The door creaks as I push it open. I run to the backyard to find the old neem tree cut down. I turn back with a solemn mind. The memories keep rushing back. Me and my sister would spend our Sunday afternoons here, lazing around and finding odd things to make and later destroy. I return to the front of the house. The building looks in a dilapidated condition. Signs of water leakages everywhere. I remember one year in Diwali when we had the house painted. It looked so majestic even when being the same with three rooms, a kitchen and the verandah. "Interesting how the mind judges the interior by the look of the exterior", I think to myself.
The keys cling to the nail in the garage. I fetch them and open the lock on the main door. The house smells of water and algae. I go inside the kitchen to see. The cupboards, the drawers, everything is empty. Gone are the days when they used to be filled, their purpose fulfilled. I decide to check my parents room first. The green door still opens quite easily, without any creaking or noise. The beds gone. I notice the old table sitting inverted in the corner. The table where me and Father would play chess and cards in the night after dinner. The table, where my father poured me my first drink when I was 21. The table, witness to the memories and the bonding between a father and his son. I pick up the table and an old nail pricks my finger. I put the table in its rightful position and put my finger in my mouth. I remember how my mother would always apply turmeric on any wound I had gotten as a child. "It'll burn a little beta, then it will get better", she would tell me. Years later I realize it was a life lesson. I walk to the room me and my sister shared. I sceptically try to pull off the tile near the entrance. It comes out as I reach inside for the steel box. I wipe off the dust and open it to find that the water has ruined the letters to some extent. I make out one name to which the letter is addressed. "Kriti", I say the name in my mind and try to keep the thoughts from entering my mind. My first love in high school. The meetings near the flowing stream, the kulfi from the kulfiwala, all the memories flood my mind as I run out of the room and enter the verandah for some fresh air.
The good days are gone I think to myself. Its amazing how we cling to inanimate objects for solace. For comfort. A house is in fact alive only when people live inside it. A structure of concrete and cement and bricks which happens to be the historian of all of your life's ups and downs, your good days and bad days and the days in between.
I find the old cupboard in the verandah wrapped in plastic covering. I remove the cover and find it pretty much intact. It has started to rain. The books in the cupboard are gone but I find an old bottle of rum sitting there, unopened on the topmost shelf. Instantly, I recognize it to be the brand father used to drink. Sitting in the verandah with Kishore Kumar playing on the radio, he would often spend his evenings here. The sound of the rain increases. I can hear water slowly drizzling somewhere inside the house. I take out the bottle of rum, uncork it and have a sip. I lock the house bidding one last farewell, the bottle of rum still in my pocket. I guzzle down another sip as I walk back to my car in the rain.
The raindrops masking the tears on my face.
