Visiting Nana's old place - I

It started in January 2007, I had this urge to go to nana's old place.

I always thought the place was quite interesting. Apart from all the (rather adventurous) stories of how my mom and her siblings grew up, the place has this mysterious feel to it. Its in Jaipur's old town, the walled "Pink City". The immediate neighbors are muslim families whom nana always had strong ties with. He is a lawyer, and he used to fight cases for them, apparently for free.

Having spent a good chunk of my childhood there, I have quite vivid memories of the pranks, the scoldings, the victories, the embarrassments, and the excitement of discovering new things. The historical interest in the place raises its charm. Every nook and corner is offers a chance to discover a part of history. I discovered things ranging from 1 paisa coins, nana's election posters (he fought for the CPI for a while), and small natural bonsai in the crevices of the "chauk" (the quad).

Nana's house in the whole complex is somewhat small, and thus they decided to move out in the mid-90's. I had never visited the house ever since. I put the proposition to my mom. For some reason she did not seem very interested, and the visit got postponed. I brought it up again October'07, when I was home for a fortnight. But everyone was too busy, and I wanted nana to be there most of all. So I decided to wait.

Even though the Hindu-Muslim amity in the city is not what it used to be, the families there do maintain an affection towards our family that I am immensely proud of. Thus every passing discussion on the deteriorating communal harmony in India increased my desire to go there. Finally, this January, I managed to convince mom. Even though she could not join us, nana agreed, and so did one of my aunts and her children. Nevertheless, there was one non-trivial issue. Nana is in his mid-80's. For him to make such a trip without someone driving him there would have been quite hard. The ever-determined nani decided that nana gets to go only if someone drives him to the place. There was just one potential driver, my cousin, who had quite stringent time constraints. So nana decided to get a taxi to my cousin's place where we would all collect and go together.