Aji
Ko Kothi
I often think of my aji's
(grandmother's) cottage in the mountains in Kurseong. The tall
gates opened onto a broad stone stairway that led to the
rambling cottage. A stone wall adorned with myriads of
daisies meandered down the garden path. The aroma of roses,
orchids, camellias, lilies and mint assailed the senses. It
was not exactly a manicured garden. Our school gardener
brought my aji seeds and gardening tips. All the servants took
part in tending it and made sure my aji always had flowers for
her "Puja kotha" (worship/prayer room) and so the garden
bloomed.
The drawing room, ineptly
named the "Rose kamra" (the Rose room) was furnished with
mahogany and lace tie-back curtains, ablaze with pink, white
and scarlet cacti blossoms in tall brass vases and an
intricately designed brass table in the center with miniature
carved brass animals placed around it at random.
The music room is where we
spent much of our time, listening to records or radio plays on
the enormous radio/ gramophone machine, or reading books from
the glass cased book cupboard. From that room we were
transported to the world of fact and fantasy. There was no
television
The bedrooms were furnished
with nostalgic brass beds covered with soft handmade quilts
and lace counterpanes. The nightstands besides the beds held
drinking water jars covered with hand crocheted doilies with
glass beads that tinkled.
The dining room floor had a
lived in squeaky sound. Maybe it was because of the enormous
oak table and the antique mirrored buffet/china cabinet.
We played hop-scotch on rainy
days on the tiled floor of the long narrow hallway on the
ground floor. The windows running along its entire length
always made it bright and cheery. The extra bedrooms
downstairs were ideal for hide and seek games.
Every god in the Hindu
pantheon, the Lord Buddha, pictures of various saints and
sages, a couple of small gilt-edged pictures of the Lady of
Fatima and The Sacred Heart that one of the kids had given my
"aji" filled her Puja kotha. They all looked down benevolently
upon an assortment of containers filled with "maha" and "pahar
ko ghiu"; (honey and ghee from the mountains) brought to her
by the Brahmin priests from the remote pahars of Nepal, her
homemade achars (chutneys) and "mithai" (sweets), huge tins of
biscuits (cookies) and dates and cashews and pistachios that
she used to buy from a Kabuliwalla from Kabul who stopped by
every summer on his annual trading trip to the India.
The aroma of home-cooking
wafted from the kitchen window as we spent our blissful
holidays stringing daisies, playing among the tea bushes,
listening to music, reading, and savoring the panoramic view
of the twin hills beyond the little town and the plains below,
the snowcapped Kanchenjunga range and the breath-taking
sunsets. I loved that house and earnestly believed those
idyllic days would last for ever and ever.
My mother inherited the
cottage when my aji passed away. By then I and some of my
siblings had grown up and many of us had gone away to those
far off places we had read about in the music room. A couple
of them were still quite little. My parents had other
responsibilities. The cottage was "mothballed". "Aunty" would
air it out occasionally. She kept the garden going the best
she could. My mother did not want to part with the cottage and
the memories it held. I was too far away to do anything about
it. The old house had faded in everyone else's memory
One cold winter's day the
dining room floor collapsed. Concerned relatives and neighbors
were full of advice. My mother realized she had to do
something about the house once and for all. She made a trip
back, gave away almost everything it held, saved a few relics
and flew back to Kathmandu, never to return.
There are no antique brass
beds and tinkling crochets doilies anymore, no Puja Kotha.
There is no Rose Kamra with scarlet blossoms and lace
curtains. But there are still the snow capped mountains and the
sunsets, the stone wall covered with daisies and there is
still the laughter of children.
My "Aji ko kothi" is now a school for orphans.
