All roads lead somewhere. Sometimes it is to places that exist only in your memories and, at others, to places you can actually visit. The road that was most special to me wasn’t actually even a road. It was a narrow pathway, flanked by tall hibiscus bushes that formed a canopy of deep crimson and midnight green. With branches embracing each other like lovers holding hands, long criss-crossing shadows, with intricate patterns, were cast on the ground. It was like walking into a watercolour painting. Only a bicycle could traverse the path, that too just one at a time.
If you stood in the middle of the road and extended both hands, you would be able to touch the hibiscus fence on both sides. It curved sharply around a large pond full of lilies, carps and tadpoles. You had to be an expert rider to manoeuvre the bicycle around it; else you would end up diving straight into the pond. It was on this road that I perfected my two-wheeler riding techniques.
The road led to my ancestral home in Kerala, which had many entrances. One led to my grandfather’s room — a long narrow room with a picture window through which you could gaze at the tamarind tree, lush with juicy brown fruits that made your mouth water. The room also had his writing desk, a four-poster bed and a bookshelf made of the finest teak wood, polished a deep, rich dark brown.
Many years later, I moved to Puducherry, where all my practice of riding a two-wheeler on my grandfather’s road, came in handy. Aurobindo Street, where I resided, was not suitable for four-wheelers, and two-wheelers were the preferred mode of transport. Most days, the street would be full of cyclists, motorcyclists, vendors, women selling flowers in baskets, schoolchildren hurrying along, and folks from the Aurobindo Ashram. My home was just a few metres away from the Ashram. On two special days of the year — one was the Mother’s birthday — all the roads around the Ashram would be cleared of traffic and the Mother’s room would be opened to the public. People waited for this day and would arrive in truckloads from all over the country. The queues would be in neat formations of several blocks, consisting of mathematically laid-out rows and columns of humans sitting down comfortably in the middle of the road, waiting patiently for their turn.
I too joined this formation. How could I miss it? I could see my bedroom curtains from where I waited, among people who were thousands of miles from their own homes. When I finally saw the room — her bed, her desk, and her bookshelf, all of it neatly maintained exactly like it was on the last day that she lived — I was filled with a sense of deep peace and nostalgia. It transported me right back to my grandfather’s room.
Both these roads are rich with precious, cherished memories that I hold dear. It is many years now since I have visited either. I don’t know how time has changed them. But all I have to do is close my eyes and think of them. Each time, the magic returns. That is what is special about the roads in your memories. You can visit them any time you choose.
Preeti Shenoy’s ninth novel, A Hundred Little Flames, is set in Puducherry and Kerala, and she has drawn from her real-life experiences