Our Home

This is the middle of March. I am waiting in the visitors' area in Fortis Hospital, Gurgaon. My paternal uncle, my father’s elder brother who lives in Gurgaon, faced a car accident. He got some minor injuries on his head which earned him three stitches and fractured his left leg. As my whole family lives in West Bengal, I am his only visitor today. 

Uncle is having his evening soup as I enter his room. I am meeting him after six years. The last time I met him was during my grandmother's last rites. He stayed at our hometown only for a night, until the rites were over. He is looking older and weaker than last time. He definitely has lost some hair from the front and it gives him an older look. Hearing the sound of my sandals he looks up. His eyes are weak and his cheeks are hollowed. I find him so sick that he may not able to talk.

“Come Saumya, sit here.” He points to a small stool beside his bed as he keeps his bowl aside.

“How are you, Uncle?” I ask as I pull the stool and sit near him.

“Better, beta. Better than yesterday.” His voice is still weak and slow.

“Is it still paining?” I touch the plaster of his leg.

“Not really. But better you don’t touch my leg. It may start paining again.” He smiles in a low voice.

I remove my hand. “You are looking tired, Saumya.” He says looking at my face.

“Yes Uncle, coming directly from the office.”

“You want an apple? I have lots of them. This kid, Amit had got me plenty that I cannot eat.”

I smile and take one apple. This is kind of a family tradition. Wherever we kids are, even in the hospital, our parents will offer us something to eat. From experience, I find no point of saying no, because anyways they won’t listen. Now Amit, who happens to be Uncle’s neighbour seldom visits him and gets him these apples. And I feel I have all the authority to taste them. 

“It must be very boring here. What are they saying? How long you need to stay here?” I asked.

“Maybe fifteen more days. Or until I am able to walk with the crutches properly.”

“Ahh, you will. Don’t worry. Last year when Baba broke his leg, he took just a week.”

“Just a week?” Uncle raises his eyebrows. “You must be kidding, come on.”

“Arre to handle those crutches I mean. Not that he started running.” I explained.

“Oho... your Baba is a young man. If he runs also, that won’t surprise me.”

“He is young by age, but you look younger by the skin.” I bit my lips and gave him a pleasing smile. 

Uncle couldn’t stop laughing and said, “Stop flattering me. From where you are learning all these? You are only twenty-two.”

“Uncle, that’s enough. Guys are becoming millionaires at twenty-one.”

“Oh really?”

“Mm..Hmm. Uncle, tell me one thing. If you are even discharged how you will manage at home?”

“I have told Amit to arrange help.”

“Amit? He himself needs help I guess. “

“I also think so. Next time you meet him, you let him know that.”

“Haha. Why don’t you call Baba and ask him to stay for a few days? I will also come. We will have a great time. “ I said. “You can call your Amit also. What say?”

Uncle pauses. He doesn't answer immediately. He takes a deep breath and says, “No Saumya, I don’t need anyone here. Your father must be busy. I don’t want to bother him.”

“He is not busy. It’s just you who doesn’t want him around.“

“Okay. You are right. I don’t want him around.” He seems rigid.

I keep quiet for a second. He can sense disappointment on my face.

“Saumya you must be getting late. How will you go home?” 

“I will take a cab. What exactly happened between you two? I remember you guys really used to get along together!”

“I am not sure Saumya. It just things faded away before I could realize what really was going on.”

“I didn’t get you.” His words puzzled me.

“Have you ever been betrayed Saumya? Or abused?” He asked in a very sad, lonely voice. “Emotionally?”

He pressed the word “Emotionally” a bit more than his other words.

 If you ask a twenty-two years old girl about her experiences in words like “betrayal “ and “abuse”, each of us will have a story for you. Some even have stories you cannot finish listening to, some you can’t believe also in the first place. But now, it was not a room for my stories. They can be talked about on some other day, and I don’t think my Uncle was the right receiver to them. So I chose not to answer his question and wanted to know his own story.

That’s what I did.

“So you feel betrayed somehow?”

“Saumya do you remember long back we used to have our yearly picnic to a farmhouse? A village near our home?”

Yes. I clearly remember. I was about nine or ten when we visited that farmhouse for the last time.

“It had beautiful sal and sesame trees, other mahogany and gulmohor as well. It was beautiful, wasn’t it?”

Yes, it was. I nodded. The house had a small pond also, which wasn’t always maintained, but it was indeed nice. 

“I spent my childhood there. Rather you can say, I grew up at that home. Your father was an infant when we left that home. So he had a very blurred memory of it. My father was so fond of plants and gardening. We used to spend the Sundays and other afternoons planting trees and taking care of them. You know Saumya, my father was a very wise person. If you would have met him, you would understand. He wasn’t a rich person, but he was this rich, beautiful man from the heart. He loved those trees like his babies. The garden was life to him.“ 

I have seen my grandfather only in photographs. He died long before I was born. He was a handsome gentleman. My father and uncle, both resembled him. 

“He loved that farmhouse so much that even when we had shifted to the town he used to visit twice every week. He even went there a few days before he died. He and I planted all the trees there. You name it and I can tell you, he nurtured each of them. My father had this talent for nurturing. He gave me the best childhood, the best a father could give. ”

Uncle paused for a few seconds. He was tired after the long speech. I gave him water.

As he finished the glass, he resumed. 

“A few days after he died, I got this job in the Indian Navy and was posted to Kochi. I visited every year. I touched my trees, I hugged them. They gave me blessings. Like my father would have given. I touched my father.”

“But years after when once I got back home; my mother, your grandmother told that she had sold the house. I rushed there immediately. Only to find there was no tree, no birds singing melodies. No blessings left from me.

When I asked my mother and your father about it, nobody gave me any satisfactory answer. They never did. They only gave some vague excuses about maintenance which could have been compensated.”

“So that’s why you are angry?” I asked.

“I am not angry. I got upset. I remained upset all my life, that they not only sold the house but they cut my whole childhood into pieces and destroyed all the memories of my childhood. That I will never get those back at any price I may pay.”

 Uncle shifted his glance from me and looked outside the window. His eyes were sad and lost. There I saw a child whose toy had broken, and he didn't know what to do about it. 

It had started raining. The first rain of this season. We two sat silently in the room. It was feeling so lonely all of a sudden. 

A few minutes later a nurse entered with dinner for Uncle. The visiting time was over. I took leave from Uncle and walked outside the hospital. 

I started walking in the rain. Another rainy day flashed in my mind. A bearded man and an elderly woman were discussing something. All I could remember was the man saying, “He doesn’t need the money. We do. And he will never agree, Ma.” And days after another man came to our house. Only to know what had happened. And left. To never return.

I was twelve then.