Well, first of all, I have no idea what a Pop Up art show is. But I heard they have free mimosas. Also that Sharmila had a few paintings on display. It was hot enough that the mimosa sounded good. Met Sharmila’s artist friends and some of her customers. I still do not understand paintings… but, I know that orange juice tastes funny in the morning without the champagne in it!!
“You will not know me sir…”, I started my conversation with the gentleman who had just stepped out of his house when I rang the bell. If I could get a penny every time I have started my conversation with a stranger with that familiar refrain of “You will not know me…”, I would be a rich person today. Well, maybe not as poor, at least.
“My name is Rajib Roy…” I continued.
“Oh! I know you.”
That floored me. “You do? How?” I stammered. I started looking him up a little more purposefully. Perhaps we had worked together in the past?
“Oh! We still get your mail,” he casually answered.
“Ah! so you know of me, then!! Indeed we lived in this house for nine years. This was our first house – for my wife and me. Both my daughters were born in this house. We have a lot of memories here.”
“Why don’t you come in?”
“No. I am between meetings in Coppell and Mansfield. I thought I will just swing by to see the house from outside.”
We stood there and talked about his family – his five kids and how two of his young daughters have converted my library cum music room into their bedroom. And the neighbors we used to have then. After a few minutes, I told him that I needed to go.
“Would you mind if I took a picture of the house from the front?”
“Sure thing. If you don’t want to come in, you can go to the backyard from the side gate to take pictures.”
And with that I got the two shots in this picture of the first house Sharmila and I had bought and moved in to. That was 1998. Sharmila went into labor literally the day we had moved our stuff. Natasha, Sharmila and I – we all moved in together a couple of days later. I still remember opening up boxes after boxes looking for a spoon to make coffee the day after we all came back from the hospital!!
The backyard – specially the pool and the water behind brought back rich memories of the two girls. Pool was their favorite spot. Their friends used to come over and have pool parties fairly regularly. (In our friends’ circle and in the neighborhood, we were among the first ones to have a pool those days).
After taking in the view for a few seconds, I had a “Bye Bye Pool” moment like my father in law as I withdrew!
I am fortunate that work lets me still come back to Dallas and re-live some of the memories of those beautiful days long gone!!
Reading my old blogs, I realized this morning that exactly ten years back, in 2011, on this day, I had written the following… (This was in Durgapur – even before they had moved to Kalyani)
“Well, that was my week with my parents. My best time each day was waking up at 4:30 to sit with my parents for a couple of hours in our garden. Drinking tea, watching the daybreak, enjoying the flowers, occasional question and answer but mostly quiet – just enjoying each other’s company. No doubt we were all wondering how many more such days we will have. The loudest conversations, indeed, were the silent ones.”
And today too, as on those days, my loudest conversations with them are the silent ones…
Last evening, I was rifling thru some old family pictures to take with me before I head out to India when I ran into this picture. Any guesses who this might be? Especially people who know my wife? 🙂
By the way, there is a funny story how over dinner at a place one evening, an elderly lady that I had just met casually dropped the fact that she was my wife’s dance teacher! Till that day – and I must have known my wife for at least thirty years by then – I had no idea that she had learnt dancing either!!!
