Our house dates back to the nineties; compared to today's modern homes, it's rather antiquated, to say the least. Yet in every corner of this house, I find a kind of happiness tinged with ache.
I have a small rooftop adjacent to my balcony, where we once had a large garden. People in the neighborhood knew our house as "the garden house." Back then, the area wasn't so crowded either. Later, to avoid land-related disputes, the garden was destroyed and a smaller house was built, part of whose roof touches my balcony.
On the roof, Mother has planted many kinds of trees. We all share a love for planting. The garden was on the southern side. There's an iron staircase from my balcony. The stairs were installed to access the garden. When the garden existed, every winter Father would prepare flower beds for my sister and me to plant seedlings. While still in school, I used to buy lots of plants every month. I still buy them, though not every month—there's simply no space left to plant them!
Once the flower beds were ready, how many colored flowers we would plant there! And winter is naturally a flowering season anyway. Dahlias, chrysanthemums, sunflowers, calendulas, zinnias, phlox, cosmos of many colors, marigolds, vincas, and so many more...! Father and Mother would plant vegetables and fruit trees. Our garden was surrounded by lemon and guava trees. There were 35 lemon trees alone and 26 guava trees. Every evening we'd all go down the southern stairs, each watering their own plants; then Father, my sister, and I would play badminton together.
Sometimes Mother might plant a bottle gourd seedling, and Father, trying to care for it too zealously, would kill it by putting fresh cow dung at its base, and Mother would start her shouting and scolding. Watching all this, we'd laugh ourselves silly, and Father would smile sheepishly but never admit his mistake, which would make Mother even angrier! If men would just admit their mistakes, women would calm down so easily—why can't men understand this simple thing?
During morning walks, to make us walk faster, Father would say, "Let's see who can reach that point first!" Coming home, we'd have breakfast before going to school, and breakfast always included that foul-smelling fruit, banana. My sister would eat it happily because she liked bananas. But I was told I couldn't go to school unless I ate the banana. I would cry and wail while eating it, because I couldn't even imagine missing school, not even if my life depended on it. Before bed at night, I had to drink a glass of milk, or Father would tie me to a chair. I'd hold my breath in fear and gulp it down.
After my sister got married, I became mentally unsettled. She was my best friend. Subconsciously I was probably thinking about those things, missing her, but I didn't have the maturity then to understand it consciously. I'd stay up nights, couldn't sleep; I had a habit of sleeping curled up with her. Gradually, I developed neurological problems.
It's been almost nine years now since she got married. That calm, peaceful girl is now the restless, harried mother of three little ones. Ha ha ha ha... Somehow girls suddenly transform from daughters to mothers!
Today she's a seasoned homemaker, a loving mother, a virtuous ideal wife. I've lost her somewhere among all those "ifs" and "buts."
Sometimes at dawn or in the fading evening, I go sit in a corner of the roof. Today too I sat there for a long time in the afternoon; no one was home. Even now the southern breeze plays through my hair, but in that lifeless wind, some ache of separation keeps echoing. After losing everything, one by one, a person eventually becomes still.
Alas! How quickly time passes... It feels like just yesterday! Everything that has vanished still floats before my eyes. There—restless, anxious me and calm, peaceful sister watering the jasmine and marigold plants, playing badminton, chewing guavas...