That was our Nani's house. In those days I often used to wonder why do we call our nanihaal Nani's home when I never saw Nani. Nani was never there as she was dead long before I was born. Looking at her picture I always thought how beautiful Nani would have been, her calm and loving face reminded me of the goddesses whose statues I used to see in temples.. unblemished round face, beautiful big eyes, red bindi and always a pallu over her head. Whenever I asked my mother, uncles and aunts they would talk of her as if she was a saint who loved everyone.. kind, caring for one and all. Oh! how much I wished Nani was there to love us, play with us and give us choicest of food.. sweets, halwa, puri, aam ras and whatever you could ask for. But Nani was with the god, I was told and she is watching us play and feeling happy. She would come in my dreams and talk and play with me, love me and be with me to give me what I missed during the day.
Nani's house had a perron ( a chabootara/ platform) in the front right next to it was a thoroughfare but in those days it was quiet even during the day, the only traffic was either a bullock cart or a horse carriage some cycles and occasional scooters and rarely a car passing through it. We would look forward to summer holidays when school will close and we would go to Nani's house. it was such fun, everyone would pay lot of attention to you, talk to you, care for you, at least for the first couple of weeks before they get busy with their chores and start ignoring.. but not me, being youngest I was always the cynosure of everyone. Although I never took any advantage of my VIP status I always enjoyed that attention. After a long day that would start soon after the sunrise and end well after the dinners. We would play in the playground of the school next to the house with friends who would not have gone to their Nani's place for some reason or other. At the end of the day tired all the kids (my siblings and cousins) and one or two elders would sleep outside on the chabootara.. unlike these days traffic won't disturb us and we will have undisturbed sleep till the sun starts bothering us.
I must have been 10 or less and had a school friend from village whose elder brother, also a friend was his late teens and married. He had some relation from his wife's side who lived 4 or 5 kilometers from Nani's house. One day he arrived just after breakfast, must have been late morning and after he had tea he mentioned that he is going to meet his relations who lived in the suburban area, it was a village next to the town . I was very excited and told him I will also join him, but it made no sense either to him or to people at home, so he quietly sneaked from the house when I went inside for something.
Realising he has gone, I decided to walk to the village. Everyone home was busy doing something or other and no one noticed when I left home and started walking in the direction my friend had gone on his bicycle. Only thing I knew was that he was going to a village near Balgarh. Balgarh had a textile mill and next to the mill there was a residential colony meant for staff and officers. There may have been several villages near Balgarh but it never occurred to me and I was confident that I will catch my friend and after meeting his relations we will come back home. I must have walked for nearly an hour when I realised that I actually don't know where I was going, I had no address, no name of the village, no name of the relation of my friend but I kept heading in the direction, as the road didn't turn anywhere and I reached Balgarh when the road had split. This point was right next to residential colony of the textile mill. While I was weighing my options to chose the road I noticed my uncle's friend Prakash. He was shocked to see me there and asked as to what was I doing there. When he learnt the purpose and my confused state, he was sure I was heading for a disaster. Somehow he convinced me to turn around and go back home after he was sure that I remember the way back.
Back on the road dejected that I didn't meet my friend I started on my return journey and reached home in another hour or so. And gosh!! Everyone was looking for me not knowing what had happened and where I had disappeared without telling anyone. Suddenly, I found my VIP status had melted and everyone started pouncing on me all at once.
It has been over 50 years but I still remember my daring and ambitious mission that ended in a good bashing.
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