I come from a small town in Kerala and my ancestral home is close to the paddy fields. Infact the paddy fields can be seen when we stand near the fence. My house is small thatched house in the middle of a huge plot. As we enter, on the right side we have the Columb mango tree. The mangoes are almost long and oval in shape, when you bit into it the pulp is colour of the sky when the sun is setting. Its too sweet to my liking. After describing it, I feel embarrased to be saying that I don't like it much. But ammamma's (Maternal grandmother) house is not just a place, its a feeling. The place has too many memories attached to it. The old house had a cowshed attached to the main house. I remember my muthashi( great grandmother) was a task master who used to keep a count of the number of eggs the hens had laid in the haystack. The younger me once fought with her when she grabbed an egg from my sister's hand. Muthashi passed away and now, this is one of the memories that we smile about.

With so many plants and trees around us, it felt like we were in the middle of the forest half the time. Unlike the place that I currently stay at, this ancesteral house had four doors in four sides. It was a strange thing because the house was tiny but it had four huge doors, I used to wonder. My ammamma used to always say that she needs some ventilation in the house. I used to wonder why she even needed walls. The house was small with one bed for her because she used to stay alone. When we went there during our summer breaks, we would sleep on the floor. Unlike the tiles here in the city, our house had rough floor, we were too close to the earth I used to feel. I could hear the millipedes, centipedes, baby scorpions, spiders, mosquitoes and an entire ecosystem made up of little insects invading my sleep. I remember seeing a snake on the inner part of the roof once. I was just lying down on my grandmother's lap and listening to her gossip with my amma( mother). I suddenly saw something brown just slithering away. It had golden brown scales and I could see some wave like patterns on it. I jumped up and started screaming in horror, my ammamma told me be calm because she thought I was scaring the snake. She said, " Its a chera( non- venomous snake), leave it".

The house had just three parts: the veranda, the inner hall plus bedroom and the kitchen. The bathroom was situated outside, just in case you are wondering. It was a small house but one thing I remember the most about it is the space in it, I remember us huddled up when it used to rain. The bricks walls were not really waterproof, water used to leak inside. Even if we fought, there was no room to keep grudges. I feel that the house used to keep us close because of its space. We would sit together on the floor and have food in vaazha ila(plantain leaf). If the power went, we would take our lamps and sit out chit chatting. When I used to wake up early in the morning, I used to see my grandmother talking to her cow and milking it. My ammamma was very much in sync with nature.

These are the memories of my home. I think my ancestral house is a place that I can call 'home' because of my ammamma. Her happiness when she saw us, he sadness when we leave after the summer break, her excitement to give us mangoes that she had collected over the season, her image standing at the door when our autorickshaw slowly faded. All this made it HOME.

Once upon a time, long long ago there was a tharavad(ancestral home) which had a temple beside it. The temple had grown old, so old that it was in rubbles. As the temple went into ruins so did the family members cascade into misfortune and bad luck. After many years, there came a man in the family who was so fed up with life and its miseries that he decided that he would co-ordinate with the pujaris(priests) and get the temple reconstructed.

The deities of their various gods were installed in its right place. The man was happy that the temple was now in a good state and to celebrate this he kept a grand pooja( offering, worship) with the help of the other family members.

The celebrations were to go on for four days, each day dedicated to a deity. The day came when it was dedicated to the Nagas( Snake gods). The rituals consisted of a huge rangoli being drawn.Huge colourful image of snakes was drawn, two kanyakas( virgins) were supposed to be seated in front of the kalam(rangoli). The legend says that the women whom the snake god chooses will be possessed by it when the song of the snakes starts. The condition however was that the kanyakas of the family had to be possessed.

The music slowly started playing, the family's kanyakas started dancing and wiping away the kalam. Just as the people were immersed in their worship, chanting and shouting the lord's name, somewhere from behind there was a hiss..

An uninvited stranger.

What Maya Angelou said comes to my mind as I write this piece today.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

I vividly remember the day you dropped me back after our unfinished fight. I was angry that you didn't speak to me even after I made the first attempt. Infact, I was being silly. Our fights always remained between us because we discussed things with each other and sorted things out. That day I vented it out to a third person. One thing, I have noticed about you is that you always come back to me. You silently stand and wait for me. You have never forced me into conversations, you have never complained, you have not raised your voice. I should have been more thoughtful. I have my people here, my friends here, I grew up here. This is my place but your home is far off. Your people are not here, you came this far for me, this place is a new place. You kept it all to yourself but I went and blurted it out to someone. You knew that I had spoken to my friend when he dropped me, you still remained silent. You safely dropped me home when I was sitting behind and making futile efforts to cover up what I did. When you finally dropped me off, you just said one thing- "You have your people here, whom do I have to vent out things to? You are the only one I know". That defeated me, it made me realise that even after being this close to you, how distant I made you feel. You constantly keep telling me to forget it but that seems to never disappear from my heart.

I come from a small town in Kerala and my ancestral home is close to the paddy fields. Infact the paddy fields can be seen when we stand near the fence. My house is small thatched house in the middle of a huge plot. As we enter, on the right side we have the Columb mango tree. The mangoes are almost long and oval in shape, when you bit into it the pulp is colour of the sky when the sun is setting. Its too sweet to my liking. After describing it, I feel embarrased to be saying that I don't like it much. But ammamma's (Maternal grandmother) house is not just a place, its a feeling. The place has too many memories attached to it. The old house had a cowshed attached to the main house. I remember my muthashi( great grandmother) was a task master who used to keep a count of the number of eggs the hens had laid in the haystack. The younger me once fought with her when she grabbed an egg from my sister's hand. Muthashi passed away and now, this is one of the memories that we smile about.

With so many plants and trees around us, it felt like we were in the middle of the forest half the time. Unlike the place that I currently stay at, this ancesteral house had four doors in four sides. It was a strange thing because the house was tiny but it had four huge doors, I used to wonder. My ammamma used to always say that she needs some ventilation in the house. I used to wonder why she even needed walls. The house was small with one bed for her because she used to stay alone. When we went there during our summer breaks, we would sleep on the floor. Unlike the tiles here in the city, our house had rough floor, we were too close to the earth I used to feel. I could hear the millipedes, centipedes, baby scorpions, spiders, mosquitoes and an entire ecosystem made up of little insects invading my sleep. I remember seeing a snake on the inner part of the roof once. I was just lying down on my grandmother's lap and listening to her gossip with my amma( mother). I suddenly saw something brown just slithering away. It had golden brown scales and I could see some wave like patterns on it. I jumped up and started screaming in horror, my ammamma told me be calm because she thought I was scaring the snake. She said, " Its a chera( non- venomous snake), leave it".

The house had just three parts: the veranda, the inner hall plus bedroom and the kitchen. The bathroom was situated outside, just in case you are wondering. It was a small house but one thing I remember the most about it is the space in it, I remember us huddled up when it used to rain. The bricks walls were not really waterproof, water used to leak inside. Even if we fought, there was no room to keep grudges. I feel that the house used to keep us close because of its space. We would sit together on the floor and have food in vaazha ila(plantain leaf). If the power went, we would take our lamps and sit out chit chatting. When I used to wake up early in the morning, I used to see my grandmother talking to her cow and milking it. My ammamma was very much in sync with nature.

These are the memories of my home. I think my ancestral house is a place that I can call 'home' because of my ammamma. Her happiness when she saw us, he sadness when we leave after the summer break, her excitement to give us mangoes that she had collected over the season, her image standing at the door when our autorickshaw slowly faded. All this made it HOME.

Sadness has a way of bringing people together. As we sat on a park bench, one rainy evening, I was screaming and scornfully bringing out all his faults. He sat there silently listening, holding back his tears, questioning his own worthiness. I knew he was not a bad man, but a little absent minded. We sat there swelling with weighty emotions. I held him tightly bursting out into tears, whimpering about my anxieties about our future together. As I sat there drained I felt something suddenly. Warm hands engulfed me, tears fell on my hairline and I could hear heartbeats thudding. That was my melody, my hymn.