Nostalgia

This morning, as we set out at 6 am, out the 7th main entrance and to the left, there was a man with a hook attached to a very long stick – plucking sampige from your favorite tree. Oh, I’ve lost count of the number of times you have “kottaavi vittu-fied“, coveting those full sampige flowers! All we would get were the petals, as the flowers fell off the tree. Well – today – as we approached the tree, the man managed to pluck two sampiges – and he must have seen the total longing on my face – and he said “bekaa? thago” I was quite thrilled and picked up the two flowers and carefully put them in my pocket.

After we returned home, I placed one on top of the Sri Satyanarayana picture and one with Ganesha. The whole house is fragrant now.  And hey, even my pocket smells great 😀  Here’s a pic off the web that looks just like “your tree”.

Lovely, aren’t they? I keep finding the dried flower in various places around our home – in your cupboard, your purse, the bag you used, in the pages of your books – and don’t have the heart to throw them away. There was also a bunch of neem leaves – dried – in a pouch kept in the clothes cupboard. I remember how we once distributed almost three bulk packs of  “karpooram” all over the bookshelves because you read somewhere -or your father, my grandpa told you – that they keep insects away.  Far cheaper and safer than naphthalene balls, you said.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll remember all your wisdom, your tips and brilliant ideas for every situation Even if they didn’t always turn out to be the best solution, they would be such fun to experiment with. Ah, the re-arranging and the arranging! You always justified that moving things around kept the house cleaner. It was a fact, too. You know, we have the firm belief that everything related to you, connected to you – is positive, warm and happy.

You would have been so excited with Vidur’s first day of school yesterday. He’s made a wonderful powerpoint presentation about Micro-organisms, a Science lesson, which he is supposed to teach his class. What a nice initiative by their teacher! When I saw his class-mates yesterday – all of them in their new uniforms – the boys all wearing full-pants and the girls in salwar kameez – I almost didn’t recognize some of them. Found it quite hard to think that these were the same children, back in 2004 – who were barely three feet tall 😀 and would talk constantly to us whenever we visited the school!. Now the girls say things like “Aunty, got a pin on you?” and the boys – “Hi! Aunty!”. Love it.

Which reminds me – I have to drop those text books off at school after informing the teachers. Will find out today and complete it this week.

Ok – day moves on….in the fragrance of  mmmmmm……Sampige.

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