Day 10 Somreeta

Of Nostos and Alogos

Day 10 and the concluding part of the 10 day 'project', Somreeta.

I will begin with a confession. When I started my studies once again after a hiatus of about 20 yrs, I realized I had one short coming. I was slow in applying, or connecting studies or learnings with happenings around me, connecting 2 learnings... However I will also add that there has been some progress in that area and though the lacuna hasn't been 'fixed', I am on the path.

Okay.. now for the story of the day.

In their later years, my parents-in-law lived with us, until they passed on to the other realm. It was then that I convinced my parents to move in with us as neighbours.

Later we and my parents moved in together into a bigger apartment.

I asked my father to select a room of his choice for him and mommy. He walked through the bedrooms, standing at the windows, taking in the sights and very happily zeroed in on one. " I will take this room", said. "You know why? This room offers a full view of the garden below. It makes me feel as if I am in my native home, with the many trees around me. It makes me feel 'at home' already. It makes me happy", he had said.

Our house here in Mumbai is on the first floor. The patch of garden below our house was one abounding with trees and plants. There were several palms with various vines crawling up on them. There were many coconut palms lining the compound wall and those too were visible from his window. When the plumeria was planted at the four corners of this patch, one was right below his window.

His home in his village near Udupi was a beautiful place. Behind his house there was a big patch of land with many trees. Coconuts, mangoes and even a cashew I remember. I remember my grandmother talking about the eucalyptus trees too. Across the street, they had their fields and trees like that of the coconut, mango and tamarind as also the pineapple shrubs.

The bit of land behind his house, which was heavy with trees, they called it the 'haadi'. It was a cool and well shaded zone, thanks to the many trees that grew there. When dad sat on his chair in his room, and looked outside the window, from his new home now, he had said " I feel like I am in Kuthpady, sitting in our 'haadi' . Kuthpady or Kuthupady as he pronounced it, was the name of his village.

While on the subject of the 'haadi', that area was not a well laid out orchard, or a farm or a garden. The plants and trees must have been planted randomly by them when they were young, or probably earlier. In the monsoons, the wet soil sprung out wild flowers. One of which I very clearly remember was the 'baila phool'. 'Bailu' in Konkani is the bullock. The flower grew on the ground and one had to look for it after the first rains of the monsoon. It was a small whitish flower. One plucked it carefully. Like the hibiscus flower that has a stamen, this flower would have a small growth which closely resembled the bull, horns and all. Just the face. From the stem of the flower, emerged a thin filament. One pulled it back and forth, very gently and the head of the bullock would move up and down. I have a picture of it which I happened to see on a face book profile and I had saved it. Shall share it below.

Also there was a tree which bore chickoo shaped fruits. The fruit had a rough grey exterior, much like the the kavat (wood apple). We bit into it gingerly. Gingerly, because once we sunk our teeth into it, the inside of the fruit was almost waxy. The main reason however, was that the centre of the fruit was the most exciting part of the fruit and we did not want to disturb it by biting through it. The centre of the fruit, would be a very bright orange and shaped like a Ganapati. Sounds unbelievable, right? I last remember seeing it in 1985, when we had our last proper summer vacation there.

Since 1992, we visit Udupi regularly, every year for Ganpati, but this tree which bears the ' Ganpati Phala' , bore fruit only around May or early June, I have been told. And very few of the many family members and friends I have spoken to in all these years, remember that tree or fruit and have not seen it in years. I wished I could show it to my children.

So Somreeta, this concluding post was about these 2 plants from a garden we have left behind for several decades now.

I started reading a new book yesterday night. 'This World Below Zero Fahrenheit- Travels in the Kashmir Valley by Suhas Munshi. He has written a fairly long and engaging introduction to the book. About the book he states that he did not have any grand, connecting theme in mind. He was clear that he was not going to write about violence ('and I failed even at that') he adds.

At one place he writes and I quote, 'Daniel Mendelsohn , the great essayist , in "An Odyssey' describes the genesis of the word 'nostalgia'. One of its roots is Nostos, the Greek word for

'homecoming". In time, this wistful word nostos, rooted so deeply in the Odyssey's themes, was eventually combined with another word in Greek's vast vocabulary of pain, 'alogos', to give us an elegantly simple way to talk about the bittersweet feeling we sometimes have for a special kind of troubling longing. Literally this word means' the pain associated with longing for home,' but as we know, 'home', particularly as we get older, can be a time as well as a place.'

A few of the past few posts, and then today's post....these were all about memories and impressions which lurked in the recesses of our mind and heart. Why I was attracted to a few plants, why they appealed to me, why I longed for them to bloom and to match the picture I had of them, in my mind's eye.. why dad had his connection with the little garden...

Nostalgia .. a melancholy yearning..a homecoming.