U Anusankari

It is hard for me to write about my hometown. It is hard to write about a place I don’t relate to or even recognize anymore. In retrospect, I see the reminiscence of my past in fragments. Those fragments seem very different from the whole reality in front of my eyes. Our home smelled like holy basil, paneer roses, and incense. Butterflies in white and yellow swarmed around. I would try and catch them whenever I laid eyes on them, until one day when my uncle pinched me hard on my arms to make me realize the pain I had been causing them. Our house always had a small basket full of flowers.

I can’t imagine our home without it. I would go out with my grandmother every morning to wander about the village and pick oleander flowers from our front yard on our way back. Then I would impatiently wait for the milkman, who brought us milk twice a day - once at 6:30 in the morning and the other at 6 in the evening. Carrying the utensil with milk up to the brim every time gave me so much satisfaction. That meager task made me feel so powerful every single day. I had nothing to do, yet I figured ways to entertain myself. I would count the butterfly pea flowers along the path that came in two colors; royal blue and white.

I was always biased towards the blue ones. If there were a couple of white flowers more than blues, I plucked a few whites just to let the blue one win. Seems silly, huh? I had all the time and energy in the world back then. There were empty fields all over and significantly fewer houses. Now, there are so many houses and hardly any open space. The people are still the same, but older and bitter, yet I knew no world beyond them. I loved them irrespective of their ideologies or perceptions. That was some 15-16 years ago when my innocence obscured the shortcomings of a happy family. Our family is highly religious, orthodox, and conservative. Those are not wrong. It is a problem when they use conventions and traditions to protect their misogynistic, patriarchal, biased views on society.

I don’t see my family the same way I looked at them years ago. Perhaps it is because I was oblivious to the flaws. I was happy and accepted because I didn’t challenge their conventions. I love them, but that is not enough for me to not bat an eye when I am being taught or told things that are not my truth. They are the same people I saw fifteen years ago. They have not changed. They still love me, but probably a little less. It is okay. It won’t change the emotions I hold behind my memories of this place. A tiny bit of my heart will always love the memory of this place, even if not the actuality.