I find myself unable to concentrate, watching the news wondering when some camera for some news agency will show me my grand aunt's home in Kerala, and how high the flood waters reached there.
I am in the U.S. We do not stay in touch on Whatsapp. I know they evacuated early because she needs oxygen 16 hours a day. They have an aging German shepherd. What became of him I wonder. In the living room there used to be cassettes of Hindi movie soundtracks from the 90s. My uncle remains a devoted fan of Raveena Tandon. I loved taking a different tape up each night, when we visited, and listening to them while lying on the raised, spare bed, with the windows open. I have an almost paralyzing fear of spiders, and every bathroom in this house had at least one. I suppose they got washed away in the flood.
In the space below the stairs my grand aunt had a little puja room- she would do some hocus pocus things with incense every evening. It never took long and the house always smelt nice afterwards. No one else in the house participated, or was ever required to.
As a child the drive way held the greatest fascination. It was filled with smooth little stones, which must have been brought in from some river bed somewhere. I spent ages selecting the smoothest and prettiest stones, as on every trip I was allowed to take a few back with me to Bangalore. The residents of the house wouldn't have minded letting me go with handfuls, but my grandmother knew I couldn't resist collecting stones, and that if allowed I would have been incredibly greedy.
Jyothi chechi's fridge was the second most exciting thing. She stored her nail polish in the door, and I was allowed to examine all the colours. More often than not there was a strand of jasmine flowers, woven together for the hair, sitting about getting disgusting, as the person it was intended for forgot it and moved on with life. The smell of fridge-aged jasmine will always take me back to being six again. Also they had a Sodastream. This was a big thing in the 90s. No one I knew in Bangalore had that. And there was always Orange crush.
I am sad that the place of my best childhood memories is gone. Even if the house is structurally sound after the last week, it will need extensive repairs, and will lose its lovely, shabby cosiness.
I hope my grand aunt will be ok.
