My Lost Heaven..

I believe everyone will have a certain stage, a place or a part in their lives which some may bury deep down their memory lane & store in it safely & silently for the rest of their lives as a selfish possession ; some may share it with others who they believe can also savour those moments in life in the same way as they do.. i was in the 1st category until i started to blog.. i believe there will be pple who think & feel things the same way as i do.. so this is for them..
This memory of mine which i consider as 'My Lost Heaven' is where i lived my entire childhood.. It was my mother's house, for us it was our 'ammathu' ( meaning amma's home )There, i feel , i had everyone & everything a child could ask for..lots of love, masti, food, friends (who were staying in the 2 rented houses tht were inside the compound itself) & above all i had my 'muthassan'(my grandpa) who was my best pal & both of us were the main members (or maybe the only members! ) of the drama club which worked only in the lazy afternoons & the main ( read 'only' ) stage was the double-coated bed where we would be playing the following 'most-wanted' (by me! whoelse?) skits :

(i) me=>teacher ; muthassan=>student (or headmaster)
(ii) me=> the perfect girl in the whole world to such an extent tht even the 3 Gods (Vishnu, Jesus & Allah) invite me to their respective worlds in the heaven & reward me with lots of exotic food, presents & so on..
muthassan=> expertly plays the roles of each God with the apt background music (vocal) & slang

....the list goes on with a variety of new plays. I only remember the above 2 for now..
The members of ammathu were :
-> Muthassan (the man of the match)
-> Muthassi (the hands behind our survival primitives & objectives (??!)
-> Kochitta (adds as my aunt, sister, friend, enemy..- now happily married & who gave
me my junior companion/angel/devil/everything-achu)
-> Ammavan (man behind the small small tantrums tht prevailed in the home- now
happily married with 2 sweet little angels-Gayathri & Gowri)
-> Lemmi, Murugan, Selvi, Devi ( all the tamilnadu gang who acted victims to my pranks)
-> Doggies (Judi(a black dog), Pepsi(a cutie Papillon), Scooby(whose original name was 'muniyandi'!!)
-> Valleetta(my aunt), Sunilappan, Ammu, Appu : Regular Weekend guests - now settled in
Bangalore..

It was fun!! Total & Absolute fun!! I probably had the merriest & the happiest childhood any child could ask for.. My muthassan was a verry learned man in every sense. I realized that side of him only when i reached high school, when we were given many essays in general topics as home work & he was my complete encyclopedia..
During the evenings we used to sit together over coffee & some delicious home-made snacks ( by my muthassi) & each of us took turns to speak that day's adventures, events & hot-happenings.. The best part was the comments & jokes tht he used to crack in betwn & apart from being a good listener, he had his style of adding things in between : his experiences, his childhood stories, visions etc..

My muthassan is no more with us now..He 's gone far way from us..It was a heart attack on 1st April 2000 (his date of birth too!) that took him away from us.. That was it! Only then i felt & realized that how much a person could affect u & ur life.. The quote :
" Houses Are Made Of Bricks & Stones & It Is The People Who Live In There Makes It A
Home"
is absolutely true..This made me realize that the kind of strong bonding & attachment tht i had with my ammathu was only & only because of the people lived in there , especially him.. he was the pillar stone & the magnet that made us get attached to ammathu with such strength & passion.. Slowly things started changing - kochitta got married & moved to another house, ammavan also tied the knot & these things affected my life & routine that had abt 17 years history.. The ammathu that was literally a first home to me, became a place where my ammavan lived with his family , which i started visiting once in a while...

But still i have with me my precious possessions from ammathu- my memories & they are safely & deeply stored in my memory lane which brings a smile & a tear drop together whnever i make a visit to it...