Essay 10
Essay 10
Essay 10
Essay 10
Summer holidays
Summer holidays
Summer holidays
Summer holidays
6 Dec 2023
6 Dec 2023
6 Dec 2023
6 Dec 2023
5 MIN
5 MIN
5 MIN
5 MIN
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The placenta is a completely new organ that develops in a woman during pregnancy. It provides oxygen and nutrients to a growing baby. It is delivered when the baby is born. In some cultures, the placenta is then buried in the child’s ancestral land. It is believed it connects people to places - people will always remember that their placenta was buried there and take care of the land. My mother didn’t leave matters in the hands of the placenta. She actively forged my connection with her home over many summer holidays to my grandmother’s house.
We lived in Mumbai but every summer, we spent two weeks in Shimanthoor where my grandmother lived, an 18 hour train journey from Mumbai. My mother was born and raised here. My grandmother’s house had 3 rooms, a kitchen and an attic with a mangalore tiled roof, built sometime in the 1970s. The bathroom was in a shed next to the house where the cows and the chickens lived. The house was named after my mother, ‘Vanitha Nivas’.
My grandmother, who we called Saku douda, had partly real, partly supernatural stories about living there. She told us about the time when there were no telephones, a spirit came home and let her know her husband was safe. Or when my mother picked up a cobra thinking it was a stick and fainted. I enjoyed these stories but when the time came to go to the bathroom, you would find me running between the rooms, hoping I was faster than snakes or spirits.
The placenta is a completely new organ that develops in a woman during pregnancy. It provides oxygen and nutrients to a growing baby. It is delivered when the baby is born. In some cultures, the placenta is then buried in the child’s ancestral land. It is believed it connects people to places - people will always remember that their placenta was buried there and take care of the land. My mother didn’t leave matters in the hands of the placenta. She actively forged my connection with her home over many summer holidays to my grandmother’s house.
We lived in Mumbai but every summer, we spent two weeks in Shimanthoor where my grandmother lived, an 18 hour train journey from Mumbai. My mother was born and raised here. My grandmother’s house had 3 rooms, a kitchen and an attic with a mangalore tiled roof, built sometime in the 1970s. The bathroom was in a shed next to the house where the cows and the chickens lived. The house was named after my mother, ‘Vanitha Nivas’.
My grandmother, who we called Saku douda, had partly real, partly supernatural stories about living there. She told us about the time when there were no telephones, a spirit came home and let her know her husband was safe. Or when my mother picked up a cobra thinking it was a stick and fainted. I enjoyed these stories but when the time came to go to the bathroom, you would find me running between the rooms, hoping I was faster than snakes or spirits.
The placenta is a completely new organ that develops in a woman during pregnancy. It provides oxygen and nutrients to a growing baby. It is delivered when the baby is born. In some cultures, the placenta is then buried in the child’s ancestral land. It is believed it connects people to places - people will always remember that their placenta was buried there and take care of the land. My mother didn’t leave matters in the hands of the placenta. She actively forged my connection with her home over many summer holidays to my grandmother’s house.
We lived in Mumbai but every summer, we spent two weeks in Shimanthoor where my grandmother lived, an 18 hour train journey from Mumbai. My mother was born and raised here. My grandmother’s house had 3 rooms, a kitchen and an attic with a mangalore tiled roof, built sometime in the 1970s. The bathroom was in a shed next to the house where the cows and the chickens lived. The house was named after my mother, ‘Vanitha Nivas’.
My grandmother, who we called Saku douda, had partly real, partly supernatural stories about living there. She told us about the time when there were no telephones, a spirit came home and let her know her husband was safe. Or when my mother picked up a cobra thinking it was a stick and fainted. I enjoyed these stories but when the time came to go to the bathroom, you would find me running between the rooms, hoping I was faster than snakes or spirits.
Saku douda had a few acres of land surrounding this house. On this land grew coconuts, rice, betel nut and some cashew. She had worked on the farm all her life and was a taskmaster. If she saw a child looking free or bored, there was always something that could be cleaned or sorted or plucked. Like cashews.
Cashews (’beeja’) grow on trees at the end of a fruit that looks like a capsicum (red and yellow). A sickle (’kathi’) is tied to the end of a very long bamboo (’todank’) which is then used to pluck the fruits off the trees. Once you have successfully plucked a cashew fruit from the tree, you separate the cashew fruit and the nut. The fruit is edible and sweet but its juice can stain your clothes forever. So while you ate it, you had to stand at an angle that ensured the juice didn’t flow down your arms onto your clothes.
My brothers, my mama (uncle) and I would walk through the land looking for cashew fruits. Only my mama could successfully wield a todank. So my brothers and I would throw stones at the tree and hope a fruit would fall. Once in a while while looking for cashews, we would see a snake either hanging off a branch or slithering away on the ground. We would try to remember its colour and its markings, so that when we got home, our mother could tell us if the snake had been poisonous and whether we had been in danger.
Most of these traditions continued till my brothers started working and there was no concept of a summer holiday anymore. By then, I had also turned 16 and was not as excited about a train ride to the village. In 2017, Saku douda got very sick and stayed with us in Mumbai for a few years. When the doctors decided there was nothing more to be done, my mother decided to take her back home. A few months later, Saku douda passed away surrounded by her children. That year, my mother decided to move back to Shimanthoor. Now, my mother lives on the land that she grew up on but the house is new, more modern. My brothers and I live in Bangalore which is 45 mins by flight so we see her more often than she saw her mom. But when I visit her, I still run between rooms when I am alone.
There is a photo taken by a 5 year old me - it is a photo of my mother and my brothers sitting next to her in front of ‘Vanitha Nivas’. You can also see the saree clad legs of my douda. My mother is 31 years old in this photo, as old as I am now. When I think of those summers, I realise they were as much her homecoming as they were ours. For those two weeks every year, her children got to know her mother and her home. And she was back where she belonged.
Saku douda had a few acres of land surrounding this house. On this land grew coconuts, rice, betel nut and some cashew. She had worked on the farm all her life and was a taskmaster. If she saw a child looking free or bored, there was always something that could be cleaned or sorted or plucked. Like cashews.
Cashews (’beeja’) grow on trees at the end of a fruit that looks like a capsicum (red and yellow). A sickle (’kathi’) is tied to the end of a very long bamboo (’todank’) which is then used to pluck the fruits off the trees. Once you have successfully plucked a cashew fruit from the tree, you separate the cashew fruit and the nut. The fruit is edible and sweet but its juice can stain your clothes forever. So while you ate it, you had to stand at an angle that ensured the juice didn’t flow down your arms onto your clothes.
My brothers, my mama (uncle) and I would walk through the land looking for cashew fruits. Only my mama could successfully wield a todank. So my brothers and I would throw stones at the tree and hope a fruit would fall. Once in a while while looking for cashews, we would see a snake either hanging off a branch or slithering away on the ground. We would try to remember its colour and its markings, so that when we got home, our mother could tell us if the snake had been poisonous and whether we had been in danger.
Most of these traditions continued till my brothers started working and there was no concept of a summer holiday anymore. By then, I had also turned 16 and was not as excited about a train ride to the village. In 2017, Saku douda got very sick and stayed with us in Mumbai for a few years. When the doctors decided there was nothing more to be done, my mother decided to take her back home. A few months later, Saku douda passed away surrounded by her children. That year, my mother decided to move back to Shimanthoor. Now, my mother lives on the land that she grew up on but the house is new, more modern. My brothers and I live in Bangalore which is 45 mins by flight so we see her more often than she saw her mom. But when I visit her, I still run between rooms when I am alone.
There is a photo taken by a 5 year old me - it is a photo of my mother and my brothers sitting next to her in front of ‘Vanitha Nivas’. You can also see the saree clad legs of my douda. My mother is 31 years old in this photo, as old as I am now. When I think of those summers, I realise they were as much her homecoming as they were ours. For those two weeks every year, her children got to know her mother and her home. And she was back where she belonged.
Saku douda had a few acres of land surrounding this house. On this land grew coconuts, rice, betel nut and some cashew. She had worked on the farm all her life and was a taskmaster. If she saw a child looking free or bored, there was always something that could be cleaned or sorted or plucked. Like cashews.
Cashews (’beeja’) grow on trees at the end of a fruit that looks like a capsicum (red and yellow). A sickle (’kathi’) is tied to the end of a very long bamboo (’todank’) which is then used to pluck the fruits off the trees. Once you have successfully plucked a cashew fruit from the tree, you separate the cashew fruit and the nut. The fruit is edible and sweet but its juice can stain your clothes forever. So while you ate it, you had to stand at an angle that ensured the juice didn’t flow down your arms onto your clothes.
My brothers, my mama (uncle) and I would walk through the land looking for cashew fruits. Only my mama could successfully wield a todank. So my brothers and I would throw stones at the tree and hope a fruit would fall. Once in a while while looking for cashews, we would see a snake either hanging off a branch or slithering away on the ground. We would try to remember its colour and its markings, so that when we got home, our mother could tell us if the snake had been poisonous and whether we had been in danger.
Most of these traditions continued till my brothers started working and there was no concept of a summer holiday anymore. By then, I had also turned 16 and was not as excited about a train ride to the village. In 2017, Saku douda got very sick and stayed with us in Mumbai for a few years. When the doctors decided there was nothing more to be done, my mother decided to take her back home. A few months later, Saku douda passed away surrounded by her children. That year, my mother decided to move back to Shimanthoor. Now, my mother lives on the land that she grew up on but the house is new, more modern. My brothers and I live in Bangalore which is 45 mins by flight so we see her more often than she saw her mom. But when I visit her, I still run between rooms when I am alone.
There is a photo taken by a 5 year old me - it is a photo of my mother and my brothers sitting next to her in front of ‘Vanitha Nivas’. You can also see the saree clad legs of my douda. My mother is 31 years old in this photo, as old as I am now. When I think of those summers, I realise they were as much her homecoming as they were ours. For those two weeks every year, her children got to know her mother and her home. And she was back where she belonged.
Saku douda had a few acres of land surrounding this house. On this land grew coconuts, rice, betel nut and some cashew. She had worked on the farm all her life and was a taskmaster. If she saw a child looking free or bored, there was always something that could be cleaned or sorted or plucked. Like cashews.
Cashews (’beeja’) grow on trees at the end of a fruit that looks like a capsicum (red and yellow). A sickle (’kathi’) is tied to the end of a very long bamboo (’todank’) which is then used to pluck the fruits off the trees. Once you have successfully plucked a cashew fruit from the tree, you separate the cashew fruit and the nut. The fruit is edible and sweet but its juice can stain your clothes forever. So while you ate it, you had to stand at an angle that ensured the juice didn’t flow down your arms onto your clothes.
My brothers, my mama (uncle) and I would walk through the land looking for cashew fruits. Only my mama could successfully wield a todank. So my brothers and I would throw stones at the tree and hope a fruit would fall. Once in a while while looking for cashews, we would see a snake either hanging off a branch or slithering away on the ground. We would try to remember its colour and its markings, so that when we got home, our mother could tell us if the snake had been poisonous and whether we had been in danger.
Most of these traditions continued till my brothers started working and there was no concept of a summer holiday anymore. By then, I had also turned 16 and was not as excited about a train ride to the village. In 2017, Saku douda got very sick and stayed with us in Mumbai for a few years. When the doctors decided there was nothing more to be done, my mother decided to take her back home. A few months later, Saku douda passed away surrounded by her children. That year, my mother decided to move back to Shimanthoor. Now, my mother lives on the land that she grew up on but the house is new, more modern. My brothers and I live in Bangalore which is 45 mins by flight so we see her more often than she saw her mom. But when I visit her, I still run between rooms when I am alone.
There is a photo taken by a 5 year old me - it is a photo of my mother and my brothers sitting next to her in front of ‘Vanitha Nivas’. You can also see the saree clad legs of my douda. My mother is 31 years old in this photo, as old as I am now. When I think of those summers, I realise they were as much her homecoming as they were ours. For those two weeks every year, her children got to know her mother and her home. And she was back where she belonged.
Footnotes:
1 I learnt about the placenta from “Everybody’s got one”, an amazing story by Radiolab about motherhood and the human body.
2 I belong to one of the few matrilineal cultures in India. So my maternal grandmother’s house was indeed my home.
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It will be a reminder to stop scrolling and read something fun.
FEEL FREE TO REACH OUT IF YOU HAVE ANY THOUGHTS OR JUST WANT TO SAY HI.
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It will be a reminder to stop scrolling and read something fun.
FEEL FREE TO REACH OUT IF YOU HAVE ANY THOUGHTS OR JUST WANT TO SAY HI.
Design/dev by @itsiddharth
Get a mail everytime a post goes up.
It will be a reminder to stop scrolling and read something fun.
FEEL FREE TO REACH OUT IF YOU HAVE ANY THOUGHTS OR JUST WANT TO SAY HI.
Design/dev by @itsiddharth