The Long Walk Home

Ever since I can remember, we’ve lived like tenants of our own lives, shifting from house to house before any place could settle into a home. Packers and movers became recurring characters in my childhood, but the packing was always Amma’s job as they only did the moving. Sometimes my grandparents tried to help, but she never really let them. She has even travelled with those packers and movers, those lowkey creepy men, in their trucks, because her ex-husband, my biological father, was hardly sober past the first hour of the day.

There are two houses I don’t remember at all, only through the glimpses Amma narrates. The first house I faintly remember is in Arekere, where we lived on the second floor. The landlords were ridiculous and gave Amma a hard time for the silliest reasons. They wouldn’t even let her wash our jeans because it ‘used too much water.’ I had a friend named Edison who lived on the first floor. We played doctor-patient, teacher-student, or simply watched TV together. I used to call him “Medicine” because I thought it rhymed and genuinely believed I was the funniest child alive.

I briefly remember the house in Bilakahalli. We stayed in a small apartment. Lakshmi aunty would babysit me until Amma came back from work. I used to, and still do, talk to myself like a crazy person. Since I did not have many friends then, I created an imaginary world called Dios World (I have zero idea where that name came from). It was a parallel universe where I was the main character, all the girls wanted to be my friend, and the boys were intimidated by my confidence and main-character energy. I wasn’t exactly creative with names though: my friends were Zeena, Meena, Teena and… dadada. It’s wild to think I was such an imaginary child and even wilder that at age five I wanted to be the popular kid. What media had I even been consuming?

One Christmas morning, Amma woke me up: “Bhadra, wake up. Santa has left something for you outside.” I sprinted to the door and found the cutest stuffed Santa. I was stunned. Santa was real? A few days earlier in Forum Mall (Nexus Koramangala now, but I refuse to accept the re-name), I had begged Amma to buy me the same Santa. “No,” she said, “you have too many toys already. No more.”

The next day, holding the same Santa in my hand, I thought to myself, So what if Amma doesn’t buy me everything? Santa does. “Bhadra, you are such a lucky child. Santa doesn’t gift everyone. You are the chosen one, my baby.” I decided I would make Christmas wishes every year going forward and believed with every fibre of my being that I was the chosen one, that I was special.

Another year passed and we moved to Fernhill Gardens, a huge apartment complex in HSR Layout. I used to call it Pigeon Gardens because there were too many pigeons that shat everywhere. AH, I was hilarious. The number of things we owned had grown with me, so moving became even tougher. Amma had switched to a new firm with better pay, but the workload was insane. I remember Fernhill Gardens vividly because by then I was 7, a big girl who could come home from the bus stop alone. (The bus stop was at the gate of the apartment complex) I remember Amma waking me up on Sunday mornings saying MAD with Rob had begun on POGO TV. I would drag myself with half shut eyes and sit in front of the TV, enchanted by Rob’s talent. I would attempt to draw elephants and sharks because the rest of the art installations needed art supplies I had never even heard of. Oh boy, that man was incredibly gifted.

When my grandparents went back to Kerala, I would stay in my mom’s colleague’s house till she returned back from work. She was a young Malayali chechi who grew up in Bangalore. Her mother played with me to keep me entertained, I liked her. I did not like her father though. He always smelled like my father, and I had seen them hang out together as well. The house smelled like their rarely-bathed dog. I spent many evenings there. She played 3 Idiots to entertain me, and I grew sick of that film.

Fernhill Gardens was the first society where I could finally play with friends and run around like an independent girl without babysitters. Amma once told me there was an instance where I spotted her return from work and I sprinted away. I hated going home I guess, because I felt lonely in those four walls and that home was the worst I had lived in because I was old enough to sense my mother was unhappy and I had begun to grow deeply embarrassed of my drunk father. So playtime was my solace.

One day, I met a group of girls. I was so excited to be their new friend; I did not know the humiliation waiting for me. I only knew how to ride a four wheeler cycle. There was this popular cycle among girls then. The “cool” hot pink Ladybird. One of the girls had it too, so I said, “Oh I have the same cycle, but mine has two extra wheels at the back.” One of them said, “This one has those wheels too, they are just invisible to others. Only the owner can see them. Hop on, ride it the same way you ride your own cycle.” I asked, “Are you sure?” She said, “Of course you can.”

I hopped on, pedalled twice, lost balance on the third pedal and fell. I cannot recall their faces now, but I remember their hysterical laughs graphically. “How dumb are you to believe imaginary wheels!” 

I wonder how 7 year olds can be such bullies. 

After that, I became cautious. I mostly played alone, chatting with my Dios World friends. I was happy being alone again. Then came Arya, this sweet girl with a kind face. She had a twin brother and they lived one floor above mine. She did not think I was dumb. We shared toys and played random kid games and her brother joined us sometimes. Arya was an animal lover, beyond what you think. She petted every stray cat and dog we saw. But her love for “fauna” ran deeper. She really liked lizards. She petted a tiny newborn lizard and kept it in a Colgate toothpaste box. She fed it every day. She even placed it on my hand and I petted it too. “Aww lizards are so cute, why have I never done this before.” It gives me the ick now and I hope I washed my hands well after. She was sad when it disappeared after a few days. And I was sad with her, because my first “best” friend was sad.

Then came their birthday. The first big birthday bash I was invited to. It was in a hall outside our society. Amma was in Germany on one of her first work trips. I was excited but worried because my grandparents were the only ones with me. I had to buy gifts for both twins. How would I do that without my efficient Amma? One day I came back from school and my father gave me a cover saying it was for Arya and her brother. I was thrilled and proud. The prettiest Barbie doll for Arya and a remote controlled helicopter for her brother. I wondered where he got the money. “Amma, Achan bought these gifts. Can you believe it?” She pretended to know nothing, like she had not given him the money. “See, Acha loves you. Now you have perfect gifts. Wear your pink frilled frock.” “Yes Amma, I look like a princess in that.”

And the day finally came. I wore my pink frilled frock, wore my prettiest hairband, grabbed the gifts and went to our basement holding my grandfather’s palm. The basement was ill lit and a little cold. We waited for a long time. As a 7 year old my perception of time wasn’t perfect but I just know we waited for long. Nobody came. We went up to their floor and rang the bell. Nobody opened. I went back home and could not hold it in anymore; I broke into tears. I felt abandoned and forgotten. Was I not Arya’s best friend? I confronted her about it later. “Oh, you couldn’t come. I forgot. I thought you would come yourself. Anyways come, let’s play.” I never played with her again. I never played with anyone in Fernhill Gardens again.

Things became worse at home. A horrid drunk night, my father hurt my grandmother and Amma called it the end. She decided to work in Germany for a while. I would stay in Kerala with my favourite cousin sister, Chippy and my Biji aunty who never scolded me (still doesn’t) is all I knew. That was all I needed to know. I stayed there, in Athani with them and went to school with Chippy and Adi chettan. The house there, built the year I was born, became my anchor; the only home that had ever been constant. I stayed with them for 3 years. We laughed, played and fought like true siblings. None of the single child tantrums existed anymore because they made sure I behaved fairly with everything and wasn’t materialistic.

In 2014, Amma took the decision to come back to India and settle in Bangalore again. Her office was in Whitefield, so she put me in a school in Whitefield for 6th grade. I was 11 years old then. We lived in an apartment complex called Prestige Palms. We started over. Her close friend lived with her family in the same complex and they still remain our closest family friends. We all went out together every weekend for dinners and ice cream and long drives. My fondest memories in Whitefield were built with them.

To everyone in school, in the bus, in my apartment, who asked me where my father was, I lied. “He is in Dubai, he is a civil engineer.” He really was one, so not a complete lie. I became part of the cool seniors gang who used to sit in the back of the school bus. I grew especially close to this one girl in 9th grade who was 3 years older than me. She lived in D Block and I lived in F Block. We had another friend in 8th grade, a Malayali girl from Mumbai who lived opposite my house. She spoke Hindi fluently, my dream then since I could only speak broken Hindi and all the cool kids in school were Hindi speaking. I admired her for her fluency. The three of us would hang out every other day after school, learn from dance tutorials on YouTube, jam to Bollywood songs (I did it to fit in, even though I did not know Hindi), and play basketball with cute boys in our apartment complex that my friend secretly crushed on. I felt like I belonged for the first time in an apartment complex.

Once we were talking and the topic of parents came up. The 9th grader said, “My father is in Dubai.” That struck me. Was he really in Dubai or was she lying like me? Later when it was just the two of us, I gathered up the courage and asked her, “Are your parents divorced?” “How did you know?” “Same, even mine are. I lie to everybody that he is in Dubai as well because it is so believable for Malayali fathers to be in Dubai. No one disbelieves me either.” “Yeah same, he left us when I was 1 year old with mom’s money. It is just me and my mom, we are really happy. So who cares.”

I was stunned. She was so unapologetic and so content with all she had and was. She was fiercely herself and not bothered or ashamed of having an “incomplete” family according to society. To her, her family was complete with her mom and her. She didn’t have any close cousins or relatives like I did. She was content yet. She only lied to others because she did not want sympathy or spend time explaining. I wanted to look at things differently like she did, but I was still a coward I guess. I wallowed in shame secretly, but I imbibed a lot from her. She was a real role model. She was the first true friend I made. She was brutally honest, incredibly fun to be with, loving but not in a loud expressive way, yet she was protective and caring. She was the big sister God sent when I needed big sister advice. Her name is Grace. She has grown into a beautiful woman and we still love each other the same way we did 10 years ago. We do not talk often but I know it is the same because every time I see a story of hers, my heart fills up like nothing has changed.

A year passed. A new peppy girl from Kochi joined our school. She was one year older than me. She was in our bus but lived in a different apartment complex. She had lived in Singapore as a child and would tell us her Singapore stories. She was always jumping with energy. We judged her bubbly personality at first, but we soon realised she was a sweetheart. Grace shifted to another school to finish her higher secondary education. Things did not feel the same in the bus anymore.

Another year passed and we decided to move houses again because the present one in Prestige Palms had become old and had plumbing issues. We shifted to Sumadhura Madhuram on the same ECC Road. This is where the peppy girl lived. She lived in a different block. Grace shifted to a hostel for her undergraduate degree and would occasionally come visit us during Holi or any such event. The third girl moved away too. 

It became just the two of us. We began sharing and opening up about everything. Our deepest insecurities, the truth about my parents, boys, the terrible mean culture in our school, our frustrations, good teachers, bad teachers, hosting events, making speeches, dancing in society events. For everything we were together. I taught her how to swim and we would spend around 3 hours in the pool every day after school. We were with each other through everything for the next few years. Through all the high school drama we remained each other’s constants. I found permanence in a friendship for the first time. Someone I could be completely vulnerable with, someone who would come running even at 12am if I called her. Her name is Vaishnavi and we still remain the same, cheering each other through all the small and big wins through occasional meets and calls.

She went to college for her undergrad. The Covid 19 lockdown happened. I did not have to give my 12th boards because of it and I could not wait to get out of that hellhole school with the meanest crowd. I applied to Christ University and got into the course I wanted. Soon the lockdown lifted and we got to go to college in person and live normal college lives. I moved to a hostel because the commute from Whitefield would have killed me. I would come home every other weekend for Amma’s hand cooked food, to go shopping, and Chippy lived with us for a while. The three of us spent a memorable girls time then.

By then we had become financially settled. After a lot of thinking and rethinking for more than 5 years, Amma decided to invest in a villa inside a villa complex away from the city. There was a lot of delay due to Covid and the usual complications that come with men in construction disregarding her because she is a woman. Niya Chechi, my cousin and her husband stood by her through every step. Without them it would have been a thousand times harder. She felt a little less alone through the house process for the first time in her life. I will always be grateful to them for being the children she needed then rather than this mean immature child of hers. I was proud of her for it all but as a daughter I did nothing to support her through any of the work. The weekends I came home to Whitefield I would crib about the house work eating away my weekend and be irritated at it. “We have lived in rented homes all our lives, what is wrong with this house? It is comfortable and cozy. Why did you want to buy this house and why won’t the construction finish?” She never fought back. She fed me and smiled.

In October 2022, we had our housewarming. Our whole family, my mom’s siblings, their spouses, their children, and her cousins, came to bless us. They were all so impressed with how the house turned out. They were proud of Amma. After the pooja on the first day, we were supposed to sleep in the house for the night. Two of my mom’s cousins, my mom and I decided to sleep there even though some work was still pending. I should have been proud, but that night sleeping there, the house felt strange. I cried myself to sleep. It didn’t feel like mine. The next morning I went back to my hostel.

I came home every other weekend and slowly, gradually, the house began becoming my home. I rearranged my bed. We placed a few carpentry orders with a furniture business we knew. I showed them a picture from my Pinterest board of how I wanted my day bed to look and a simple long white table with golden legs. One weekend I came home, and there it was, my pink day bed and my table. I added white blinds to fit the aesthetic even though they are not functional enough to block light when I sleep but hey, at least they suit the room. I rearranged my bed again. My room became mine even more. Mom added plants, decor pieces, photo frames and a hundred other small details which slowly made our home my favourite place in the world.

I finished my degree and decided to take a gap year before my master’s. It was the best decision ever. I spent 6 months in Kerala in my Athani home while I worked in Kochi, but the rest of the time I spent in our home, our first ever home that was truly ours, Vijitha’s and Bhadra’s.

You know how financial gurus these days advise not to buy a house because it is a “dead” asset. I do not agree. How can safety be dead? How can permanence be dead? How can stability be dead? A home is never a dead asset for us. It is the most alive thing we own. I can stick things on the wall and not worry about the landlord being mad about the paint chipping. We can put nails in to hang pictures. I can jump and dance around without fearing that the tenant below will complain. Our home means more than what a house usually represents. For us, for me, our home is the most peaceful, safe and happiest place on earth now. After packers and movers and shifting from one to the other, this one is wholly ours.

My friends always teased me whenever I said I was going home. They’d joke, “Oh, to Tamil Nadu?” because we live on the outskirts now, far from Bangalore’s core. And I’d think to myself: Bangalore’s core held some of my hardest years. But this house, far away from all that, has healed everything. Every corner : the living room, dining area, kitchen, guest bedroom, my room, Amma’s room, her balcony, our terrace, is a collection of a hundred small memories we created. If I shut my lids, I can be transported to any one of those corners.

Today I sit miles away from home, our first home. I write this with welled up eyes and a blocked nose from a mild flu, wishing I could eat my mom’s handmade Kachiya Moru, Ulli Chamanthi and Kuthari Choru. I wish I could curl up on our mustard yellow sofa wearing Amma’s nightie and eat while laughing to CID Moosa for the umpteenth time. Instead, I’m in my small dorm room in London with my stomach growling, reheating leftovers myself, wishing I could just call out,

“Ammaaa, can you come here?”

and hear her yell back from the kitchen, “Entha?”

“Fan off aakkaamo?”

By Bhadra

evolving. becoming. being.