Me

I always wanted to live in a studio apartment. This was long before I even saw a "flat". We lived in a large house (that belonged to my grandfather) surrounded by a great garden (tended to by my grandmother). There were two kitchens. There was a room that was called "Chaddi annala gadi" which later on became the dining hall. A huge store room, a small store room, an attic, a terrace, a bed room upstairs, a large living room, a huge hall, a staircase room (the room in which the stair case stood which was between the living room and dining hall and was dark and cool and also opened into the small store room) and four bed rooms. There were three lavatories and three bathrooms outside the house. The small store room was eventually converted into an attached bathroom cum lavatory. (Try not to imagine how the house looked. I will only say it looked quite large, dark and untidy although some might say it looks old, beautiful and maybe even rich). There was also land that belonged to my father and his brothers densely vegetated but to be used for building their own houses one day. My father was the first to build his house and his brothers eventually built their houses in the cities they settled down. But, yes, my father was the first to build his house and he was the first to close his bank loan. Our two storey house has two bedrooms with attached bathroom and toilet, balcony around the house, kitchen, a large living room which also has the dining table, and a hall on each floor and also a terrace with an overhead tank and a washerman's stone. There is also this little room where the stairs ended and the terrace opened. It is beautiful. My father had a wire mesh done where you could stand and look down on the stair case and even look out of the French window. Yes, we also have a French window. It is a tall window starting in the ground floor reaching up to the terrace. However,  it doesn't open into the lawn. we have bars ;-) although, we do have a lawn and a back yard (not sprawling ones though). We also have a TT table which is put up against the wall in this room and is carried down into the living room when we played. On the first landing, there is a wash basin and a black board is put up against the wall. there is also a window from which we could look into the neighbour's back yard. It was a small house with a great yard. It was interesting watching the coconut trees, the cats, squirrels, crows and sparrows. But, then, I always wanted to live in a studio apartment!

This is how it started. After we moved into our house(the one built by my father), my haunt was that small staircase/terrace room.  You could call it my den. I had a couple of chandamamas, a few toffees (which used to disappear mysteriously every time my brother got wind of their existence ;-)) hidden behind the TT board. I must have been seven or eight. I used to sit there and day dream about this little studio apartment where I would cook, live, come back from work and live happily ever after. My idea of an ideal home was living by myself in a small tidy space with the barest necessities and having nothing to do but to teach homeless children and come back home and rest. I was too young, mind, to think of livelihood.

We moved to Guntur on account of my father's work, lived in a variety of rented houses none of which felt like home in spite of me living with my parents and brother and my desire for my own place grew stronger and stronger. But no matter how old I grew "My home" to me meant me alone after a day of hard work. Slowly, the girls I knew in school and college started getting married one by one. And, I felt like I was being left behind in the race. I began my work as a software engineer and more and more girls got married and one fine day, it was my turn! pooof! There goes my studio apartment!

After a couple of years of marriage, I started dreaming again. This time, a large house. Large rooms. Large vegetable garden. Several CHILDREN. oh! what a dream that was. Colourful, boisterous, quaint  and beautiful. I would picture myself surrounded by a dozen children eating to their heart's content all the heavenly food I dished, all the bread, cakes, and tarts I baked and listening to all the wise advice I gave. I saw myself greying along with Nithin and my children growing up and the family expanding. Never once I imagined sickness, never once I imagined an untidy living room, never once I imagined nappies and crying and poop and snot and wet floor and wet towels and stained clothes!!!

Dreams always come true. Along with dreams, a lot of other things come true. That is the reason our existence is called "life" and not "dream" :-)