garden of memories


A month ago I wrote the title of this blog and kept it aside (see why most things I do have no real title,  coz u make a title, sound ambitious yet never get back to it). Anyways now I have the time and willingness to return. When you live in a house for straight 15 yrs and then shift, it’s sad, irritating and annoying and sad, and sad again. Last month or before that, I really don’t remember but somewhere in the beginning of this year, I and mom went to our old house to get something we had left behind. I was pretty excited as that was the 1st time I was gonna go there since shifting.
It was a highly disappointing visit. Now there are a few things you need to know about my old house. It was a modest one bedroom, one hall and one kitchen, wait… AND ONE GARDEN house.
The garden was probably as big as the entire house or may be bigger than the entire house (or that’s probably how only I saw it). It was every thing to me; I grew up more in the garden than in the house. It was my kingdom and the trees, plants, butterflies and birds and my cats and some random stray dogs were my countrymen. Ohk sometimes my friends, my sister and my cousins use to join too but I always had more fun without them. I was the youngest and had to obey all sorts of bullshit they told me, in their presence I would imagine that it was the colonial time and I the great king have been enslaved, but pretty soon I shall gain my power and throw the intruders out of my kingdom and sit on the magical thrown that cud fly whenever I wished. (It was a bamboo swing) and my countrymen would fan me with papaya leaves. They make for great majestic fans. Everything in my kingdom was made out of trees and branches, and they all spoke the same language, they all spoke to me.
As I grew up it was my hide-out. Whenever there was a power cut I would sit in the garden, it was less scary than the house.
Once my mom kicked me out off the house for coming back late from my friend’s place (later it started happening every other day) n I would go sit on my ‘thrown’ with my cat on my lap (mind you my cat was a mystical creature that could  transform itself in any living creature as per my needs). When my mom saw me through the window, all she cud do was bring my dinner plate to my ‘thrown’.
All of those memories flashed back in my head, but what lay in front of me was a broken swing with moulds growing on it, a barren land with all the plants uprooted and thrown away. Only the big trees that could only be cut remained (thank god they weren’t cut). There was a ‘no entry’ zone, where I was afraid to go as a kid because it was so dense n so swampy, in my imaginary world; it was like Azkaban where all the criminals of my kingdom (dirty, little crawly insects) were imprisoned.
But that day for the first time in my life I saw what lay beneath that spot, it was an ordinary, brown, barren land. I stood there feeling sad and victorious at the same time, you see even as a grown up that spot still scared me n I never dared to step on it.
When I had left this house, with a heavy heart I had left my cats behind, dad said we just couldn’t take them to the new house. It is on a 6th floor of a huge tower, so the question was who would take care of them when we all left for work, what if they jumped off the window or balcony. In the old house the garden was everything they ever needed, just like me. It was their den where they would bring back their hunt. So the questions really scared me and dad convinced me that we were leaving them behind for their own good. So I left them on my vegetarian neighbor mercy. It didn’t surprise me to see that I had lost my pets forever and I felt very guilty, I think am gonna take this guilt to my grave, the guilt of abandoning my countrymen, my friends.
I felt like my kingdom had been rampaged in my absence by some monster ogre, much worst it looked like Afghanistan after war, no life, no movement, just barren soil. I stood in Azkaban n felt the hot air coming out of my ears and my eyes watering, I stood there mad with anger and sadness, the only thing tat consoled me was the fact that mom had decided to go visit some old neighbors and friends and was not around to see me fuming with anger. I swear to god I would have scratched out every name in my ‘to kill list’ if I cud just have the tenant in front of me, in my kingdom, imprisoned.
It brought some really brutal thoughts in my head and it does even while I write about it. I picked up the hose pipe and started watering, whatever was left of my slaughtered kingdom. I could see the old watchmen observe me from outside the gate. I couldn’t make out if he understood what  I was feeling or was he just amused as why this stupid girl is wetting the soil n wasting water (he was the one who would have to call the municipal tanker if all the water was wasted, nobody likes extra work), but I didn’t care and I hated everyone. I hated my parents for deciding to shift to a new house, I hated my neighbors for breaking a promise (am sure they forced my cat to leave in my absence), I hated the tenant for destroying our garden without even informing us (he destroyed a lot of other things without informing us). I heard mom entering the house again and I quickly closed the tap, rolled the hose pipe and wiped my eyes hoping that she would not notice, but she did. ‘So you watered the garden?? You never did tat whenever I asked you to!’ she said with a twisted smile. I smiled back at her wondering ‘did this hurt her as much as it hurt me?’ after all the four of us built it together.  
So now, all I have is the garden of my memories. L

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