Mannara

My grandparents’ houses were like vacation homes for me in my childhood. Since I lived and studied abroad, these ancestral homes were to which I returned during my vacations. And after returning to my homeland for good, we settled in my grandmother’s house. As a result, my memories of these places are fairly ordinary and routine, only occasionally sprinkled with an exciting event here and there.

However, the place I do remember with wonder and mystery is the house of my great-grandmother. My mother’s grandmother had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and so had been living with her children the whole time I knew her. The side of her that featured in all of my mother’s and grandmother’s stories was not one I ever saw. Also featured in these stories was her family home, named ‘Mannara’. Once, during one of our vacations in Kerala, my mother and her cousins planned to go back to that ancestral home and, naturally, I accompanied them.

Though it wasn’t very far away, none of them had returned to the place for many years and their excitement was very palpable in the stories they recounted. When we finally arrived there, though, I was disappointed. The small house looked entirely abandoned, the weeds around it, overgrown and obscuring many parts of the building itself. My disappointment especially stemmed from how I could not see any of my mother’s humorous stories come alive in that obscure hut. I looked around for those popular hangout spots and colourful characters, but saw only more weeds.

By then, the cousins, out of excitement, had decided to ignore the danger of whatever might be lurking in the tall grass and were wading through it to reach those secret places they knew so well from their childhood. I stood back and watched their incessant conversation, speakers and stories wonderfully flowing into one grand narrative, and I saw that my disappointment would mean nothing to them. They were home. All the years and all the weeds would not take that away from them. Thus heartened, I left my first impressions at the road and joined them, gleaning some more information whenever I could squeeze a question in, eating green mangoes that we plucked from the trees and having a beautiful afternoon on a verandah of that tiny old house.

That visit was many years ago and unfortunately, I haven’t ever gone back. Every time an opportunity arose, I was always inconveniently placed and I would have to watch others go in my place. They would bring back newer stories and sometimes, freshly plucked fruits, but I still wait for that day when I can once again lay eyes on that little house.