A Little Love, A Lot of Work

 When my nephew told me last week that he had bought his own house, I was amazed at how much time had gone by.  My nephew spent several years with us when he arrived after school, from Kolkata, to attend college in Bangalore. 

This week he sent a message saying the house drains were blocked and he was having a difficult time getting them fixed.  My husband and I immediately thought,"Maybe we should have told him to check all these things before, we have had so many years of experience setting up houses.."  But we didn't want to appear to interfere.  There is a special joy that comes from settling into your first house and learning from your early mistakes.

This incident reminded me of our own last move to a lovely house on campus with exactly the same problems (tree roots had grown into the drains)- it was airy and spacious but old, unlived in and full of niggling problems.  As with all houses, this one too required a little love and a lot of work to set it right and show up its charm.

I began to think of all the houses we had changed over the years since I was married.  I first arrived in 1993, with ten bags, to join my husband in a tiny one bedroom apartment.  My husband looked at me and then at all the bags.  

"We only have space for two bags," he said.  "Send the rest back."  Then, looking at my despondent face, he relented and said, "We'll try to fit as much as we can in."

So out went our institute furniture- two metal chairs and a metal camp bed.  We put some shelves high on the wall and hauled the bags and their contents up there.  Some boxes doubled up as benches and tables and somehow we fit everything in.  This was nice because I had saved up all my student stipend to buy things for us- nothing fancy but very nice cookware, a pile of books, tons of CDs and cassettes and all else that my husband and I could happily share in our first home.

Our first home

We needed lots of light so I cut up old sarees to make curtains - they swung gently in the breeze and reminded me of my mother as they swished about our rooms.

We had a little garden and this space gave me my first lessons- on life and gardening.  I planted marigolds with gay abandon, which were torn to pieces by little children and monkeys.  We had a custard apple tree bearing the mot delicious fruit and a papaya tree which also gave the sweetest yellow papayas (nowadays a rarity).  The trouble was a Bengali neighbour living above us, who claimed right to all the papayas because they grew up close to her terrace, and she wanted all the green papayas she could get.  I was furious because I claimed ownership of the papaya tree since it grew down below, in my garden.  She claimed her right by means of seniority, I claimed mine by my fiery temper (which is now usually under control but in those days was unpredictable)..  This issue was never resolved and after a few months, she moved to a bigger house elsewhere.

Marigolds, papayas - and trouble!

Now my papayas were safe but we had problems of another nature.  The next neighbour complained bitterly of my husband's habit of inviting students home and playing music for them on the weekends.  This was hard to rectify, I think we just closed our door and windows and did our best to keep out of their way.

With students at home

Our next house was bigger, almost palatial, in comparison.  It had two bedrooms and a huge empty space on one side, overgrown with trees.  At this time, when my father visited, he bought us a plastic table and chairs (that we somehow transported home on the back of our ancient Fiat).  We placed these in our overgrown garden and had our morning meals under the trees.  There were plenty of snakes and rodents; many of them found their way into out house.  This experience really taught us the ways to animal proof our house.  My husband's hockey skills were much appreciated while chasing all these animals out.

My nephew and I organise a barbecue 

Then we moved to a first floor apartment; this was the first time we were off the ground.  I always feel very rooted to the earth and I wondered if I would ever settle into a house located somewhere in space.  But to my surprise, I loved it because every window looked into the top of a tree (filled with birds, squirrels and insects of all kinds) and there was much more sunlight.  Yes, my baby (who is very sensitive sound) would get startled and cry each time the koel sang and the most ferocious (Vespa) wasps would love to nest in out windows, sometimes stinging us- but my terrace garden flourished with the sunlight, and so did we.

Now we are in a larger house with a garden and a huge empty (overgrown!) space on one side.  I have spent months clearing the space of concrete debris from past inhabitants.  We have snakes, monkeys, rats but they are now firmly kept out of the house.  There is not much sunlight below and some mango trees keep raining mangoes on our driveway that smash into our car and that no one likes to eat.  An enormous jackfruit tree has shed its hefty fruit, completely crushing out roof outside.  But it is lovely to see so much greenery and hear so many birds.

Giant roof-crushing jackfruit

We all have our favoured nooks- my husband has set up an airy corner for his computer work that overlooks our garden with its outsize ginger lilies on which humming birds sit.  Bougainvillea sways in a corner and bulbuls love to play in between its thorny stems and he can watch all this while working.  

My son has his study table next to my husband's and his favourite teddy bear sits on a bench behind, watching every move.  

I like to sit on the terrace especially for my evening music practice, as long as I can, before the mosquitoes drive me in.  

Our bedroom overlooks the trees that grow tall and wild; in the monsoon season, the fireflies light up the darkness outside the windows.  Little birds perch on the windowsills, looking for beetles to eat and squirrels peep in hopefully trying to find an opening to enter and build their nests.  

Mangoes that no one likes to eat

We have this house for five years and next will have to move out of campus, to yet another house.  Until then, we enjoy this house, getting to know its creaks and leaks and sighs..