ECHOES OF THE PAST

A faded grey gate looms in front of the car. The color has started to peel. A row of coconut palms still stand sentinel outside the main white washed wall. Their agelessness a testament of storms weathered.

There stood a custard apple tree right inside that gate, its branches offering both fruit and adventures for little arms and legs. Gone in the name of modernization. The large swing set, where countless arguments and fights erupted, where friendships were strengthened, the opposite sex discussed with fascination, where day-dreams were shared, where nothing more important then the next summer adventure was discussed. Is no longer. Just memories in its place. On closer inspection, slight abrasions in the marbled floor tell the story of the countless number of times that swing was used. For childhood pleasures.

Echoes steal around the house that was one a home bursting with love, where voices resonated with laughter, joy, sorrow and anger. A harmony of the old and young. Where respect was earned and love showered. Children running in a dishabille state. Uncles and Aunts. Weddings galore. New births. Mistakes made, lessons learned. Brother shed blood for brother. Four generations under one roof. The old taught their ways to the young.

The last pillar of the fourth generation fell, leaving a void that couldn’t be filled. Then began the infiltration of a poison that seeped through crevices of the very foundation that stood on love and harmony. On brotherhood. On trust. Wealth, greed, envy caused a slow disintegration of values and morals that had been preached and practiced by the elders. Brother against brother. Cousins no longer the true childhood friends they once were.

A garden that used to bloom no matter what the season goes to waste under the care of a hired gardener. No love to spare, just little bouts of happiness to fill small flower pots for a few months. One by one, the ancient trees are brought down. The mango tree, then the elm tree, now the coconut palm. Only one person shed tears of grief and felt her heart shatter at the demise for something that once was…an object of love.

The patio is no longer a shelter from the noon sun; it is just a pathway to the house. The terrace has echoes of rain-filled days, of hopscotch, of the bamboo swing that one spent lazy autumn days in, of sleeping under the stars on hot summer nights, of hearing mice scampering of to their little hideouts. Of feet tapping to the sound of the latest rock band. Now the doors are locked and feet barred from entering a space that has been taken over by a newcomer in whose estimation childhood memories are of no consequence.

Dust gathers in nooks and crannies where once a mote of dust was sacrilege. Decorations broken by disrespectful children are never replaced – not by them or by their parents. Paintings have lost their luster, books are gathering dust. Attics are over-flowing with a century old treasure, left to rot, since their worth isn’t monetary but sentimental.
Amidst this faded splendor wakes an old woman. A servant wheels her each morning to her designated spot on the sofa, from where she rules her now close to barren home. No matter what the time, she will be the first one there and the last one to go to her room. You will see her napping on that couch, eating there, offering her prayers, calling all her relatives, watching the telly, She has started suffering from short-term memory loss, yet she watches over that empty house like she did when it was bursting at the seams with the comings and goings of her children, their friends and then her grandchildren.

Each evening as the sun dies another silent death, an old man makes his way to her side. He has returned from work. Her companion for the more than half a century. The patriarch of, not just his family, but of an entire clan. On that couch they share a cup of tea, or whatever fruit he may have brought her. They sit and talk of their day. Reminisce of years gone by and in doing so share the ever-present loneliness that can bring people to their knees.

They are my paternal grandparents.

I don’t know how I would react if that sofa were every empty.

I constantly hear the echoes of happy times gone by.