1086

1086(please read it as “ten eighty six”)….and please ONLY read it that way ……..the house named Saikrupa…..is now a history in our lives…. Pre-1989….we travelled in 2 buses…mom, sangu and I…first in a BMTC(which was BTS at that time) to cash pharmacy and then took 161D to get down at BTM 16th main(this was pre-udupi garden time). We watched the foundation and then the walls come up. We brought tiffin boxes with food in it and had our lunch at neighbour’s house…. In 1989 we moved into the BTM layout area….when it was deserted…..I could not go to National Public Schools because the buses dint come “so far outside Bangalore”…. We used to stand and try to locate our house in the BDA layout map which stood at the end of the road(where now Hopcoms stands) We moved in when there was still no power in the house and newly polished floors….with mom’s chosen pink and yellow mosaic tiles(the biggest hit of the decade as people could not stop praising her innovativeness)…athai and athimber were there to help us….we wrapped school books in the dark…every person had a hard fall on the floor due to the slipperiness…..(except athimber of course….:)) We could almost see straight through to the bus stop as there was hardly any civilization around. We mostly had parthenium as our neighbours. We just had the 4 houses in our row that stood all alone with the dusty mud road in the front. Every visitor who came home lost the directions and went into 2^nd stage….auto drivers never knew the existence of a 1^st stage…and if they came…they would ask for additional money.. there was a 13th main in the middle and our addres said 16th main and many people missed the route because of this sub-main. We had 3 rooms and 2 bathrooms…..Sangu and I shared a room and now were grown up to sleep in our “OWN” room…we also had a thatha room where thatha stayed(atleast…for as long as he was there)….After thatha…I shifted into and out of the room several timesJ… We had a dining leading to the kitchen and then a store room….it was our crying hide out…mostly for sangu…if she was crying…then you can find her there!! AICOBO nagar…the bank officers colony just a few roads away was like a dreamland with organized houses within the layout…we loved walking through those roads which actually had “TAR” on it and had trees on the sides… The nearest shopping place was jayanagar 9th block and 4th block was considered as city center by us. Sudarshan Vidya Mandir.,…our school…helped us with buses until our road…. We have seen 2 murders(men hanging on to tress) and run away without looking too much in the direction of the crowd that surrounded. Ramamoorthy thatha helped us build a nice garden and amma and appa did a great job maintaining it….we had plants with areas marked for each and openings between each territory so that the water could flow(paathi)…..like a field….every coloured rose, brinjals, tomato, chilli, double beans, avaraikkai,lemon, jamine flowers, all types of hibiscus, cacti, beatle leaves…..these were just a few in the list….the backyard had pomegranate and curry leaves along with the flowering December plant(purple flowers) with which we learnt to tie flowers together….Not to forget the rock garden that we made…I am glad we still have a few pictures of it… We went to the bharathnatyam class in AICOBO nagar and managed to make a few friends there..dint last too long tho.. Amma made some of her interior designing skills come into action and we had plants inside the house…every Sunday we brought it out to the sit out area…..oh that area was another beauty…with a marble pillar… One or two…no…thousands and millions of memories ….. Oh…the lawn…we tried all sorts of lawn and made an area outside the garage specifically for it….never worked out…then we had greens(edible) which were put in the shape of “Om sri sai ram”…..how much we had leveraged and eaten from our gardens…..not countable… What about the 2 beautiful coconut trees…..we have reaped coconuts out of it for so many of our functions…we have given away so many coconuts to so many people….not sure how many people appreciated the fact…but it was not easy…..how much coconut water we have had from it…..oh…..i miss them… Then they laid the roads in front which made it heaven…new houses coming up….we used to go into almost every house being built along with our neighbor friends….commenting on every room in the houses….walking in and out of the half built houses…. We played crocodile crocodile which colour do you choose…we played badminton….we also played on the sand piles heaped up for building our neighbour’s house.. We used to go up to the terrace to study…. We used to walk around reading… I have done my famous “8” walking on that terrace like about infinite number of times… During those times…when we went through some circumstances…appa converted the garage to an office room….first amma did her data entry there…and then Pillai uncle came over… Oh ya..garage reminds me…we first had the blue kinetic Honda…and then came the black one…we had a white maruti 800, then a blue one, then an omni van, then a santro(white), then a corsa sail(white) and then now a Getz(grey) We had our BSA champs(cycles) ,..then we graduated to Hero Impct(the lightest cycle for girls)…grey colour with some pink text on it….we rode it all over bank colony in of the summer holidays ….we used a spong cushion thing for the carrier so that the pillion rider was comfortable…we took turns riding it….sooper sun taning summer holidays it was… We went for pottery etc classes and then cam home to fight for places where could keep our art work… Oh ..that reminds me….christmas tree…I made one for myself and insisted that it should be kept in the center of the hall and amma was totally against it… I won the battle though Then we built the first floor in 1997. A huge house with 4 rooms…steps leading to a huge living room(Hall)…..with designed white mosaic tiles….(again amma’s designing)…..separate rooms for sangu and me …separate bathrooms….huge kitchen…..big fourth bedroom…which was guest bedroom which slowly turned into a store house for all items that dint fit in any one of our rooms… Sangu had the architectural wonder room….her room had 4 doors and I huge window and so hardly any wall space…. But she managed to create her Winnie the pooh art work on the one available wall….her only major irritation was the maid who would take clothes to the terrace via her room when she was sleeping….i think that was sangu’s biggest pain point in her long stay at that house :)… Daddy ran behind the kids from the slums who broke our window, stole our taps, kept coming into the compound and going out…high blood pressure you say…maybe…but I am sure he will miss that!   We rented out the house on the ground floor….so many people have come and gone…..and everytime…amma made sure she visited the ground floor and told it how much she missed it…. We went to school by school bus and then by BMTC….then Sangu went to school by cycle and I went to CHRIST COLLEGE:) with Nishrin on the kinetic Honda….then we went to engineering and that was again by BMTC… How much we have played in the house with Karthik, Nithya….friends coming home…. We changed the door from North facing to east facing(or rather road facing to a little inside facing) on the first floor…. We changed sofas and furniture about 3 times in our tenure….chandeliers did come in after a very long time…after my wedding… We did a re-painting of the whole house just before my wedding and that’s when we re-coloured our walls with funky colours….although no one appreciated mom’s brinjal coloured wall in the hall…. I liked it and I still think it was an awesome colour…people just did not have the eyes to appreciate something different that they dint do I came in my scooty(ELECTRIC) from JP nagar….after marriage and spent time and went back… Every form, every document had this address on it…even my husband’s documents had this as this was our permanent address….not so permanent anymore I guess…. Uncountable number of occasions we have hosted in the house…. Shruthi was born there…her punyarjanam…she has played around there…she has enjoyed the balcony…the park…the dinosaur park in second stage(I think amma was more fascinated by it than shruthi)….the plants…the space….the house….”BTM polam”….she used to say….and I guess she is still saying as she does not understand what it means if something becomes history…. We have played run around…run around…fought…screamed….laughed….cried….had every moment of our life that we can remember ….IN THIS HOUSE…. Today…someone else takes the keys to this memory treasure….every wall there will tell you stories…and I will not stop writing with this blog…every time a memory bubble floats into visibility of my thoughts… I will keep this series going….because….the number is just endless….