Sunlight seems to be in a pensive
mood today at Chalisseri. The house stands like a small pet dog, cute and
fragile – even in the depressed sunlight. The house seems a bit offbeat in the
symphony of nature around the village. But then I figure out that all other
houses nestled in between the coconut and areca nut groves are all somewhat
similar in stature and structure – all out of tune with the surroundings.
Am home. The Chalisseri home.
Well the Chalisseri House. 6 months ago I had seen this house when it came up
from a desolate ruin to this humble simple structure that tried to recapture
the simple essence of the famous Kottapurathe House – the simple subsistence
like essence of Amminiamma, my grandmother. Yes I slept that night under the
new roof, all the time longing for a ‘feeling’. My dad was smiling away in
sleep. He saw this house as his footprint on his land. His footprint that he
hoped would be indelible unlike the paddy fields which he owned but didn’t till,
unlike the Guruvayur ancestral house which he was born in but never lived
beyond his teens, unlike the Baroda house which he created in a far off land
away from his roots. This Chalisseri house
was his claim at belonging.
I didn’t realize although I understood.
More than realize I thought I must become aware. And that is what took me back
to chalisseri. Am spending the day here again, this time alone. I paid for some
expenses of the house and the whole housing loan with which this structure was
built is in my name. I feel the walls, the windows and the breeze that wafts in
through them. In solitude I try to understand what I feel. I don’t know what I should
feel ! Pride? Satisfaction? Responsibility? Indebtedness? Gratitude? Happiness? – all occur
to me, but they do not stay. It’s a momentary feeling I get but then these
feelings are driven by my thoughts. I want to feel with my heart, that feeling
which stays.
The saplings planted by my parents
have started to leave infancy and the coconut trees around might find some interesting
herbs surrounding them in a year’s time. I walk around the pond in the orchard
and then look back at my house from a distance. Suddenly I think of M T
Vasudevan Nair. Haven’t the Malayalam literary greats written their
masterpieces sitting in surroundings like these? In fact MT Vasudevan Nair’s
house is just a few kilometers away and Chalisseri finds a mention in almost
all his works. I too get a sense of how I
might also be able to exercise my mind matter in this house. I rush inside,
take my laptop and open the windows. I am ready to type away. I have the sun outside and
the breeze besides, the companionship of the solitude within Nature makes you
think of many things that never occur to you in the melee of the urban paraphernalia.
It’s when you reach such lonely
places, that you start thinking of things that scare you. Sitting in a train
besides the window also does that to me. It scares me that the thoughts that
never occurred to me in the city start popping up in the mind with alarming
frequency. Its vain to complain of a ‘writer’s block’ when in Kerala. There is
so much to think about and write. That is when I start typing this. Even as I write
this, there are other topics that pop up and I furiously make note on my phone,
lest I forget.
I take a break after an hour. I step
out. The hot air hits my face. The call for tea from my uncle’s house nearby
comes at the right time. I need tea. I walk past the gate, through the narrow
mud path and look back at the house. I smile. I have found peace. I have found responsibility
but at the same time I think I have given an even bigger responsibility to the
house. It knows that I will return once again and look for inspiration. The house has the responsibility to inspire
me, whenever I return after my failings in the city. It’s a connect. A communion of a structure
with a man’s heart and mind. To inspire is not easy but what I have left behind
for the House to contemplate is whether it has the character to aspire to
inspire.
When the house builds that
character in itself, that is when I think I will feel the house. We will see how the house fares in its quest
when I return later someday.
