Home for a Sunday

My favourite place on Sunday mornings is at the computer in my father's study. It's a small room, the eastern wall lined with windows making it bright. The light, colourful curtains make it cheerful. The well outside the windows keeps it cool. When I'm away in Bangalore, I miss this room the most. I'm home for the weekend now, and let me tell you, just one day here, and all the tension of work and the late nights and the pressure of keeping up with deadlines have disappeared. Sure, I know they're waiting there at the end of Wednesday morning's flight, but for the moment, I have my life and my self back. Yes, I do enjoy my work, but on and off, I love a day off to come home and relax, soaking in the peace, the silence of Sunday broken only by the occassional cheeping and chattering from the birds on the guava tree. And oh yes, the gurgles from the little baby boy who seems to have taken over the lives of all the adults in the house.

It's lovely to have a little one in the house and because he was such an unexpected miracle, everyone enjoys him all the more. Little as he is, he is already such an individual. At five months, my youngest nephew has established that he is expressive and that while he is happy playing by himself for a while, one of us had better pick him up or talk to him once in a way, or else spend the rest of the hour pacifying him until he stops his sad wailing.

His older brother, the suddenly grown up ten year old, has such a responsible air about him. Even when he's playing or watching TV, some part of him is alert for the sounds his little brother makes. He's made the adjustment from being the youngest grandchild in the family to being a responsible older brother so quickly and so surely. it made me proud to see my little jujube setting his feet so firmly on the road to growing up.

I wonder whether I should come home more often.

Home?

On the flight back to Bangalore, the day after Christmas, I struck up a conversation with a group of vacationers. Somewhere during the conversation one of them asked me whether I was going home after a holiday. I was amazed at the vehemence with which I said "No".

I live in Bangalore. I like Bangalore. I love Cochin. Cochin is home.

The library at home

I'm back at home for Christmas and as usual, I've been browsing the bookshelves trying to find an old favourite. I didn't find the book I wanted to read, but I did spend quite a lot of time among the shelves looking for it. The library is still unfinished really, because I haven't been able to decide the look I want for it. Cozy and comfortable, definitely, so I think I'll stick with terracotta tiles, just like I did for the kitchen and pantry.

Here's what I see in my mind when I plan the library.

My grandfather's bookshelf, which I love, for the old books.

Armchairs with soft cushions, just the right kind for chatting and lolling about in.

The lavender and beige carpet with the roses.

Large floor cushions, tempting my guests to flop down on the floor and read.

On one wall my cousin's painting, which she painted for my mother many years ago, in sunshine yellow and summer blue.

A bank of wooden shelves against one wall, for all my books.

A small wooden step ladder for taking down books from the top shelves.

A writing table, with a hard-backed wooden chair.

My grandmother's small wooden cupboard, for keepsakes and diaries.

Window curtains of cream and dull gold, with accents in red.

Framed photographs near the study door.

One large blackboard for scribbling.

What I'm not sure about

Whether I should leave the tiles unpolished.

Am undecided about having a TV in the room.

I don't know when I'm going to get around to doing this, because I need to take time off for it. Which is not going to happen for a few more months anyway, at least until the job is no longer a new job. I'm just lucky I got time off for Christmas. And I'm enjoying the festivities at home. I hope you're all having a great holiday too. Merry Christmas!

I'm a Greek goddess and so is my house

Just answered this quiz on FB on Greek goddesses and as it turns out, I'm Hestia. Hestia is the compassionate carer among the Olympians. She was the eldest (which I'm not) but when re-born, became the youngest (which i am). But, eldest, or youngest, her family was important to her (ditto, again). Keeping them warm, safe and happy was something she took on herself. And thus, she became the Goddess of the Hearth.

If some of you are wondering why I'm posting inane stuff about facebook quizzes, there's a reason. Somewhere in a previous post, I've written about my pretty little house which I moved into last year. I needed to name it, which was easy really. I'd decided the name for my house when I was about eight and read King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table for the first time. Avalon. I just knew it. For sure. For ever and always. The rest of this post will prove why no one should take my forever-and-always vows at face value. I'm fickle. In love with a name for a house for 32 years and when the house comes along I change my mind about the name.

Now, as at least some of you reading this blog know, I grew up in a large rambling house that my grandfather built. Growing up in it was fun. It had nooks and crannies which most people didn't even know existed. It had staircases, inside and outside, wooden and concrete, regular and spiral, it had verandahs and terraces, sloping tiled roofs, terracotta tiled floors and red, blue and green oxide floors with mirror finishes, and (and this is where my pretty little house comes into the picture) my grandmother's great big huge kitchen, which many years later became my pretty little house. As a cousin put it, "Oh my God, one lady's kitchen has become another's house."

My grandmother's domain began at the pantry door. If you'd visited my childhood home you would have stepped from the dining room into the pantry and into a world of buzzing activity. To start off with, you'd have seen my grandmother sitting on her chaise lounge in the pantry (I kid you not, she had a chaise lounge in the pantry).

You'd have gone on to see the rest of the pantry (which remains my pantry) with the very functional, very very functional, old, slightly chipped sink (which I have retained) and the bathroom (where all of us were bathed as infants with all the attendant parapharnelia), which is now my my kitchen. The kitchens (all of them) have become the drawing-cum-dining room, and the stores and the attics (all of them) have become bedrooms. The old wooden stair to the attic (I retained this) leads to the upstairs bedrooms now. An enclosed terrace above the pantry has become my library and an old bathroom is now my study.

It's a cosy house, my pretty little house, and somehow, somewhere, the name Avalon, with all its royal connections seemed out of place. And so I began searching for a name. I knew that the kitchen connection had to be there, so I started off with Kusini, which means kitchen, but it didn't really appeal to me. I tried out various words meaning kitchen, cooking, food and so on. But no, nothing seemed to click. I read, and i browsed, and i talked to people, and drove a couple of friends, and my poor long-suffering parents up the wall with my search for the perfect name.

And then one day, while I was feeding the fish (yeah, I got more and they're doing pretty well in the well), it came to me. A pretty name. A short name. A meaningful name.

"Hestia"

Hestia, the Greek goddess of the hearth.

And there, I had found the perfect name for my pretty little house which used to be my grandmother's kitchen.