Our family home is an aging doyenne who needs a lot attention and has not got any. She serves us well, through all the cricks and grunts. Meditate upon her naked body:
Her exterior, a tangled delightful canopy of trees, the Neem, Jackfruits, guava (note its plaintive seeking branches). Children of herbs and plants picked everywhere my Dad travels – baobab, Thai chilli, purple leaf something, melons, watercress. The ground is mossy. This century old ground in the Pawar family now, son to son. Earthenware pottery line haphazardly.
You have to love her bumps and cellulitted tiles. They are dark and sticky near corners. They are green originally but now mottled and dusty. They lead to rooms now a shade of what they once were. She holds her bosom up high. The shelves hold the family memories, old sepia tinted photographs, paintings from trips far away, old steel trunks I once travled in, bedsheets from the time I was a pissing baby, dust and more dust.
As you get closer, you find her eyes hold all the miseries and joys. This is most certainly the kitchen. Her flashing eyes reveal centuries old brass, copper with the new love of plastic like a new young lover. The plates washed as often as eaten upon, now aged gracelessly. The dark interior of the store room hold the spices and treasures I dared not investigate. The granite on life support. The food is divine like her smell.
