We used to live on a big church ground. The house looks like some rooms were built as an afterthought. If one were to get in through the room on the left which was the kitchen, he’d have to pass through the middle dining hall, then the bedroom and then to the bathroom which shares its wall with the compound wall. If u came out of the bathroom, you could look at the road and say hello to the passer by, through the little holes in the wall. Jhali was what it was called. If it was raining and one of us needed to use the toilet we’d hold it in because, it was a competition between being warm and cozy in out beds or going out of the bed room and getting wet, but with a lesser pressure on our bladder. The Cozy feeling won most of the time.
The three concrete rooms were adjacent to each other. The doors were a peculiar shade of bluish purple. There were two rooms attached to front of these concrete rooms so that if one walked in through the kitchen in the left and walked into the dining room, instead of going straight to the bed room, turns to the right that, was our Verandah or our front room. This big verandah was divided into two rooms, one where we had our Morning family prayer every day. The other room had our clothe shelves and it was the room my eldest brother used for quite a while.
Moring prayers in my house were a time when the whole family along with the few members of the compound gather together, sing a hymn, pray and read the bible together. The lady that used to take care of me and cook for us, Tulsi Aunty, Martha mama and the other members that stayed for a long time were, Premila akka — the teacher, John mark anna — ITI instructor, Yesubabu — the printer, Hari Babu anna and Vital anna, After these guys left, there was Prakash, Yesudasu, Sattibabu, and few others that I don’t remember. These boys used to help around the church, setting up the church before Sunday services, helping on the compound, watering the plants and doing chores, apart from going to their work and staying at the church boy’s home.
The verandah was attached to the concrete structure through a tile roof. So when it rained we used to keep steel vessels where it leaked. Every rainy season, the boys would climb up the roof and spread a tarp and place brick to make sure the tarp doesn’t fly away. We would still have leaks but, we managed. There were a lot of books to be kept safe from the elements. There were more shelves with books that there was furniture, to hold them. Books would be spilling from all sides of the house. There were biographies of many Christian missionaries, Hymnals, Bible commentaries, medical books, novels, and many shelves of cassettes and DVDs.
The verandah had a wall that was only about 3 feet high and the rest was just a big metal mesh. This would separate the outside from the inside, the good side to this was, that the verandah was much cooler in the summers, as it would allow the breeze to flow freely into the house, but when it rained, it wasn’t much of a barrier. There was also not much privacy, for a girl that was growing up. I didn’t realize what that meant until I moved out of home when I was 15. Later my parents moved to an apartment, which was much smaller, but had most of the facilities that one would associate with home.
First, a bathroom, two infact, there were two bathrooms inside the house. Rain was not a factor to be taken in to account if one has to use the bathroom at night. It had a facility to fit the washing machine tap. It had a kitchen with high power sockets that could be used to connect a wet grinder. We have only ever had hand ground dosa and idly batter.
Freshly ground batter was a birthday special and the birthday girl or boy used to get hot “garelu”. We would distribute them to our friendly neighbors who were also our caretakers when my parents were busy in ministry trips. So this change in the apartment flat was welcome, but we realized there was no place like the one where memories were made. There was enough place for us to run around, play in dirt fall down and get hurt, then we would be showered with a lot of attention from the many people that were in our lives. In the evening we would show our wounds to our mother and we would be rewarded with due attention and bandages.
It was here that we learn to be self sufficient, I would help my brother with his bandage and he would help me with mine. We knew what medication to take for a long stubborn cold and cough. Infact my second brother went on to study Pharmacy, it wasn’t very surprising, given his knowledge of medications. Children thrive on attention and we got enough of it. One of us might argue otherwise, but in my opinion it was secure upbringing.
Our house was right at the corner of the collector office on side and on th other side, we had electric line that went to straight to the Government general hospital. This means that we were at a location where power cuts were minimal. So when an occasional long power cut strikes, all the children in the neighborhood would join us in a game of hide and seek. CBM school was a very familiar landmark in our lives, it was almost like family.