The sudden silence that had filled the house was an uninvited guest. Ajji sleeping in my room woke up to the sound of the door sliding open as I entered the room.
“What happened to your movie? Not interesting?”
“Power cut ajji.” I replied cursing the Electricity department in my head.
“Atleast now your eyes will get some rest.”
“May be you can read a book” she quickly corrected herself looking at my expression to her “rest” comment.
“Ya maybe.” I let the thought wander around in my head trying to convince myself to pick up a book.
Pulling open the drawer in my cupboard, I dug into the stack of books that were haphazardly thrown around. Passing the Grisham, tossing back the Malgudi Days and pushing aside Robin Cook, I dug further deep into the pile of books.
“What is this, ajji?” I pulled out an old album I had never seen before.
She smiled as she spoke “It is just some old photos of ajja and me.”
Flipping through the black and white photos that covered each page, I settled down beside ajji placing the heavy album on my lap.
“Who is this?” I stopped at an old picture of two young girls against the back drop of an old house, standing in the front yard covered with plants all around.
“Lets see you guess who those two beautiful girls are?” Ajji smiled back at me.
“I don’t know, that house looks old, everything is black and white.” I mumbled confused looking at the photo.
She broke into a soft laughter as she gently pulled the album from me
“This tall girl is my sister and this one with the long hair is me. I think I was 14, if I remember correctly.” she stopped for a second trying to recollect, as I looked at the photo with renewed interest nodding to her words.
“Yes, 14, it was Ugadi, the festival celebrating the start of a new year. Your great grand father, my father had bought me a red skirt with silk jeri border and a dark green blouse with a matching silk border to it too.” she pointed at the black skirt with white border in the picture.
“Akka, my elder sister chose a red skirt and a yellow blouse. Although I didn’t accept it but I felt her clothes were fancier than mine.” she broke into a laughter clapping her hands gently as I smiled back.
“Appa had just painted the house. This white wall you see, it was yellow like the turmeric powder. This black border at the foot of the wall was brown like wet mud.”
I looked at her smile and watched the black and white photo before my eyes turning into a multicoloured image in my head.
“Oh, I can still smell the paint. It took us almost two weeks to paint the house.” she spoke with enthusiasm.
“These dark flowers here.” she pointed to the plants beside her in the photo.
“Yellow hibiscus, these here were deep red roses, orange crossandra, yellow jacobina, purple bougainvilla by the compound wall.”
“Every morning it was my task to pluck flowers for the daily pooja, early in the morning wearing an orange sweater with sleeves pushed upto my elbow, holding a wooden basket I used to spend almost an hour in this garden.” she went back in time with a smile on her face.
I smiled as I looked at the picture now a full blown colourful image. I tried to join ajji in her garden taking flight with my imagination. The green plants, the colourful flowers, yellow wall with brown border, a beautiful girl in her orange sweater dancing around the garden with the white mist that lingered in the air.
I smiled as I brought myself back from the garden and looked at ajji, with the soft edge of her pallu she wiped the tears of joy that burst past her eyes. We burst into a soft laugh, holding the photo.
The sounds of our laughter were muted by the loud music from the T.V.
“Ah, your movie is back.”
Walking out of the room just to switch off the T.V, I was by her side again “I can catch that movie on dvd later, ajji.”
“What about this photo.” I put my head on her lap holding the album in my hand.
“This photo was the first your ajja and me…” we continued.
She spoke with a sparkle in her eye and a bright smile on her face, softly brushing my hair away from my forehead.
We took flight with imagination again as we spent the evening colouring the black and white memories that filled the album.
Glossary
Ajji: Grandmother
Appa: Father
Akka: Elder Sister
Ugadi: A regional festival celebrating the start of the new year, usually falls in the last week of march or the first week of April.
This post has been published as an entry to the “Take flight with colour ” contest by Indiblogger in association with HP. HP Laserjet
Sphota 
Anitha Naresh
July 10, 2011
ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿದೆ ಹರ್ಷ .. ಕಪ್ಪು ಬಿಳುಪಿನ ಚಿತ್ರಗಳು ಬಣ್ಣ ಬಣ್ಣದ ನೆನಪುಗಳಾಗಿ ಹಾರಾಡಿದ್ದು ..