Afternoons

Afternoons are my favourite time of the day. I have so many happy and comforting memories associated with afternoons. After all, as a true blue Goan I take my afternoons, whether they involve siestas or not, very seriously. 

My earliest memories of an afternoon being a ‘safe space’ are those when I was around 5 years old, when I was staying at my maternal grandmother's house. The house which was shared with two other households is still standing and is nestled in a valley below the foothills in a tiny village. All the houses in the village are constructed around the village deity’s temple. The houses nearest to the temple belonged to the temple servants… my grandmother's house being one of them. My great grandmother being a Devdasi and most of her family members served the temple through whatever talent they possessed like dancing, singing, painting, sculpting Ganesha idols, partaking in local theatre…etc.   

While I lived in such an artistic household, there was no room for boredom but I was a picky eater and hence my mother had a hard time putting a 5 year old me at ease...nothing gave me comfort in that village except the petrichor of surrounding trees and more particularly the rustling of the leaves of the great banyan tree that stood nearby...while I was a loner I quickly befriended my grandma's cats one of whom I believed was older than my grandma herself. 

When the heavy warm winds danced into the afternoons, the languorous village folks either spent their afternoons in gossip or alcohol... I found refuge in the household next door… in the home of my grandfather's sister, a single mother of grown up girls, who worked as a nurse. Everyone calls her Tai (elder sister), even her own daughters do...she is in her late 70s now and no longer working as a a nurse. When she returned from work back then she bought me a lollipop everyday, and hence I started calling her 'Lollipop Tai'.   

Her tiny house was a treasure trove ...she had a radio cum tape recorder set, a tiny kitchen, an extended make shift kitchen outside the house walls with a huge manual grinding stone mortar that made the best masala for some delicious Xacuti. She also bought cassettes for the tape recorder.  I remember listening to A.R. Rehman's Taal soundtracks, I was in heaven. She even gifted me a Taal cassette, my most treasured gift for a long long time. But the most precious item in her tiny house for me was the table fan beside her bed.   My grandparents' house had only one fan at the time, the speed of which was questionable to say the the least... and although the Mangalore tiled roof did allow cooling, the afternoons were unbearable for the little me.   So whenever lollipop Tai used to be home on a Sunday afternoon, she  would often call me for an afternoon siesta as she knew I found solace in the breeze of the table fan.   

While most afternoons spent in the company of the table fan I would hardly drift off to sleep...the sound and the movement of the breeze it created was more than enough to make my tiny heart feel relaxed and at home. I was ever so grateful for it and as I lay there hearing the white noise of the moving fan, the occasional crackle of the coconut tree leaves  outside and an occasional motorbike crusing down the steep road outside..I breathed deep and could smell the Keo  Karpin hair oil in Tai's long but scanty hair and the occasional rustle of her glass bangles as she turned from one side to another ...it was a small room but it was an universe of comfort for the little me. Little me who had to learn the ways of the life in the village, away from city comforts...I was picky as a child but the village made sure I was looked after.