We were stupid , but they were happy times. If I was sad , there would always be someone who'd distract me and show me something shiny or show me the wild mushrooms that bred on the tree outside. It's easy being a child , you forget. My most vivid memories of childhood revolve around my grandmother, who liked us calling her "amma". Amma was awesome.Period. She had all the latest sarees and wore makeup as soon as she woke up. She always smelled like vanilla and her nails were always bright red. Amma loved me. very much . I would lie down on her tummy after she'd eaten and tell her i could hear a train in her stomach , all the loud rumbling digestion was very fascinating to me. When i became a Flinstones fan , I'd whack Amma with the telephone diary pretending it was my club and that i was Fred. I'd make blank calls to her friends from the phone book and then hang up. I'd do that several times a day. She never scolded me. Or atleast if she did , I chose not to remember it.
She chose to see all the good stuff and ignore all the creepy things i did. Yes, i was a creep and i had erected a secret shrine to some broken piece of stone which i would bathe in milk and water and cover with a hibiscus everyday.I would also take a paint brush and dip it in water and then paint over the dusty leaves of plants growing in the house. She encouraged it all.
My sister and I did some pretty retarded things too. We "rode" the poor neighbours bitch , Lily and went around pretending she was a mare...We adamantly refused to learn the right name of some poor woman , whose name i don't recall because we only ever called her aunty .pepsi. We lived in our friends' dingy portuguese style houses ,playing with the chickens they bred giving them names. Some houses in our village were deserted and no one knew what had happened to them. But we did. We made stories about witches and old creepy men , and we told these stories so often that they became our truths.
I moved out of Chuim when i was six and i didnt go back there for 12 years. then a few days ago ,I decided to go back ,just to see how much it had changed. It was only a shadow of its glorious self. All the little villas had been converted into giant buildings. People walked around minding their own business. worst of all ,i knew no one i saw and no one recognised me. As i was getting closer to the home where I'd spent my favorite years , I was getting cold and wanted to run away before i saw amma's house , my house. It was in ruins. Some people who lived there had really not bothered about it. The farm beside it , where pigs and ducks jumped around was now barren and seemed like a dumpyard for burnt trees and all sorts of rubbish. The house itself looked desolate . The neighbours all still lived there, but no one was sitting out on their porches singing songs or calling out to us.
I'd never felt a bigger lump in my throat since when I'd learned of Amma's death. I was so sad. Just that . Sadness. I missed my foolishness, my days of bata chappals and polka dotted frocks , Of showing off about knowing math tables and of going to bed at 9. I missed the days when i thought that the world was like Chuim, pretty and full of wonder and warmth and people who cared. But most of all , I missed Amma. I cried for Amma. I cried for me.
