The Home

Our home in Bakshiwala was part brick and part thatch. The portions from the original haveli were brick, the additions were thatch. Much later, as the money became available, these were slowly converted to brick structures. The front room from the haveli remained the main central structure. A kitchen was added to its side. Initially, water for cooking came from a common well. Bathing and washing of clothes was done at the neher. Later a small shed with mechanical pump for water was construted close by. This shed was used to take showers and provided water for everything else in the house. All these structures and a large verha (outdoor space) were bracketed within a four foot wall. The thatch walls and the dirt floor had to be regularly maintened by resufacing with a mixture of cowdung and clay from the village pond.

The main room, the kitchen and the shed all opened into the verha. When it rained we would become room bound in whichever room we were in unless we chose to get wet. In summer we all slept out in the verha on cots that were put away during the day. In winter we slept in the main room. The cots were the main furniture we owned. They were used as sofas, beds and tables too. We also had tin trunks that held our clothes and everything else worth putting away. These were piled 3 to 4 high in the main room, lining one of its wall. These were our prized possessions. The wall across from the trunk wall was lined with framed pictures of family members and calendars from many years. Calendars were cherished for their pictures and were kept hanging long after the year they represented was over. The far end of the room was partitioned off to create a storage space for odd extras and some valuables. This room was dark and mysterious. It never saw the light of the day and smelled of dust and jute bags. Chachajis used to threaten me with time in it if I did not behave.

The kitchen was a warm, thatch room with pretty, moghul architectured small nooks to hold the kerosine lamps and candles. The pots and pans were kept on the shelves. One corner was used as pantry. The cooking was done on a kerosine stove or coal burning angithee that sat on the floor. The person cooking sat on a four inch high stool called chownki. Others sat around the cooking on similar chownkis or moorhas, slightly higher stools of wood with woven jute seats. Sometimes we brought in a cot and sat on it too. The food was served as soon as it was cooked. The rotis (kind of pita bread) were served into the plate right from the tava. We took turns eating, sitting with our bowl of curry in front, as the rotis were served to us. The eating utensils were made of pittal (an alloy of brass and----) with silver plating on the inside to prevent corrosion. This plating had to be redone every few months. The water for cooking and washing hands was kept in large pittal buckets with a long ladle. The water for drinking was kept in an earthern pot. The porous material allowed slow evaporation of moisture leaving the water cold. The more porous the pot the cooler the water. Of course the porous pots were very fragile and broke easily. A pot with the right balance of porosity and durability was in great demand and extremely prized. We also owned a small side table and two straight wooden chairs that were used on special occasions. When papaji and his brothers were drinking they would take the table out and put the liquor bottle and the clear glass glasses on it. The guests or the elders were offered the chairs which were hard and actually quite uncomfortable. Everyone would always try to be polite and offer it to the next person. The cot was the place to be on. It had a wooden frame with jute woven surface for sitting. The jute had a give in it and made the surface gently comfortable. Cots could seat four to six people and were great for group visits. We kids loved to wiggle and scoot between the adults on it. When no one was looking Kuku and I loved to jump on them trampoline style. We often got caught and were spanked for it. I being the elder one was labeled ring leader and received the brunt of it.

My favourite part of the house was the door leading to the main room. This used to be the main entrance to the haveli and was correspondingly impressive. When Babaji took possession of the front room of the haveli, we inherited the door with it. This door was twelve feet tall and built solid to defend against any attack. It would have looked right at home in any castle. We had to go up one step to reach its landing. It had two wide panels of thick wood, each made up of two vertical columns of six squares each. These squares had copper plating and a brass, decorative but fierce looking, three inch spike in the middle. To go in the room we had to step over a four inch ledge on the floor (meant to keep rain water and mice out but did neither) and an ugly drain. There was a steel bolt at five feet height that we called kunda. This had a huge, crusty looking antique lock. The lock had a heavy five inch long key strung on a piece of rope. This was hung by the side of the door on a nail in the outside wall. When we went out to the fields we locked this door and hung the key on the nail. The lock was mainly to keep the dogs and cats out. If we all went out to the town, which was very rare, we left the key with one of the neighbors. The kitchen had its own practical looking door which had to be locked seperately.

The whole family hated my favourite door. My grandmother, Bhabiji, hated it with a vengence. It was heavy and unwieldy and hard on her old bones. It had to be shut and opened upteenth times in a day and chronically creaked inspite of lubrication. Bhabiji cursed it every time she used it. She could not lean against it while sitting on the step, her favourite place, because of the spikes. And it opened on the inside taking up too much space that was needed desperately by the large family. The two panels did not meet snugly against each other in the middle, leaving a finger's width of crack to admit howling loo (oven hot air) in summer and bone chilling cold in winter. The metal in it became too hot in summer and burned the hand. In winter it predictably became ice cold. In a place like Punjab, where the seasons are extreme, it really was an unpractical door. But it never occurred to anyone ever to replace it. I secretly planned to take it with me and use it for my own home when I grew up.