Bye bye my ancestral house...

Yes. the house in which my I, my brother, my cousins, my uncles, my father grew up is going to go. The house in which I think (I am not sure) my great grand father moved in, and my grandfather lived his complete life, with his brothers, who later branched out into a similar house somewhere else in Lucknow. The house will be demolished, a new development will come about. A new cycle of great grand fathers, grand fathers, brothers, sisters will start. Life will come a full circle...

The Lalbagh house as we call it, has been around since 1859. University of Illinois, where I work, was established in 1867. So much has happened in Lalbagh that

Its going to be difficult to shift. It's 60+ years of stuff that needs to be sorted. Stuff we had forgotten existed. stuff which we lived around, but had grown out of. The small bed which was my favorite as a child, has been lying broken now for years with no energy and urgency in anyone to fix it. Then there are calenders for the past 60 years which we stumbled upon. not at one place, but sorta everywhere... one was in the grain room, some others were in the poultry room, etc etc. Oh we found an album too! from waay back when I was born.. it had gone missing so long ago that I forgot it existed. I don't even know if I should categorize that as new memories or really old ones.

 The guava trees, in the front verandah would have to be cut, and places where we rode our tricycles would be all a part of our memories only...

I have had all emotions in Lalbagh. Love, hate, rage, excitement, sadness, cluelessness, laziness. The excitement at the prospect of samosa jalebi in the morning. the fun of running from one corner of the house to the other and panting heavily in the process. You can get actually forget the world once you are in Lalbagh. I have spent many days just watching TV. all day...

 This is the view of the terrace from the inner courtyard. I always found this view particularly spooky in the night. as you can see in the picture on the right.

It's sort of humbling to see the circle of life on your own. Something which was a little bigger than all of us in the family will be gone. To pave way for new. Funny, but I feel maybe this is the best parting gift Lalbagh could give me.

the passage I have always been 

scared of

the passage to the terrace

 

the ceiling of the living hall..