It was a garage technically. Yet it was more than that. With its doors made out of corrugated sheets as was the case in most of that vintage, the garage of my ancestral home in Madapatha had many faces. Although its primary duty was to be the repository of atha’s and thatha’s vehicles, this one-of-a-kind shelter with its kabook walls, sheltered by a grapefruit tree on one side and a mango tree across it, was an ecosphere of its own. With a creaky din, the gates would open, with the whiff of engine oil, diesel and patrol and a lot more in between permeating the air.
In the otherwise dim and musty space with, the only natural light was enabled through the ventilation holes built into the kabook wall. Its naked bulb along with the tube-light were the only means of lighting.
Doggy labour room
Rather an undercelebrated facility of our home compound in the sprawling estate, the garage nevertheless fired the imagination of malli’s and mine. Many would be awe-stuck to learn that the garage also served as a labour room to our bevy of dogs who took refuge from time to time! Malli and I were no better than the new born pups inside that garage trying to make sense of the environment! In the badly lit up garage, we would try to locate the litter going only by their cooing sounds. The matriarchs of the house would acclaim with horror at the mother-dog’s choice of a labour room with all possible death traps around them!
Home to eccentricity
The garage was very much in tune with our own upbringing in the ancestral setting: it fused tradition with the most avant-garde. Just like we were raised to celebrate the conventional values and wisdom but to bring out the non-conformist in us, so did the garage. With the vehicles occupying the pride of place in it, on one side of it lined up the wheel-barrow, grass-mower and an assortment of other gardening tools. Then in another corner there was a quaint sight of a mass of empty bottles of all shapes and sizes feeding on a one-time eccentric hobby of mine as a child. Emptied of fragrances, wines, gins and tonics, I would take pride in my collection of bottles of all shapes and colours. The adults would find the indulgence odd, yet liberally allowed me to pursue the idiosyncrasy. I would linger among them in the garage forgetting at times that a visit by a slithering guest amidst that jungle of articles was not uncommon!
Its signature naked bulb still hanging
Then there was our most prized possession: the tent. To spare the tent of rodent attacks inside the garage, it was hung across two coir ropes supported by a wooden beam hanging from the roof. The tent would come out of the garage during each school vacation and installed under the giant guava tree under atha’s supervision. In it we would orchestrate the wildest games together with our cousins. The unfolding ritual dampened our spirits in harmony with the parched grass patch that bore the tent for nearly a month, signaling the end of another glorious school vacation. It would be safety deposited in the good old garage for another quarter.
Where a puppet would languish
The most bizarre object to embellish the garage was the gigantic puppet (rookade) made out of fibre. The puppet mimicked a villager in drunkard stupor, sporting a sarong and a bottle of arrack in his hand. A creation of one of atha’s acquaintances, it was one of the most inexplicable objects to have made its way to our home. I recall atha roaring with laughter as the puppet was pulled out of a van. Characteristic of his most unconventional persona and humour, atha would install it as a public exhibit in the front garden, beckoning as many as possible in the neighbourhood to indulge in it and make merriment. Things however took a sudden turn of events when malli who would have been about five years then, was horrified by the sight of the puppet. Atha wasted no time in getting the puppet locked up in the garage and strict instructions were given to all including household retainers never to allow ‘podi eka’ access the rookade.
Weeks passed and the rookade was languishing in the garage uneventfully. I who was anxious for some thrill and of course to provoke my little brother, coaxed him to the garage under the pretext of showing something adventurous. At the sight of the puppet, he shrieked out to bring the roof down and ran out towards the house trembling. With my wicked sense of amusement getting the better of me, I was elated. My euphoria was short-lived when both amma and thaththa reprimanded me. I defended myself claiming that I never purposefully showed him the puppet but he “happened to spot it.” The very next day atha shoved the puppet into a van and bid it goodbye. I have no inkling where he sent it!
Today when I look around what is called the ‘car port’ in the house my husband and I built which serves as a not just a garage but a library, a sit-out and a dance floor during a party, my mind wanders back to my childhood garage which sheltered a labouring mummy-dog, a giant puppet and a mass of glass bottles of a child with a wandering mind who grew up to fall in love with everything that was off-the-beaten track…..