The farmhouse

"To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven:" (Ecclesiastes: 3, 1)

I must confess I've never been to Dad's farmhouse any once in ma past 15 years, just walkably away from where I live...

I've always regarded the 5000 sqft farmhouse as a symbol of power, pride and blue- bloodedness...

I wondered why I wasn't let visit, and asked mom to have a reply, almost at the umpteenth time...

I had to hold back the sudden burst of laughter right when mom said, the house is haunted!

It was big enough to let as much as five families live so luxuriously and as much as ten families super- comfortably...

Granny who's as old as 80 still lives there, with a day maid, saying she feels an alienness elsewhere, and that she wants to count her days out, just by staying there...

I decided to visit it...

But what if Mom gets to know I did?

In my Mom's reference book, I'll then become an exorcist who dared enter the haunted mansion making an attempt to drive away the evil, but was himself engulfed by it!!!

I didn't know when to schedule ma visit... Although Mom lives 200 miles away from here she keeps in track all that happens in here thanks to the special intelligence surveillance system, women are gifted with ;)

And finally I did, leaving out all the rest, honestly, with every inch of ma step anticipating how harsh Mom's words would be, once she gets to know...

It was fine...

Awesome...

And heartening to know that no one could live there!

There was a complete silence except the noise of ma footsteps...

Ah! Did I say "silence"?

Nope, there was a complete serenity!

It was so hard for me to figure out the lighting control panels,

In those this- is- so- dark- enough rooms.

I walked on and on, admiring the architectural beauty of the interiors,

Wondering why granny wouldn't visit these rooms, but stay all day moving within those rooms that were so necessary to keep the household on.

I ended up, reaching Uncle's gallery of books, artworks and dust!

Dusting out the books, I could find all the works of Shakespeare arranged in a single row.

There were also some rare works in Tamil, ranging from Tholkappiam and Nannool to Kambaramayanam and Nattrinai.

Those books drove me crazy enough that I almost forgot why I was there, as I started grazing one after the other.

It was almost an hour and granny was yet to realize that I've trespassed!

I could hear those noises from the TV as I keened to observe what was going on in the outside world.

The noise of the TV could let me understand that the room I was in was just next to the living room, or else so close to it!

I couldn't understand why this room had only one way in, which was obviously far from the living room, although the it's so close to that.

Perhaps this is what the maxim, "Money can buy you a house, but not a home" tries to imply?!

Yup, the house had no symptoms of a home.

It was naive, paranoid, dying, craving for life.. :(

I could hear her silent cry,

Feel her moist tears,

I could hear her saying, "Are you gonna leave me forever?"

I was trying to remind her of her beautiful days.

Her poses with Gramps' Impala,

Uncle's Plymouth, 

Granny's young Jimmy,

Papa's Royal Enfield™,

Dad's wedding reception,

Wedding receptions of aunts,

(I guess she had some sadness about uncles' ascetic lives)

Dusting off those  sepia stained photos...

Yet she couldn't rejoice much..

Perhaps I'd reminded her of the bad days too:

Elder uncle's CAD death, 

Gramps' RHD death,

Eldest uncle's Liver Cirrhosis death,

Younger uncle's Economic crash,

Ahh!

She had had enough!

She seemed to be sad...

But sadness wasn't any tired of living with her.

I thought I'd say granny a "bye", as I was about to leave.

Only then I realized, granny didn't know I was in.

Yet, I had a heartache, a crushing pain in the chest.

I felt granny was exchanging her thoughts with her.

And that's the reason why sadness seemed to have them engulfed,

Both of them...

I started walking out, making sure nobody in the neighborhood notices,

Or atleast don't recognize!

It took hardly ten full minutes for me to walk home.

And another five minutes to unlock...

Less than a minute to open the fridge and snatch a bottle of water,

Another two minutes to get to my room and switch on the AC,

As I flipped into ma bed and stared deep into the ceiling,

I could hear some squeaky, girlish, yet young voice,

Deep in ma head uttering a rhetoric question,
"And, are you gonna leave me forever? I know you won't!"

As I turned down to see the photo frame in my table.

I could see the little me with a face full of smile,

Sitting between mamma and papa,

Holding both their hands.

Or perhaps they had held mine in their's, I don't remember.

I closed ma eyes gently.

I'm sure ma lips didn't utter those words, I'm damn sure!

Yet it was ma own voice, I know this full well.

The voice enunciated:

"No, I'm not leaving you!!
No, never would I"

Oofhoo! There!

What's happening at Mom's farmhouse right now?

Is that haunted too?

No, it may not be!

After all it's as good as twenty miles away!