Fiction & Nonfiction

Favorite Places

(Italics have been used for highlighting the use of five senses as required by the contest host)

Pamela clearly remembers the place she used to run to whenever she was hurt or when she felt like spending some time all by herself.

It was actually within her home compound. Her family used to live there when Pamela was about six years old. Even at that tender age, she was delighted to see shady green trees and the garden. It was a well-built house with a wrap-around veranda; with occasional white, round pillars lending a tidy and handsome appearance.

The house was whitewashed, its slanting roof laid with red tiles. Around the house was a neatly planted garden. Pamela remembers that her mother loved gardening and planning the positioning of trees, bushes and creepers. Even now, her mind could see clearly the yellow, white, violet and lavender colored chrysanthemums in different sizes, orange and brick- red shaded sunflowers and the pink, red and white roses that dotted the garden in the front yard; their scent still fresh on her mind.

Pamela reveled at the soft velvety touch the pink petals of the rose flowers. She would feel the velvet of each petal held between her small thumb and forefinger; and found their texture and scent delicious. The perfume of the night queen flowers (white and tiny flowers), wafted into the room where Pamela and her little sister used to sleep.
The fragrance of jasmines and roses floated in the night air.

Her favorite place was by the side of the house. She went there soon after lunch when the house was quiet. It was siesta time in these parts. People would nap a bit after the midday meal, resting after a hot and humid day.

Pamela would sit on a flat slab of a stone, which served like a stool, under a guava tree by a small pond with clear water. She saw her reflection on the still water surface. If she looked long enough, she also was able to make out the blue sky and the white clouds that appeared like a group of elephants to her childish imagination.

She loved the smell of the guava fruit and the tender green leaves. A couple of parrots perched over the branches and peck at the fruit. The bitten guava, if it were ripe, would fall with a soft thud to the grass.

Pamela would run to get it and would touch the smooth surface of the fruit in her hands. She felt each delicate vein of the fruit with her fingers. After washing the fruit in the small pond, she enjoyed eating it sitting on the small step by the edge. The brilliant yellow of the fruit made her mouth water. The ripe guava melted on her tongue. The sweet soft pulp and the pips tasted heavenly to Pamela. She knew her mother would be angry with her if she caught her eating the parrot-bitten fruit. But how could anyone resist the sweet guava?
Those lovely lonesome afternoons stayed on her mind always.

As she grew into girlhood, Pamela remembered another great place, which she and her friends used to enjoy frequenting. The family shifted to another city where her father got a new job. Tall trees surrounded the house. Among them was a Banyan tree, huge and awesome.On weekends, Pamela and her friends in the neighborhood had great time playing under the tree. It had a vast trunk and the roots hung down to the ground like long braids.

The trunk of the Banyan tree had many nicks and bends. These served like steps, and so the kids found it easy to climb up the branches and sit atop on a clearing where several branches entwined. The dark and light green leaves were thick and oval in shape. Squirrels chased one another in the green mesh of leaves and twigs. Swallows and crows made their nests among the thick leaves in the branches. The kids watched their nests, made with twigs and hay, in round and oval shapes.

Pamela loved those mid-morning escapades on the Banyan on weekends and holdays. Here, the children exchanged stories of the Prince Charming who crossed the seven seas to fulfill the conditions laid down by the old king. After finding the secret of the life of the demon that vexed the old king’s people and the state, the Prince killed the demon in a fierce fight and married the king’s beautiful daughter.
Very often it delighted these ten- year-olds, Pamela and her friends, to imagine themselves as the princess in the story.

Pamela thrilled with pleasure in swings that her father had made under the Banyan. As the tree was big enough, making swings with the strong branches as the supporting beams and the thick roots as ropes, was not difficult. She would swing high, singing songs of joy.

‘I'd like to swing and swing,
Till my heart would ring,
With the sound of the wind,
Joy soars, sadness rescinds.’

In fact the whole family, sometimes joined by Pamela’s aunts and cousins, used to a have a lot fun swinging away on moonlit summer nights. Pamela remembers that even the elders in the family enjoyed playing games like ‘thief and police’ or ‘hide and seek’ among the trees. It somehow made Pamela happy to see them playing and shouting like kids. The moonlight shining from the clear sky covered the whole garden making it look like a scene from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’

Summer holidays were a time for reunion of the members of Pamela’s extended family. Those days seemed endlessly happy, filled with laughter.

Sometimes, Pamela and her family visited the farmhouse of her dad’s friend. They went by bus to this place, usually on Sundays. It was at a little distance from the seashore. The bus route followed the seashore. The white shoreline and the blue, glossy sea as far as the eye could see absorbed her throughout the hour-long journey.
She could spot some ships anchored at sea and a few coming into the port led by pilot boats.The mountain range that half circled the coast resembled a snub-nosed dolphin. It was a famous tourist spot known as ‘Dolphin’s Nose’.

At the farm house there was a coconut grove. The tall trees with large fronds were shady and cool like green and natural umbrellas under a hot summer sky. Pamela and her sister would run to these trees like meeting old friends.

The watchman of the farmhouse would climb up a coconut tree with the help of a wide belt that held him and the tree trunk. Once he was up on the treetop, he would pluck coconuts and drop them to the ground. Dad saw to it that none stood underneath. It could be fatal if a large coconut fell on one’s head.

Pamela and her family enjoyed drinking coconut water sitting on the veranda of the farmhouse. The watchman chopped  away the top of the coconut shell and would make a hole in the center. Pamela and her sister would pour the contents into steel tumblers and enjoyed sipping the fresh coconut water.

It tasted sweet and light. Then they would get the coconut shell sliced at the centre and eat the white meat, scooping it up with a spoon. It felt sweet and soft in the mouth, recalls Pamela. Dad and Mom also enjoyed this brief break from their routine.

As she grew older and wiser, Pamela's delight in the surrounding nature and its many wonders increased. An early riser in the family, she would look at the dawn with a burst of festive colors tinting the eastern sky.The open terrace on the roof of her house was a place she would sit, in complete absorption of the sky, the faint moon, the distant line of the sea and the mountains with tall trees and the brush sparkling like emeralds in the early morning sunshine.

To this day, this remains her favorite place to begin a new day. She spreads a mat on the rough surface of the roof, sits down with her legs crossed and breathes in the fresh and fragrant air blowing from all directions. Concentrating and practicing aspiration and inspiration of the breathing process, Pamela spends an hour there. With her mind clear and calm, her heart ever in positive frame, her life, she knows, will be one happy journey to an unknown destination.


Word count:1455.