The House in Tollygunge

The house in Tollygunge

My great big great aunt...yes she was a large lady. ...larger than life...big smiley face...and a very free and easy demeanor.
To carry on...this bounteous lady's pet name or nickname was baby...
Granny baby....Baby dida

She perched atop the 3rd or 4th floor of an old house in Tollygunge. ..a bustling area close to South
Calcutta.
The year India gained independence. ....1947, this 17 year old bride armed with her wardrobes furniture et all came to this airy perch overlooking the city's skyline...and there she was ensconced right till the end.

So many of my favorite childhood memories are entwined with the dwelling that housed this bustling jovial lady...the very house took on her character. ..spic and span..amazingly clean lacy curtains dressing up her sitting room windows....sparkling cushion covers
Geometrically arranged on the rather skeletal sofa set....The whole house looked like elves and fairies had been at work the whole day, just before we came.

And now ...who knows the fate of the self same house? Dwindling and diminishing in unkempt uncared darkness...hermitage of sad solitude
For another lonesome widowed spinster...haven of urbanized peace...last refuge for an aged couple...or maybe totally radically revolutionized. ..transformed into a lively home full of laughter and children?

What it is now...I will never know...
But the house exists in my mind as a well kept dusted and aired mental construct...and there it will stay...
Intact with Baby dida's memories. ..and tidily wistful for her presence.

I want to remember. Simultaneously I want to snap out of this mood....
It's uncanny but. ..I feel as though she is hovering in the air somewhere... .not to far
..asking us to please remember her.
Like Tagore's beautiful song...

Remember me....even though you forget...
Even so...
Even in that act of forgetting...
Please remember me.

Aah...the sad evening of remembrance.
Rest in peace beloved soul.

All rights reserved
(c) Amrita Valan 2015

Acknowledgement to Sunetra Gupta
For translation of Tagore's song
Tobu Mone Rekho....Even So Remember Me..
I will post the full song in its English translation if I can gooogle it.
:)