Journey (Back) to the past

The Sunday dawned with a difference and after the Sunday service was
over and after food had been served, I went out into the streets and down the dusty
road and on either side people moved with a bit of excitement. The lane surely had a
rustic look. I managed to get a moped and the Journey began. My brother, the son of
my mothers sister & my fathers brother had come that morning and we were on the
move
The Journey led us through different landscapes that nature had
created, we want beside ponds and through those gigantic windmills and the breeze
from the cleft between the mountains was grazing past. Those huge wind mills
generating power rose at unequal intervals and they looked like towers rising in the vast
stretches of the semiarid terrain of red soil interrupted hear and there by palm trees
that usually marks the country side. As I was riding past these structure with my mind
fresh and searching for something to prey upon they seem to tell me something.
were they revealing to me the magnificence of the future or the granular glory of the
past .. We moved on (the trip was some 9 to 10 kilometers form the high way) through
many villages and fields and the sun was already high by now and was peeing through
the clouds, which never seemed to move. The road was pitted the clear indication that
government and its policies had once visited these places. We preferred to take the
road of mud wherever possible and the clock was ticking impatiently.
The village welcomed us and some track of green and newly constructed
buildings caught our sight. We moved to our house there and spend some time before
we moved on .
We walked past our street and old houses that once were habited stood
on either side and greeted us. First was my Grandmas. The walls were broken, the clear
sign of denudation under the physical force of nature. The mud which was used to
cement the huge stones that once stood as walls had gone with the rain that had visited
our village few years ago, the roof was also missing and so now more light could come
into the house.
As we stepped into the ruins our memory ran fast and we seemed to take
a walk to the past. The house was a special one with rooms running along the four sides
of an open courtyard. One side of the complex was for the goats and the remaining two
sides housed two huge families (one grandpa with his two wives and their children of six
each). At the entrance that lead us in to the house complex was a raised platform

where we used to sit during the evening amusing our self with games and stories and my
grandma would prepare black tea for us and sprinkle some shred coconut over it before
it was served.
In the center of the open courtyard was a large rectangular stone sink to
store water and one large stone grinder (used once a while to prepare rice flour to
make dosa a special recipe for a guest or during celebrations).
In front of the first room would lay a large cuboidal stone that acted as
the bench of that day. There once used to be great life and people used to move like
bees and the fire in the kitchen never died. We slept in the open courtyard under the
open sky gazing at the moon that took its journey across the sky. We slept early and
got up early under the chirps of birds that were the songs they sang to celebrate the
new light of each dawn.
As we looked at all these remains we were reminded of that past which
had left impressions deep and clear in our hearts. Every one who dwelt in that house
had moved to neighboring states and few had moved to better houses near by. The
eldest grandma of the house was seen cooking alone on the house in the concrete room
that formed the fourth part of the complex and we asked her if they will revive the
house back to life and the reply was sad and it carried a melancholic tone.
I touched the sink and the stones and as I felt it, I wondered if I have a
chance to go back once again in to lost world of they remain ineffable and these
desolated houses still speak. I will have to disagree with the notion that past is lost.
From the past

Platosen.S