Memories aren't stored in the heart or the head

Memories aren't stored in the heart or the head or even the soul, if you ask me, but in the spaces between any given two people wrote Jodi Picoult. I guess this is the very first time in my life I have been housebound in my home with my loved one. I told you cancer has its good 'side effects'! I never spent so much time ambling around rooms and actually looking at things that have lived in this space for decades. Somehow the house talks to me and I listen and write everything down as I know this is a one time experience.

This is our dining room. I think it is grand enough to be called that. Actually it became our dining space circa 1994 when we remodelled the house after my parents' demises. Today it is the place where we sit every evening to share a meal. The room is again an eclectic mix of objects and things gathered during many lifetimes and put together as best possible. From mama's larger than usual dining table, to her old sideboard (bought circa 1969 when we had little money and sun mica was in flavour of the time; but the dining table has a story to tell and it will be told in another blog); from Ranjan's two precious antique cabinets to his almost regal chandelier; from family pictures to paintings bought in Cambodia circa 1962; from a Meissen fruit bowl to golf shaped salt and pepper cellars; from Prague crystal objects to poor quality candles that did not withstand the Delhi summer and look more like a Dali creation then regular candles in an antique silver candle stand, this space has it all. The cabinet also has our wedding picture (not see clearly) where I look so different that someone even asked once if it it was R's fist wife!

But when the house was just built or I should say completed after a long protracted set of problems, this space was an open terrace and did remain one for quite some time. Before my marriage, we often slept on the terrace in summers and it was a unique experience that one has had to give up. Every evening the terrace was watered (there was no water shortage then) to cool it and then beds were place dorm style with one standing fan to blow some air should the night become too still. My cousin sisters use to live with us and we were quite a merry lot. Papa preferred sleeping indoors. He was quite 'formal' in certain ways. Would you believe me if I told you that it took Mama and I years to convince him that Delhi summer was not quite the place to wear a three piece suit and a bowler hat. If anyone dropped by to visit, Papa would immediately rush to his room and don his suit that always hung on his dump butler. Slowly he would graduate to the then in fashion safari suits and kurta pajamas. So sleeping out was a no no even if it was scorching in the room. At that time coolers did not exist and we did not own an AC as they had all been sold to complete the house.

But the rest of us girls loved our night under the stars. We would have our transistors (no walkmans or MP3s those days) and tune it to our favourite programmes. Mondays and Fridays were the two nights when All India Radio aired western pop music request programmes which were my favourites, otherwise it was Vivid Bharati and Radio Ceylon. In the morning it was the flies that woke you up and you would get off the cot and rush to your respective room to finish the night. Those were some days!

Then came my wedding which happened in this very house. You would not believe me if I told you that Ranjan spent the first night after our wedding ceremony sleeping on this very terrace with Ma, as the bidai (the ceremony when you officially leave your parental home) was scheduled for the next morning. I slept with my friend in my room. Ranjan always love telling this story. After marriage Ranjan and I lived on the first floor of the house and the terrace saw many merry moments when friends dropped in or we had a party. Ranjan had is hole in one party here! But then we moved out after Parul was born as the flat was too small.

Some years later, Papa build us two extra rooms and we moved back after Shamika was born. The girls has a great time splashing in their inflatable pool. Th terrace remained one till we came back from our posting in Prague. That is when Ranjan decided to cover the terrace with a slanting roof and have a circular wooden staircase climbing up to a TV come music room. It was very beautiful but somehow the energies did not feel right and I was never comfortable and happy in those days. Ranjan must have cursed the day when I met someone who told me about Vastu and fell hook line and sinker for this ancient science. The slanted roof had to be broken and the spiral staircase removed. That is when the terrace took its final shape and an extra room was added upstairs. I felt better but Ranjan took a long time forgiving me for my idiosyncrasy. There would be more alterations after Papa's death but those were needed. The once open terrace became our dining room! Space does not change per se but time gives it life and thus memories.

There was a time when this space got invaded and I found myself consigned to the tiniest corner possible. The house lost its heart and I  found myself roaming aimlessly, avoiding certain spaces and feeling an outsider. I think that for those few years even my parents' souls took leave of absence. I will not delve on the reason at this moment. The hurt is not healed enough to write about it dispassionately. I left it to the one upstairs to set things right because I had given up.

He or She heard the unsaid prayer or petition and the trespassers left and slowly the house smiled again. But it would take a terrible blow or should I say another intruder a.k.a Mr Hodgkin to open my eyes and soul to the poignant and moving memories every corner of the house concealed, memories that needed to be told as my legacy to my children.

When I look at the dining space today, I realise that there not a single object that I have bought and placed. Everything is either my parents' or chosen by Ranjan or a gift. Ranjan asked me recently why I had never added my imprint on the house and I had no answer. But I have one today. My trace is impregnated in each brick of the house, and is not any physical object but an almost ethereal bouquet of feelings that can only be sensed by those who see with their hearts.