When all other friends of mine were busy planning for their own family trips to different other states of India, I counted days and cut off each date on the calendar, eager to just go and meet dad. And finally when the D-day arrived to go home for holidays I was always overjoyed.
I have always been a nature loving person and love the solace and calmness of villages. The place where my dad owns a motel is surrounded by picturesque villages and it’s on NH 31.For a resident it may be nothing new, but every time I got there the ambiance never failed to surprise me. The smell of mud, the shades by huge trees and the non-stop humming of the vehicles.
Being the owner's daughter does have some perks, and one of them was that we were welcomed with a lot of warmth and well-cooked lunch.
An expansion of greenery all around stretching as far as you view. Paddy fields and around it methodically cut lanes reaching to the houses and huts. The tall palm and coconut trees swayed involuntarily by the wind and the soft breeze soothing your face is inexplicable, one needs to feel it themselves to exactly describe it. The beautiful view of the pond behind the infrastructure through the window and the lotus blooming on the surface made it picture perfect scene.
My dad being busy managing his work, I generally spent my evenings with Gran at the backyard garden. While she sipped on her evening tea, I sat on an armchair or at times lay on a folding bed and watched the flock of birds dipping their wings in the lucid flow of air and flying back home before the nightfall. The orange glow soon turned dark and finally vanishing into the darkness, and then followed the sound of crickets and the fireflies glowing in the calm night. The cool breeze so relaxing that no one would ever want to stay indoors.
My Gran spent the late evening listening to songs on the radio and while I caught fireflies in glass jar. And later ate dinner and retired to bed for the night.
The mornings, were cool as well and I sat by the pond making mud castles and decorating it with wild flowers. My dad always appreciated and with a smile and hugs he said they were always beautiful, no matter what I made. The best thing being no one there to scold you, while you dirtied your clothes, if mother had ever seen me that way she would have surely grounded me for at least a week.
And just when the scintillating sun started to impart its heat, I got down in the Chowbacha (small water reservoir) and bathed, splashed, jumped and stood under the speeding water never willing to get out of it. As soon as the time reached beyond the extra limit Gran rushed and pulled me out and dressed me up for the evening.
I usually loitered around and asking people this and that. Everyone likes kids and that’s why they answered to all my logical and illogical questions and never got irritated, especially the staffs loved and cared about me. They took me to village fair, if there was one going on and even to their homes. In one of my visit to an uncle’s house, who also owned a pet monkey and it danced and played. I often, watched through the window, the village kids play with rubber tires rolling it with a stick, funnily they were either nude or partially clothed, a cloth wrapped around their waist. It was really amusing and fun to see them so carefree and contended. Sometimes, on purpose I touched the touch-me-not plants to just feel happy while it swooned. It was like a play to me which I enjoyed wholeheartedly.
Out of all, two incidents are there that I distinctly remember. Once a windy and disruptive storm barreled up, the sight of it was both beautiful and ominous. I loved witnessing the awesome power of nature, the leaves being blown helplessly and a chill breeze filling every corner then followed by down pour. And that wasn't all a coconut had fallen off its tree just on the road poles leading to short circuit, the electricity of the entire area was suddenly gone. We sat in the dim candle light, I was tucked warmly, cozied up on my Gran’s lap and my dad joked to others that thankfully it wasn't someone’s head and everyone laughed out loud drowning the croaking sound of the frogs.
Another time, the cook, Dulal Kaku (Uncle) was cutting a fish for the afternoon lunch and I had been watching curiously at how it was being done and that’s when he showed me a small hook that was stuck in the dead fish's head. He pulled it out, washed and cleaned and told me that he would teach me how to catch fish with it. I was 8 and it was obvious I was too excited. And for continuous next six days he taught me how to catch with it and we did but it was already dead before I could show it to Gran and dad. I was so depressed that the excitement of catching fish from pond also died with it.
Dulal Kaku noticed my doleful mood and informed dad about it and to cheer me up he drove me to Jaldapara National Park ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaldapara_National_Park ). We chatted and saw elephants bathe, peacocks in their barn, lay on the grass for hours munching chips, saw ant hills, bird’s nest, with binoculars watched bison once and twice rhinoceros. That’s when my dad also realized my fetish for fishes and on the narrow river at the park we stared at the tiny fishes and then disrupting, splashed water at each other and again watched for the flow to calm down and continued our viewing them. From then on every summers,he did take me to the park and the entire day we enjoyed, at times had small picnics too.
All these memories feel like as if it happened in a different lifetime. As I grew big I stopped going there and summer holidays turned into boring friends meet and lunches. My fascination of that phase was no longer there. Suddenly, today when I remembered, I really missed all of it and wished if only, I could go back no matter even if it is for,Once!
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