Growing up with nature

I have been lying on my bed, looking at the sky all morning today. Accompanying music - shrieks of Holi happiness!

One thing I always look for when I move into a new home is that the windows should not be obstructed by anything. I need the light and the airiness. I also want to be able to see the sky... That is a huge ask in a city like Bombay, but somehow I have been lucky. Touch wood. I look out here and see treetops, a few other buildings at a good distance from here and the beautiful sky.

A majority of my growing up years was spent in Venkitapuram in Coimbatore. Vinayaka Apartments. This was the first apartment complex to come up in that area, built in the year I was born. The highlight for us was that right behind our building were agricultural fields owned by the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU). We just had to step into our balcony and a breathtaking view would be ready for us.

Huge stretches of agricultural land, coconut and palm trees bordering them, a brilliant view of Marudamalai and all the other hills next to it, and of course, the lovely breeze. In all, it was a spectacular experience, available right at home. The terrace would have all this and the beautiful sky as its roof. We were on the third floor, with the terrace right above us. It almost felt like defacto ownership of the place!

Driving through Bombay now, I often wonder what it would have been growing up here. For sure, my teenage might have been more colourful, what with all the numerous places for youngsters to hang out or hide in. For that matter, Coimbatore has changed too. These days, I look at the city differently. All the crowds and the cafés. In my early twenties, as studies and work moved me around in Coimbatore, I met more and more people who had grown up there too but had done very different things.

Now I realise that it is really all about a choice. With such a wonderful display of nature right at my doorstep, I had never really sought out anything else. As a family, we were not the kind to step out unless necessary. Working parents, children at school and later, college - we all led busy lives. And our way of letting the steam out was right at home. We would settle down in our balcony for long talks, randomly jumping from one topic to the other. The breeze would gently caress our faces, as it would, a million crops in the land right in front of us... The splash of green made our eyes feel so good! On clear days, you could see the detail of the vegetation on the hills. My favourite sight was a waterfall on one of them. I can still feel the chill of excitement down my spine. I would walk up to the terrace and spot a gash of silvery white on a hill afar. Paradise. That's what it was.

Oh, and the clouds gallivanting around the hills was another spectacle. I remember playing hide and seek with them constantly. Now, there. The next minute, gone! And the rains! Oh, what a beauty. They would splash down on our terrace and it took all our might to not run upstairs after the first blast of thunder. Amma was very alert and would keep a constant vigil. Rash and I would exchange glances and plan our escape. We knew she was going to let us go up anyway. But all moms play this game of stopping you and then eventually giving in. Armed with Turkish towels, we would run up and play in the water. I don't remember feeling that kind of joy anytime in the recent past. Maybe, once Rash's kids are here, I will teach them all this.

I would start and end my days on the terrace. The sunrise and the sunset were never missed. I made friends with the crows that came to drink the water I left for them each day. I had my way of identifying them. The angry one. The funny one. The ones that always come in threes. Observing their antics was a source of entertainment. I would run away when those huge bumble bees would pay us a visit from the fields. The more exciting imagination was reserved for the clouds passing by. So many explanations for the different patterns the clouds would make! An elephant flying, then transmogrifying first into a dinosaur, then a mouse... I could always picture bizarre happenings up there in the sky.

Come summer, and we had endless time to walk around and play peekaboo with the lone cloud appearing in the sky now and then. I would cycle around all morning and early evening and then, armed with loads of Tinkles and Enid Blytons, plop on a pillow in our terrace for the rest of the day. A sudden sighting of a stunning peacock (which continues to be the lone non-domestic bird I can actually recognise) would bring us all to the terrace often. Also, any excuse would do, when Amma had put up vadams to dry. The most fun was she joined the party and we feasted on half-dried vadams, straight from the sheet. It always helps if a parent becomes a co-conspirator.

One of the experiences I miss the most today is looking at the star-studded night sky. We would walk around on the terrace, Rash and I, pretending the moon was following us. A soft, chill breeze would caress us. Gazillion stars would look down at us kindly as we made sense of patterns, vaguely identifying constellations (I'm sure I always got them wrong), making up stories as we went along. Just a mat and a few pillows - our day would end well...

When I was in college, I used to hear about my friends spending weekends at their farmhouses. I would wonder why we never tried doing any of that (apart from the simple fact that we didn't own a farmhouse). I realise now that we never had to. We had ours right in our backyard. We didn't have to go to any farmhouse to unwind.

I don't ever remember taking the fields, the hills and the sky for granted. I was never bored of talking to them and sharing all that was happening. That terrace was my Yoga class, my music room, my study room, my banyan tree egging me on my path to enlightenment (maybe, just maybe). The sky was my canvas - I kept writing my stories and painting my dreams on it. Anything seemed possible. No goal was unattainable. No problem, insurmountable.

Growing up with nature was one of the best things to happen to me. And reliving these memories has infused so much strength in me. Today, technology spurs me on, night after night, to read meaningless stories about people I don't know, places I will never go to anytime soon, things I will never need for the next 1 year and what have you! Nature, on the other hand, taught me about here and now. Nature was my friend. It listened to me and then taught me to silence my constantly-yacking mind voice.

Till date, I get excited at the prospect of the open sky and a patch of green. And at work, I move to spots like these (in the picture), at every available opportunity!

Nature inspired me to go within and question myself. At the same time, it also taught me to unwind and truly retire at the end of the day... Today, I realise I need all this more than ever!