Verandahs

I stand in the verandah looking out at the green garden overflowing with pink, white and yellow rain lilies which we also call candida lilies. The mango tree and neem tree wave their boughs gently in the friendly early morning breeze showing off their respective fruits. Mrs. and Mr. Bulbul who had built their nest in the Chinese honeysuckle are busy getting their two babies some tasty morsels for breakfast. Squirrels scamper from branch to branch and settle on the pillar under the neem tree to indulge in the first meal of the day, a bowl of boiled rice. The fragrance of the mogras delight me and I sigh with contentment.

I draw one of those old bamboo moda stools and sit down in the verandah to enjoy this quiet ‘me’ time before the rush of the day begins. It’s so rejuvenating to sit in the verandah and look at the world coming awake, the sounds from the houses around making themselves audible slowly and steadily - someone brushing their teeth, gargling, bathing, praying, mixer-grinders whirring...

In the winters this same verandah is the perfect place to enjoy the warm sunshine, all the while shelling peas or beans or green grams and enjoying a gossip. Somehow I feel the garam adarak chai and aaloo paranthas taste even better while eating in the verandah. During the rainy season, verandahs are the sneakiest of places to pretend you’re just looking at the rain all the while getting a little wet. And, when an adult frowns at you, you feign an innocent look and manage to get away with a sheepish grin on the side. The kota stone flooring of the verandah is decorated with patterns of dust, dried leaves and flowers blown over during a sandstorm. A petrichor fills your senses as you watch the raindrops fit themselves into the designs and then wash away the dust.

I remember there used to be an old niwar bed in the centre of the verandah where my grandmother would sit and do her embroidery or read the newspaper during the summer afternoons as the old pedestal fan whirred away loudly. The bamboo shades would be rolled down and sprinkled with khus perfumed water. As a child I loved to patter barefoot on the cool flooring of the old verandah and set up tents with my mother’s sarees. What fun it was! At night, after an early dinner during the summer vacations my grandmother would sit on that niwar bed with me in her lap and tell me endless stories. There was one which talked about pigs under the bed of the children who went camping; they of course thought there were monsters under their bed only to realize the truth after much hullabaloo. The story was a scream and my grandmother’s narration exceptional!

I now sit gazing at the brightening sky and slowly my olfactory senses begin to register the different breakfast aromas wafting through the air. Someone in the neighbourhood is having aaloo puri for breakfast today and someone else is having raw mango and gumberry pickle with paranthas. I stand; stretch and yawn...much like a cat. I’ve decided I’m going to have onion paranthas with lime pickle. Hot, sweet tea will be the best accompaniment to this delicious breakfast. A few hot jalebis would definitely be just the thing after the meal. I better get started if I want to have breakfast otherwise it will be brunch. I leave you to read through and plan your own breakfast while I get mine. If I’m lucky I’ll be able to have the breakfast here in the verandah before the temperature starts rising.