Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Days 357 - 359: "Shilpa Vihar"!

23 - 25 December, 2013

In his last visit to Singapore, my dad had brought along an old sketchbook of mine, which dates back to my childhood (and I mean when I was about 10 or so). It was fascinating to see what used to catch my fancy those days. I had everything from cartoon characters to flora and fauna and landscapes and each sketch was accompanied by a very clear title e.g. "boy", "girl", "naughty boy", "duck", "good boy", etc.

Interestingly, one of the sketches was that of a pretty little house and this one too had a label. It said "Shilpa Vihar" which means "Shilpa Residences", "Shilpa's House" or something of that order. Clearly, that was the picture of my dream house and what I planned to name it whenever it were to happen in the future. 

Now, it is not that my family had no house of our own. We did have the good fortune to live in cozy, comfortable little home but I guess I was probably not fully happy with it at that point in time. And the reason was that I never had a room to myself. What I had was one that doubled up as my room, general study room, mom's wardrobe room, dad's books room, etc. etc. 

As I grew up, I think I started to care less about "my room" or the dream "Shilpa Vihar" and had completely forgotten about it by the time the sketchbook made its way to me after all these years. But what I did have in mind was to some day have a bigger house in my hometown - one which gave enough space to my parents, my grandmom who now stays with us and the hubby, the little one and I when we visit every year. 

And the work on this - a house that has enough space for all of us together - has been progressing for the past couple of years and is now almost completed. And I planned to visit my new home, or "Shilpa Vihar" as the hubby as been calling it ever since he saw the sketchbook. The idea was for all three of us to go check out the new place, then the hubby and I leave for a friend's wedding in Bangalore leaving the little one behind with her grandparents, then I come back to my hometown together with my in laws who will join me from Bangalore, spend a few days there and then return to Singapore with the little one.

In other words, there was a ton of planning and packing to be done. And that's exactly what I did during these few days. Making packing lists, packing, shopping, packing again, repacking because nothing seems to fit in the darn luggage, etc. etc.

And finally when all that was done, we made our way to Thrissur in Kerala, to see that house that my parents have been toiling to set up for so long (My involvement has been financial only while they have been designing and really pulling the weight that's required to be pulled for any construction of a new home).

My parents picked us up from the Kochi airport and soon we were there. The new house perched on a slightly elevated road, overlooking the Brahmaswam Madhom (a temple and a vedic institution, open to the public only once a year during Saraswati Puja) and its adjoining beautiful, serene pond. With a gorgeous view like that, this was already a perfect home in my mind but I was wowed when I walked through the indoors. The interiors (done by a professional interior decorator) had been done up beautifully and I was thrilled that they had even managed to frame family photos and line up on a photo wall. It was all so beautiful! And the best part - there was enough space... more than enough space in fact, for all of us together!

So there it was - after a gap of more than 20 years, "Shilpa Vihar"!

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