Fragrance in the air
DR. VIJAILAKSHMI ACHARYA
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It can be a fulfilling thing to get back to the past, to touch base with the dreamer inside...
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Photo: Dr. Vijailakshmi Acharya
The twinkling past: The stream at Neria.
YET another morning in a busy dental practice gets under way. The drone of the drill starts to invade the calm and suddenly, unreasonably, the mind starts to wander backwards into Time.
Summer holidays. Excitement starting to build up even before the final exams. No agonising multiple choice decisions to make as to where the family was going — where else, but to Neria!
Neria is set amidst the hilltops in the Charmadi ghats on the west coast of Karnataka, a two-hour drive from Mangalore. You turn off the highway into a bumpy road and cross two pebbled streams to reach a clearing in the middle of verdant greenery and gladed foliage.
Fond memories
The family house suddenly looms large at the end of the twisting road and a maze of endless trees. The courtyard is full of areca nuts drying in the sun. Women wearing coconut fibre caps are sorting out and cleaning the nuts. A lone dog barks in excitement as the jeep drives into the front of the red tiled house. A well tended Tulsi plant, sitting serene in its housing, greets us as we alight. To the right, a few yards away is a little embankment planted with pepper trees. Narrow footways wind through the plants and then you see the sparkling brook that feeds and sustains the house and the people around it. The ankle deep water gurgles invitingly. The fragrance of wet leaves on wet soil, the smell of smoke billowing lazily out of the rooftop chimney complete the picture.
Rubber and pepper, cashew and cardamom are the forest produce. Who cared about all that? Neria was a fun place where fond grandparents and uncles and aunties spoilt you. "Come and look at this," uncle says, "a flower growing inside the coconut. Taste it, it's good luck. This is how you tap rubber. You let the milk flow by scoring the tree out and the tappers collect it and then we dry it... " For a little girl all this held only momentary attention. There were so many exciting things to do, like go to the stream outside the house and splash around in the pebbled, crystal-clear, shallow water until the insistent clang of the bell announces puja before lunch. Then, to scramble back breathlessly to get to the puja room in time for aarti and prasada. There was grandma, with jasmine in her hair — "Don't touch me," she says, "I'm doing puja". Grandpa looking like a regal landlord preparing for the day-long "Bootha Kola", the dance for the guardians of the house. The spirits of the house have to also be pleased and this is our day to acknowledge them, they say. The festival of the spirits goes on all night. As the colourful ecstatic dancing goes on, the stars look down at me. Looking up at a Neria night is like seeing a tapestry of heavenly bodies floating in the mist. On a clear night you could see forever. As dawn approaches, in the distance one can see the twin peaks of the reigning glory of Neria-Amai Dikelu. The mountaintop looks like the irregular tripod of a giant stone. Legend has it that it was used to boil water for the heavenly birthing of Bhima. Whatever it was, it was ethereal. Can I climb up there, I ask grandpa. "Oh no" he says, "too dangerous, too dark and too slippery. But I have gone up there, once... it is very cold you know," he says, as he strokes his stubble of silvery beard.
Paradise lost
Well, Paradise is meant to be lost and I gradually lost it. As the years passed, the dreamer gave way to the doctor who rarely had time to visit Neria. It was distant but somehow always in the back of the mind, to be pulled out from the memory drawer, a part of a childhood long gone by.
A chance to catch up? Impossible, I thought, until, one day, it actually happened. I was going back home — to Neria with Dad and Mom.
The car pulls up in front of the portico after the long ride from Mangalore. I enter the old homestead. The house stands quietly with the little courtyard in front of it separating it from the river. The inside is blackened with smoke-black columns, black floors and black beams. The tiled ceiling is darkening and in a few years it will glisten as though lacquered black. Aside from this there is nothing on the red oxide painted floors except a solitary easy chair and a mat. As I walk into the empty puja room, where we had assembled year after year for the daily ritual, I suddenly felt lost. Where was everybody? Why is it so silent?
Reaching out
The flickering shadows from the single lamp create intriguing patterns on the walls. In the very depths of the lamp there is an extra glow, and I know I have company. Grandma's bangled hand reaches out to me. Did you wash your feet and then come in, she asks. Yes I did, ammamma, as you always told me to. Grandpa in his white dhoti standing just behind her, smiles at his wife. "How many times are you going to ask her this question?" he laughs wickedly.
Suddenly I knew. Nothing had changed. They were there too. I am very sure. The air is scented with their presence and I walk out of the house with a song in my heart. My mother walking by my side seemed to read my thoughts. "There is a fragrance in the air, isn't it?" she says. Yes Mom, a fragrance indeed, of great memories, happy times and carefree childhood. Never look back, somebody said. But I did, and the past seemed to be my most precious possession because it belonged only to me. I ran back to the little stream in front of the house, to etch it into my memory just once more. One shining stone from under the ripples flashes enticingly in colours of gold, black and red. Perhaps it was the rays of the morning sun... I bend over and pick it up. The gleaming stone sits on my office table back at my clinic. Every time I look at it, I see the twinkle in grandpa's eyes laughing at me. "You finally found me," he seemed to say...
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