MY COMRADE-my ancestral house

Fatherland and ancestral homes are the most important and intimate part of everybody’s life. Everyone fills up with gusto and enthusiasm when it comes to visiting our native places. As soon as I hear the word ‘ancestral ‘ what instantly comes to my mind is the image of a widespread greenery, a big house with unending halls and large rooms and a scent of love, pleasure, and the moist imprint of kisses by our relatives and palpably the affection of our grandparents.

         I feel too nostalgic when I have to remember the time when I had to leave my ancestral house to shift in a small pigeon house for the construction of an apartment in place of our minion –ancestral house. My ancestral house was situated in a very old and busy area of kamla nagar in Agra. I remember it was painted in white which aged into a bit yellow later on. My grandfather decided for a renovation of our house when I was in sixth standard. Its color was now bright white just like a spotless white shroud and the garden’s grandeur was cut down by acquainting some space for a parking area within the house for the cars. My ancestral house was an antique piece in the whole of Kamla Nagar not just due its magnificence and splendor but also due to the magnetic Rolls Royce car which was the most attractive commodity in our house bought by my grandfather. It had a large area of about 5000 sq.ft.

             I remember my grandfather told me that the edifice was built in 1925 by his grandfather Mr.M.K.Singh, a well known businessman of his times. My grandfather had planned to sell the hoary building to a construction company for building apartments. Even my father felt deplorable on the thought but he too could not nullify his decision. The house had ample of rooms and I liked the one on the first floor near the balcony from which I could grasp the beautiful scenery of fields at the rear side while the ‘bazaar’(market) at the other side.

           The invaluable house had been a dwelling of all kinds of emotions. It had witnessed financial crisis at my grandfather’s time, family disputes amongst my father’s  siblings and break down of family business. The most wistful sentiment strikes my mind and heart when I remember my sister’s marriage. All our neighbors, distant relatives and friends had gathered and all of them stayed for a week’s time in the large house. I remember how all of us used to rehearse for our dance performance to be done at the reception. All of us had enjoyed the event and I used to play in the scrolling garden with my friends. But at the moment of leaving my comrade and old custodian of all my naughtiness, we all were trying to invigorate and inure ourselves. My paternal aunt and mother were inundating tears. I went to every room and gathered some aroma of my childhood days.

           Packing and stuffing was done by all the family members with a burdensome heart. All the extra furniture had been shifted to our new house in the DayalBagh. Within a week , all our impedimenta and luggage was filled up in the new house and the unvoiced asylum , our own simple ancestral house . This was a sentience of deep sorrow and homesickness which would always remain in my mind. I feel too sad to be parted from my old amity……