“It's so boring,” whined Arun, for the umpteenth time. No breeze came in from the open windows and doors. The sun beat down relentlessly on the block of flats that had no canopy of trees. There were a series of knocks on the door, as the power cut had started.
“Get the door, Arun,” called his mom, Mira, who was busy making, jugs of lemon juice and storing them in the now “powerless” fridge. “Maa,” yelled Aun, “Look who's here.” A bevy of laughing women trooped in. They were his aunts who had decided to visit on this hot summer morning.
Laughter and chatter filled the room as tall glasses of lemon juice, still not iced, were passed round.
“Remember Malathy, from the village, I met her at the supermarket the other day,” said Anu athai .
“Oh yeah, the one who never let us climb the mango tree and hogged all the mangoes herself,” said Rani.
“Don't close the door,” said his favourite athai Seetha, “Your uncles and your cousins are coming. They are bringing lunch for all of us.”
Soon the tiny flat resounded with laughter. rotis,pulaosraitas
“Vacation meant going to our ancestral village,” reminisced uncle. “We planned months ahead. We went by train. Two or three bullock carts met at the station and took us home.”
Dhanam chithi had a far away look in her eye, “I can still taste the lovely dinners that paati made,”
“Honestly, the vegetables were so tasty, and the ghee and curd were yum!”
“That's because the vegetables were organic and everything was homemade,” said her older sister Lakshmi.
The kids who were listening asked, “But what did you all do to pass time?”
“Oh we had lots of exciting things to do,” said Mira. “The first thing we did was to visit all our relatives. Our cousins would be waiting for us, we used to play hopscotch under the tamarind tree and take turns on the swing.”
Uncle Bala laughed as he described how they used to go swimming in the river and the village pond, with an older cousin. “What fun we had trying to catch fish with our dhotis and trying to escape the tiny fish that nibble at our toes.”
“Everyday, there was some function or the other, a festival or a village carnival,” said Rajam mami . “I tried to write all these in my diary, a special one that I had for my vacation, while Mira used to paint scenes of the village.”
“You remember that” cried Mira.
“Ma, you are an artist!” exclaimed Arun.
“But kids, you should have seen the ancestral home. It had all these secret nooks and crannies, that musty smell in some unused rooms… the inner courtyard. It was the best place to play Hide and Seek,” said Uncle Suresh.
“I once discovered a trunk, full of books in the attic, that was one of my best vacations,” said Anu athai .
“What about those wonderful games we played, the indoor ones?” asked Uncle Bala, “ Adupulli attam and pallankuzhi , wasn't it? And the koothu drama we watched, till dawn.”
There was a sudden lull in the conversation. “What fun you had as kids,” said Yasho. “Why aren't we having such fun.”
“You know, you kids like the food I cook, don't you? Well I learned to cook during the vacation.”
The doorbell rang as the electricity was restored. Walking in was Uncle Murali, waving tickets and crying out “Who wants to go to the village?”
A gabble of excited cries greeted him.
“By train?”
“I want to go in a bullock cart.”
“I want to catch fish in the river.”
“I'm going to make pickle.”
