DAY 150

As years pass by I realize that I yearn for all those things that I once shunned in my childhood.

Though I am a native of Kerala, I was born and brought up in Chennai.
A Chennai of independent houses, trees in the backyard, space for the children to play badminton, police&robbers, seven stones etc.
A Chennai that was not dotted with pigeon-hole apartments and city-like malls.

We had a Neem tree, along with other trees, in the front of our house. It canopied the verandah of my house.

In summer, my mother would clean the verandah thoroughly with soap and water in the mornings, wipe it dry and then spread the traditional South Indian mats. It needed around 4 mats to cover that particular spot.

On my return from school in the evening, I would find these mats blanketed by small white flowers with a dot-of-a-yellow-centre. Neem flowers. It looked beautiful, like a white carpet with yellow polka dots.

Then I would remember why those flowers were there in the first place. Unconsciously, my nose would crinkle up and I would go "Yucky".....The reason being, mom collected these flowers to make a sweet and sour pachadi. It was a rage with the neighbors. They loved it. And mom was ready to dish out bowls of pachadi to them.
But I hated it. "It is good for your health," she would say. And I would pretend that she was talking to me in Latin.

Years rolled by. I grew up. Mom grew old. Chennai changed. Neem trees were replaced by poky-cactus in a plastic bowl, by the windowsill in pigeon-hole-apartments. We left Chennai. And the Neem trees became a thing of the past. I see many trees in Bangalore, but haven't seen a Neem tree for long.

During these long years, I remember yearning for the same Neem Pachadi that I once loathed.

The yearnings have grown stronger. I think it is not the pachadi, but a desire to hold on to the beautiful moments of a childhood, which now seems like I lived only in a dream.