What goes around comes around

This happened over the last week.

We used to live in Jawahar Nagar a quiet  colony in the suburbs of Central Chennai ( Now not a suburb ) and our house was the last on the small 30 feet road. The house was built in 1970 and my father ensured that there was more than  adequate space for a kitchen garden . He liked to work on the garden over the weekends and that was his favourite pastime . In addition to vegetables ,he had also planted coconut trees ( four trees ) in addition to Mango and others and all of them started yielding three or four years later.

Our opposite house was sold sometime in 1990 and we had a new owner .   He started to build a very small Pillaiyar temple , by carving out space from his front yard but some portion most of the temple ended on the road.  We had mixed feeling about this but did not do anything .  The Kumbashibegam was done in 1996 and till we moved out in 2001 , we were regular visitors on a daily basis to see and get Pillaiyar blessings. My father passed away in 1999 and then as we moved out of the colony, our visits to our house became infrequent and finally we sold the house in 2005  ( thanks to my mothers kindness and willingness to do so ) – Post the sale our visits to the colony  just ended .

Last week , the neighbor who built the temple somehow caught hold of me ( phone number ) after nearly 19 years . I was surprised . I had nothing to do with him .. but he wanted to see me and my mother especially. He said the temple has been re built  and Kumbashibegam was done last week ( as per practice , this happens once in 24 years ). He wanted to give a Kalsam with then holy water and ashes from the homam to my mother . We were pleasantly surprised at this divinity and asked to come home at his convenience . He did come but when he gave the background as to why he wanted to see us and handover the prasadams , it was stunning.

The person who bought our house has moved to the US and keeps it locked . The Coconut trees still yield and since it is not plucked , the coconuts fall to the ground . And for homams , coconuts and Coprai are required . He said all the Coconut for the homam and its peels were used from our old house. And he said that by handing over , he will be thanking my father who planted them and maintained them … he did not buy any Coconut for the homam . It took us sometime to get grounded. We chatted for over an hour and the life that we had there and what was Jawahar Nagar like…

Just a moment to relish  of my father and what he did .. small deed but what an imprint it left ..and how it came back !!!