Our Home For The Last Three Years

A tribute to a house I'd grown to love so much....Aster, Rajaprakruthi. And a memory of the experience being tucked away for posterity.

To go back three years.....right from the effort of searching for a house. It had been a focused effort at finding that one place, where the moment you walk in you just know...this is it. I'd seen atleast fifteen houses before I found this.

At that point I hadn't realized how deep that 'This is it' was going to get.

That's Aster from the pool side

This is dawn from my favorite seat on my couch.

Diksha with cat, who adopted us almost soon as we moved in. She came in as a squiggly little kitten, who seemed so traumatized, that initially he would hiss at us even when we went to feed her. It was a slow trust building process....and over the years went on to her bringing in her kittens for us to look after.

Just a perspective I wanted

When skittles (group name for the kittens) were little (for scale, see same shelf above) there's three of them there....that's how little they were

A favorite flower...it's called violet flower (it in fact also comes in white and is still called violet flower. I firmly believe I willed this into the garden. I could see it on the street behind but couldn't find it any nursery around, and over a few months, to my utter amazement, I saw it had found it's way into our garden

Diksha hula hooping in the drawing room

A forever moment....I come home from class and find this b'day gift from Diksha in my room.... plants and a scented candle, she sure knows me

That's Jayamma, who in addition to the work she did so well, worked so hard at teaching me kannada..and over the three years did a fairly good job. I can get by decently well now.

Saroja, always soft and gentle ....who cooked the yummiest food for us. Got her to make chicken biryani on the last day, and it was mind blowing, and what's best.... simple in recipe too, so like Saroja

And Rangappa, with the quintessential green fingers, and that ready smile. When I said my bye, he was like..."Once in a while I might call you, it's okay no". Well.....just added to my touching farewells.

Loki and Pradeep, my local kirana store

Diksha in a playful moment in the garden ( before the kittens made it less green :)

When some plants were getting ready to move with us...look at that look in his eyes,,,,skippy just knew we were leaving. The sixth sense is so real. He in fact scratched diksha...something he'd never done before.

I write so much about the house, not just because it was beautiful, and has so many lovely memories........but also because it was deeply meaningful time spent there. No exaggeration.....each day I turned the key in the door was a moment of gratitude and joy.

Saroja and Jayamma had this to say:

"amma....nanu althaidini, neevu nagtha hothidira...namana bitu hogthidira..eliduru chanageiri, namanna nenisukoli"

(we are crying at your leaving, and you're laughing ..... wherever you are, be well and think of us). They wouldn't believe it wasn't easy for me too......

Now to start afresh.....yet another phase of life