Home.....

The deal's come through... the builders and the society have agreed on mutual ground. Another high-rise society will stand and dot the skyline in the booming area around Diamond Garden... Shankar Niketan will be ground to dust.... I will never see my home again!!!!.....
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. (did this to make you guys think about that sentence and let it sink in before continuing)

We moved in there when I was two, thus probably the beginning of my memory that I can trace back in my brain... I remember the sight of the garden from the balcony.. my mom walking me to school during LKG. A big move for us was when we broke the balcony , extended the hall, converted the kitchen into a bedroom and the second balcony into a kitchen. The typical modifications within the realms of a middle class family...I remember the uneven ground outside in the compound, often disturbed by the negligence the society showed to it because cars wouldn't some around in such a small area... I remember my happiness when during reflooring, they levelled out the stretch. It became the launchpad for my cycling trps as I kept the cycle near the back door. Depending on the number of boys around, cricket was possible on three parts around the building, The glasses we broke, the trips we made to the dilapidated dump next door to retrieve the ball ( you wonder how as a kid whenever and wherever you played cricket, there was always this one innocuous gutter or naala or bushy area where balls used to get lost? ) .. I remember the view from the terrace, the openness above diamond garden on one side and the distant sound of cars on the highway.....those new year and birthday party celebrations which were held up there, the vadaams (homemade papads) mom used to go up in the summer vacations and put for drying.... I remember those instances of power cuts when everyone used to come and sit out on the tank... the ladies addaa during the evenings and the quarrels we used to have with them about them sitting there during our cricket games..."Aunty aap 5 o clock ko mat aao, come after dark" .. ya right!! as if she had no better work than to come and sit down there at her own time and will....

I remember the weird way in which cars had to be driven in and out of the compound because of the location of the tank. I remember the amazement I felt when I saw mom carefully reverse it through that seemingly impossible gap... I remember the amazement on my dad's face when I started doing the same years later.... I remember the Sai baba photo on top of the address board, and the ayyappa bhajans that were held at the neighbour's place...

I can feel the couch, the bed, the cupboard, the shower,the computer desk, dining table and the kitchen in my own house... it was home, it was there, people came and went from our lives, dad changed jobs and locations, but for us 4, home was 2, Shankar Niketan.. it still brings a smile to my face everytime I write that address somewhere... something so materialistic, yet something that is so close to your heart.. I guess its why we call it... home...

Come later this year, as each of those walls crumble, I imagine a few of the residents there to shed a tear, I might, visually devoid of whats happening... the next time I go home, there wont be one actually....

A new one would be coming up in its place, time to turn a page in life I guess.... just that this page has thought me so much... I just feel robbed of a final glimpse... one final glimpse... at my home...