very short tops ... i would look very thin in her clothes and they would collectively hoo and hawww about town people transforming into proper village folk when they wore village wear and we would giggle a lot ....
the year uncle disappeared .... during the holidays post 6th grade ...i started cooking for the family and my dad's friends too ....when someone dropped by ...plus i was cooking for the alcoholic brother too ie my uncle ...it was really tough and so were the flat breads i made ...horror stories
my dad never ever complained about any food Ever ... he would quitely eat whatever goulash i ended up making ...
the alcoholic uncle was a bloody pain but i Ignored him royally ...
sadly for my aunt ...life has always been tough since she got married ...she was the most beautifull daughter of the house and a doctor had come asking for her hand in marriage and she was keen on that proposal ...
alas that did not work out and my grandad liked the next proposal very much ...it was my uncle's second marriage and he had oodles of property and lots of money too and my maternal grandfather said yes ...
there were loads of loud comments about her beauty as compared to the groom's during the marriage ceremony itself .... i guess whatever is Destined happens ... no matter who wants what ... she helped her husband fully and looked after her mother-in-law very well and had four children ... but something about that beautifull house in that awsum location was not right ...
that house saw constant sadness ...one after the other ...they still own a lot of property and they do not want for anything
but i hope they would get some peace of mind ... that things would be calm among the siblings and aunt gets to spend the rest of her days in peace ...
such little she asked for ...peace of mind .... and it has been the Most Elusive ... her entire life ...she Strived hard and met all kinds of situations head on ....poor thing had no other option but to be Strong for eveeryone ...
since 1983 ..the year uncle disappeared ...she has been Brave and dealt with all kinds of problems and looked after the land ... why can't the universe give her some peace of mind now at least ... what a diffiult life time of tears she has been given ... Cruel is life for the Very Kind and the Very Brave ...
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