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Are you kidding me?
18 November 2013. Twenty-two Days to Go for the Wedding, 8.00 a.m.
I am back home – the last time I will be here as an unmarried girl. While most of my three-day trip will be used in giving measurements to the tailor (seriously, going to the tailor is as bad as going to the dentist these days), shopping and trying to make my face glow, there is another thing I want do to.
I want to go around the house and hug each room and thank each chair and kiss each bed. Okay cross that, I sound deranged, but you get the drift, don’t you?
8.01 a.m.
My bedroom. It still has a poster of the Spice Girls from the second century BC and a desktop computer from a thousand years before that. Mum had tried to sell it but finally decided against it when they refused to offer her anything more than two thousand rupees. I am half afraid that she will hand it over to me after my wedding, as a treasured family heirloom.
The number of hours I have spent in this room, eyes glued to the Physics textbook, trying desperately to mug up theorems that made no sense, knowing that mugging won’t get me through the hallowed portals of IIT. The fights with Mum, the gossip sessions with aunts and cousins, the gyaan session with Ramu … it has all happened here.
8.04 a.m.
The kitchen.
The countless hours Mum has spent pleading with me and threatening, in vain, to teach me how to cook. For further and more embarrassing details, please refer to a post on Mum’s blog titled, ‘Getting Dimple to Cook (it must be easier to climb Mt Everest)’.
The countless hours I have spent here, chatting with Mum, filling her with the details of my day.
8.06 a.m.
The living room.
Sitting cross-legged on the now slightly frayed sofa as one of the parents hand-fed me dal-chawal.
Sitting at the dining table, bawling my head off, because I had scored an eight-on-ten and not a ten-on-ten, as Mum and Dad looked on bewildered, desperately trying to pacify an inconsolable teenager.
The television, my good, old, faithful TV. Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, reruns of Friends, MTV…
The recliner. Hours curled up on it with a book in my hand. From Enid Blytons to Nancy Drews to the Brontë sisters to Sidney Sheldon and
John Grisham.
Oh gosh, the overwhelming memories of my childhood home.
8.10 a.m.
The garden.
The banana tree that Dad had planted with me. I had then proceeded to religiously water it three times a day and had almost killed it. It survives only because Dad had the wisdom to order me to stay at least ten feet away from it.
The strawberries that excite the entire family more than man reaching Neptune will.
The soft green of the grass that I have sat on, soaking in the weak winter sun.
The little brown bird that builds a nest every year in that tree, by the gate. The memories…
8.15 a.m.
Mum and Dad’s bedroom.
The countless nights I have trooped into this room in the middle of the night, groggily dragging a pillow with me and snuggling in between Mum and Dad.
The dreams and the comfort…
I know I am not leaving any of it … I know, I know, I know.
