Of Old Ghosts and New

I have set myself a 30-day challenge - to write at least one blog a day everyday for a month!

 

Day 1

When my parents left behind their large bungalow in Chennai for an  apartment in Bangalore, one of the things they wanted to know was how many people had owned it before. A question that goes beyond extrapolations of how well-kept the new house may be - no, what they really wanted to know was how thickly the ghosts of memories were spread on those walls, and whether they could be relatively easily scraped off to make room for new ones.

I understand perfectly because the house that they have just left behind is redolent with these ghosts. Teens pulling all-nighters with the help of tall flasks of coffee the raw strength of which makes up for sleep-deprived weakness, pets once loved and wept over, glorious successes and flip-flop failures, bride-seeings
and weddings and first nights and grandchildren, empty nests, grandmothers departing on final journeys, a million hot meals big and small, cooked and eaten in the sweltering warmth, moments of crushing loneliness and maddening togetherness, stories of maids and ironwallahs and climbers of coconut trees shared at the kitchen door, swirling blinding smoke from sacred rites of purification commingled with the mindless motions of daily life - certain chores, performed exactly at certain times, all mixed together over thirty years hang densely in the air of that big house that they have left behind, like so many molecules of hydrogen and nitrogen and oxygen.

Would this venerable old house be able to open its walls and its heart to another family with its own set of memories and ghosts? I'm not sure.

Fortunately for my parents, the apartment they have just bought has hardly been lived in. The walls are clear of scuff marks and surreptitious childish stick figures and pen marks indicating the height of children with rapid growth spurts. For now.

When I enter the apartment, I breathe in the air that has already started to collect the eclectic philosophy that my father likes to keep himself immersed in, and the art and life that make up my mother's world. There is a drawer that contains my son's crayons and colouring books and story books as well as a few books of seventh grade biology belonging to my daughter.

The ghosts are definitely starting to pile up here. It is starting to feel like home!