A walk down memory lane

I have always prided myself in being a 'city-girl', even though the place where i lived could hardly be a metro. My mother, on the other hand, was raised in what i would call, a jungle. I mean, there was no cable T.V. for crying out loud. Inspite of the total lack of civilization, I was obliged to spend most of my holidays there along with my mother and grandparents. My grandparents must have understood how i felt, because they tried to make up for it in their little ways. A day before i reached,my grandfather would make sure there was a pretty little swing on the mango tree. My grandmother would outdo herself and whip up delicacies that used to transport me into seventh heaven.(which i also believe transport me now to the gym!) Being an only child,these were my only 2 occupations-have a nice lil swing and then come back and eat. My grandparents lived all alone on a hill....and most of the hill belonged to us. It was planted with rubber. The rest of the inhabitants on the hill were our workers. I was too young to understand the effort that my grandfather had put into getting it 'plantable'. According to my grandmother,years ago,it was actually a jungle with lions and wild boars. Then, my grandfather came, and like Alexander the Great - he came, he saw and he conquered. I used to walk through the estate with my grandfather,stumbling along the vines, getting stung by bugs,losing my slippers in a brook and having to walk back barefoot-it was not really what i would call a pleasant experience. And what i hated the most about the place was the sounds at night -it was nothing short of terrifying for me. Owls hooting, hearing crickets...i found it extremely scary...i was not used to that sort-of thing. When my mother and i used to board the train back home,i would heave a sigh of relief...I always used to tell my mother - "When I inherit the estate from you, Im going to sell it and go on a foreign trip." She never tried to tackle me in any way. Probably, she was upset about hearing how her daughter did not like her childhood home.

Its been nearly 15 years since then. Right now, im a final year engineering student. I just got my first job,which made me realize how much time has passed and how much ive grown. My grandfather had passed away and my grandmother no longer stayed in that house by the estate. It was by chance that i got to go to my estate again.

Everything had changed. It was all overgrown with weeds. I guess the rubber trees could hardly breathe. The road was rocky and unattended to. I could not even make out the house from afar like i could when i came for my vacations. It was so overgrown and it was nothing like i had remembered it to be. Time had taken a toll on it. As i walked through the estate, recollecting old memories, some of the workers who used to work for my grandfather came upto me. Inspite of their age, they were still as agile as mountain goats and came bounding up the hill to talk to me. Every single one of them remembered me. And when i told them that the estate had fallen into bad repair, their faces fell. Just then,i realized how much this piece of land meant to everyone. For my grandfather,it was his masterpiece. Like a sculptor, he had crafted the entire land. To my mother, it was her childhood. She grew up there and became the person that she was. To the workers, it was their baby. They knew every nook and corner and tended to it like it was their own. Right that moment, it hit me that it meant a lot to me too...the fact that this treasure was handed down three generations to me was ethralling. I would never be able to sell it like i had foretold. I made up my mind then that i would look after it to the best of my capabilities.

In today's busy world, most of us forget our background, or purposely try to do so. But then, we shouldnt. Because it is a part of us. It is what makes us what we are today. So,we should embrace it, for you will find that it makes us stronger.