The house that built me – 3

The day always started early in this house. ‘Babuji’ would go for his walk at five am. That meant he would wake up at half past four, get ready, and be out of the house at five. Amma would wake up too, as would the daughter-in-laws in the later years, and get the kitchen going. Babuji liked to have his morning breakfast at six, after coming back from his walk. Being the eldest of all the children who lived in the house, I was sometimes allowed to accompany him for his walk. I was so excited when this happened, and kept pestering my mother to wake me up on time so that I could go with Babuji for the walk too!

It would still be dark when we stepped out of the house for our morning walk. It was my ‘me time’ with Baba, and I would skip and walk, and skip and walk…..excitement coursing through my veins…smelling the fresh morning air, devoid of particulate pollutants, and soot and carbon monoxide from vehicular emissions. The street dogs would be up and about too, playing with each other, chasing stray animals, urinating, defecating, fornicating. And then there were the cows….in ones or twos or sometimes larger groups….just standing still….alone or together……shaking their heads or just looking around morosely….or simply chewing cud and having a group discussion on some topic very pertinent to their bovine politics….

And then there were the oldies…..I always thought of them as old people, although they were Baba’s contemporaries, or friends, yet they looked more aged or run down, to me, than Baba himself. Baba would have a spring in his walk, an energy that was infectious, contagious, transmissible……to the young at least! He walked briskly, his goal was set, his path clear…..for the morning walk as well as for life. ‘Sky is the limit, son!’, he would always say….encouraging me to do my very best, give my best shot to everything that I did, put my best foot forward, so to say….

And thus we would walk the empty streets, greeting the cows and the sexagenarians, and the septuagenarians, and sometimes the octogenarians. It was a brisk, refreshing walk, and we would be back home by six, in time for the breakfast, when everyone was supposed to be ready, and meet Baba at the table…..the family always ate together…..

On our way back we would always stop at the Kali Bhavani temple, the shrine dedicated to the Mother Goddess, the female source of all energy in this world, the wife of Shiva. The temple would be silent, except for a few early devotees. The early morning aarti would be over by the time we reached the temple. Sometimes we would catch the purohit or the priest coming out of the temple after the aarti, and sometimes not. When we did meet the elderly gentleman, he would offer us the charanaamrita, the holy water which had washed the feet of the deity, and some freshly plucked basil leaves as prasadam. I always loved the charanaamrita….it was sweet, I don’t know how, and it smelled of basil leaves, and something else……I could never put my finger on that X-factor in the holy water which made it so tasty…..I was happy just sipping it, and nibbling the fresh basil leaves which the priest offered us.

If the priest was not there to do the honours, Baba would help himself to the charanaamrita and the prasad himself, and then give me some, and we would walk back home satisfied….our agenda for the morning having being completed…..

To be continued……

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