Thursday, September 15, 2011

A pretty house, now and then

The house in the picture below is opposite to our native home in Adyar, Chennai, has the only open space in the area devoted to garden and greenery, surrounded by coconut trees from the adjacent compounds. This house is the only unchanged in our area since my remembrance and its even years older than me remaining same except cut off in short in garden and trees.
A old beautiful house
I took this photo lately with my Nokia 2.MP cell phone camera and the quality was content to make believe hardly it was taken from a cell phone. The house and garden are belong to an ex-wing commander, whose age by now is more than 90 and he sustain almost inside the home these days except coming out for an early morning worship of sun. I never see him after shifting our home to the adjacent area called Thiruvanmiyur – the south end of Chennai, 6 years before and I get to know the activities of this home through my uncle’s family who still stays there.

The ex-commander is a very active person then and even after retirement he continue to go jogging and go to playing tennis in his classic back Fiat Premier Padmini every early morning. I used to check him often while he is reversing his car from the narrow pathway leading from the car shelter and until less than a decade he self-driven the car. But his son who is taking care of him and maintaining the home now is opposite to him who never tried anything like him except driving his only scooter which in turn to be scooty today.

This house used to appear very beautiful then with bougainvillea bloomed across the compound wall like a colourful fencing from preventing public sight has also couple of flowering trees which boom in orange and pink flowers and among them the pink one blooms only in spring or winter, which I am trying hard to remember, never fail to get attention from anyone. The guests and relatives visiting us always envy seeing this home and we used to be glad having such a beautiful bungalow opposite to our home.

Since we stayed in first floor we get to notice the activities going on the garden and it’s the ex-commander who used to roll the manual grass cutter on the lawn to level the green pasture. Today his son has taken the response for maintaining the garden and we could see him in morning and evening doing garden work and cutting the overgrown leaves and grasses with the help of a man.

I still didn’t install the digital camera software in laptop but I easily downloading the pictures taken from my cell phone via Bluetooth and so happen to post this photo which inspires to write this post.

11 comments:

Rajesh said...

Wonderful shot of this home from cell phone.

Jyoti Mishra said...

Nice shot..
wow its really very old.

Kalyan said...

love the subtle touch of humour and sarcasm in the irony of the home you have described. That's how life moves on and our modern day life is shaping upto.

eden said...

This is a great shot, Jeevan.

he is so blessed to reach that age.

cyclopseven said...

Good job man. Like the view very much. Jeevan, I have been to India number of times, and what intrigues me most is the architecture of the houses made in bricks. Why most people prefer to have squarish architecture?

Ponniyinselvan/karthikeyan(1981-2005 ) said...

yes, I have seen this house. A house should be like this. A sway, a novel,and some snacks would make a wonderful evening.
But no chance at all in Chennai.I love gardening and this house has fascinated me always.
karthik+amma

kalaiselvisblog said...

I too love gardening works.. but unfortunately we have no space, so we are maintaining some in pots...

Irfanuddin said...

i think having place for gardening in cities is not so easy for many people today, and that way he is lucky enough that he still have this space to carry on his gardening.....it looks good..:))

Jeevan said...

Thank you Rajesh, Jyoti, Kalyan and eden.

Suresh – Thank you for let me know this website to connect chennaities...

Cyclopseven – Thank you buddy! I don’t know why people go for square buildings… but I guess it’s only late and today people go for whatever is available and single homes are shifting to apartments.

Ponniyinselvan – Yes, that’s very wonderful idea to go with... and home like this is rare exist these days. Take care mom.

Kalai – It’s all we created this society without space... and now having gardens in pots. Thank you

Irfanuddin – Yep buddy :) It’s all them, because of few like him who are fascinated on gardening brings such homes to exist.

Randy Robinson said...

The garden sure is a wide space. Does the ex-wing commander have plans for that? How kind of his son to take care of the garden/. He must be fond of it. I would love to see these bougainvilleas you're speaking of.

Rose said...

I loved reading about this home and your neighbors...love their yard/garden, too.