ANCESTRAL HOUSE

                                                                  
                  

                                                     

OUR ANCESTRAL HOUSE

 









It was a huge, beautiful   and a very spacious house, a combination of ancient architecture with modern conveniences.. A house built by my grandparents  decades back. It was a home we used to visit at least once in a year from thousands of miles away. Located in  Ottapalam , we could not call it a village, in Kerala. It was more a sleepy town. It was often referred to as the Pensioners’ Paradise where even an Ex Ambassador, Late K P S Menon  who belonged to the southern part of Kerala ,chose to settle down .

           We used to look forward to our annual  vacation which we   would    be    spending with our grandparents and other cousins in this  house.  I remember vividly, the way my grandparents would be at  the huge gate ,waiting for us . They would of course be looking forward to the activity that would follow our arrival  .. a change in their humdrum life . For a few weeks at least, the place would be alive with the sounds and presence of young blood in full steam .For us it was the excitement of  running around the spacious house and the vast compound full of  trees- palms, jackfruit, mangoes, guavas ,custard apples etc .

 Our grandmother would regale us with stories about her childhood, marriage ,life in Burma etc. I recollect what she told us  about the efforts of  our   grandfather   in constructing the house . Grandfather personally supervised the construction of that house disregarding the scorching heat and heavy rains . Every bit of his savings and his sweat had gone into the construction of his dream house.  She told us of the efforts grandfather took , to pick  up the  granite stones for laying at the threshold of the entrance  from the vendors near Thootha river in Cherplasserry a nearby village, and how the carpenters from Trichur who were reportedly the best in the  nearby area , were brought in, for making the huge doors and reclining  high benches in the verandah. For the first time in those days, Mosaic flooring was tried in the living room and this was done manually by grinding the coloured chips   over and over again till it shone. The Belgian  glass panes for the ventilators were picked up by grandfather personally. The brass work on the doors were made  specially by artisans who worked  for the construction of temples  etc etc.The flooring in black and red oxide did not lose their sheen even after decades and we children had great fun looking at our  reflections  in it. 
  

                                  Every time I went there I discovered something new in the place and in my grandparents .With every visit I grew more attached to them and the house. None of the other grandchildren seemed to share my feelings May be that is why when  death took one and then the other of my grandparents within a span of two years  and the sons decided to sell the house ,I felt a lump in my throat .My request to retain the house  so that we could all get together once in a way seemed feeble even to my own ears .The lump only grew   and choked me when the sale deed was completed  and the family who bought it  were all excited over their new acquisition .Their little children were running all over the place  and I felt like stopping them ,shouting that  I could not bear to see them do what we children had done decades back. To think that children of strangers  whom my grandparents had never known would be  staying in the house ,which was built with so much of love and  hopes of a generation or two living together . I could almost feel my grandparents stand beside me and cry silent tears....  I  felt as though a part of my life  was dead and buried  with them...Life would of course go on...nothing is permanent .. .The transient nature of life loomed large that day before my eyes... ! Detachment ... yes we have to imbibe the meaning of that word in its essence...That lesson I learnt  with the sale of our ancestral house...