As children, we would spend long, lazy weekends at our aunt's house located all the way across the city, in a quiet residential locality, half-way up a little hillock. On those weekends, we would start our little journey with my mom, grandmom and brother packed tight in an autorickshaw, with weekend clothes, little snacks for the ride, and me perched excitedly on my mom's lap. The ride was long, shaky and rickety, taking us through strange lands – high-rise buildings with fashionable people sipping coffee and nibbling on cake, lush gardens where the elderly sauntered aimlessly, traffic lights with hundreds of cars and buses, little streets strewn with litter (and some sleepy cows and stubborn buffalos thrown in for adventure), a race course where I always hoped to see a horse peeping out through the gate, rows and rows of little shops selling food, clothes and toys - until we took a wide left and arrived at our aunt's home.
I loved visiting my aunt - there was SO much to do! To begin our weekend, my brother and I would walk at least once around the house looking for new plants in her garden (or even new flowers and buds that hadn't grown during our last visit). My favorite stop was at the mango tree where summer fruit would hang from branches, ready to fall off when the tree shook in the afternoon breeze.
I loved watching my aunt walk around the house and work in the kitchen. I've always thought of her as an industrious ant, tirelessly going about her routine, taking one thing out, replacing it with something else, noticing everything, saying very little. She has the most endearing habit of saving little bits of food for us - a little bit of chana curry she made to accompany the three chapatis for uncle (of which he ate only two-and-a-half), one "unni appam" from the temple pooja last week, a little bit of "mixture" from her friend's wedding yesterday, a little bit of tomato rice she made when visitors walked in un-announced last Friday, three (of the six) wafer biscuits she bought for the little girl next door, - all because she knows I like chana curry, my brother loves unni appam, my mom loves tomato rice and my grandmom enjoys a little snack after lunch.
Dinner was always an occasion. She would make another favorite - pooris and potato curry so we could eat it on the terrace. The planning that would go into one of those terrace dinners was truly admirable. To begin with, she would spread many sheets of newspaper on the terrace floor and place little stones on the edges to prevent them from flying away. Each one of us would get two plates - one to eat in, and one to cover our food with, in case there was a strong breeze. The pooris and potato curry would go into air-tight containers. Then there would be glasses, spoons, water, a little bit of sugar in case the kids bite into a chilly and some curd in case the sugar didn't work. We would all march up the steps, holding an item or two, settle down on the sheets of paper and start eating. Oh wait! She had to switch on the little light bulb on the terrace (we didn't want to end up eating a bug that landed on our plates!) And then of course, my aunt would jump up from the floor with no warning and run downstairs to bring those four spoons of Kesari baath that her neighbor-maami sent over last Thursday. This routine of running downstairs would repeat at least twice, and we would all wait politely for her to return. But every minute of planning and running up the stairs would be quickly forgotten as we watched the million little city lights twinkling far, far away, and bit into crisp pooris and perfectly blended potato curry. The night would end with a pointless game of identifying the source of each big or unusual light - "Utility Building!" "Cubbon Park!" "The pink building next to the LIC Office!" "I don't see any lights" (my Grandmom).
And then there was the noon-time visit that I would have waited for the most. The shepherd with his sheep and lambs! Somewhere close to noon, an old man and his sheep would come wandering by, the sheep being too pre-occupied with leaves and grass to notice where they were going. I would wait by the window for long, sleepy minutes and spring up in sheer joy upon hearing the distant tinkling of bells. I'd pull my aunt along and wait by the gate and they would arrive in tiny groups - one big dirty brown sheep and a medium-sized one, a few minutes later, a small group following the shepherd, and then finally, a couple of lambs! As they got closer, my aunt would step out, like a highway robber stopping his unsuspecting victims. She would bend over, half-walking, half-running to pick up a little lamb who would, of course, scamper off to join the mother. So I would run out too, chasing the lamb who would be bleating for dear life by now. Finally, we would approach the old grouchy shepherd and ask him for help. He would walk over and casually scoop up one of the lambs and hand them to my poor aunt who would stand there for a minute, holding a wriggling, struggling white mass of a bleating lamb. And before the lamb started chewing on her sari, she would hand it over to me. Nothing mattered more to me than those few precious seconds - yes, seconds because I would let go of the lamb before it realized it had changed hands. But I had held a lamb!! There was nothing else left to complete the weekend!
On Sunday evening, we would all head home in an autorickshaw, just like we came over two days ago. Only now, we would be taking back weekend clothes, little snacks for the ride, city lights twinkling in the night, scampering lambs, mango trees in the wind and flowers in a garden.
