Huddled on Noah's ark

This picture was taken in 2012 during a family get-together. Family reunions date back to my great great-grandfather, Rev. Noah’s time when the extended family gathered for his birthday every year in our village home in Lakshmisagara. It was celebrated during the Dasara holidays, never mind when he was born, because that was the time we could all get together for a few days of family festivity.

I remember our dear old Austin of England packed with uncles and aunts with my sisters, cousins and me on their laps. We usually halted for the night at the Travelers’ Bungalow in Kolar, and after a hefty breakfast, headed out to our ‘halli’ on the Srinivasapura - Mulbagal Road.

Once when we had to make a non-stop night trip, we stopped at every tea shop along the way and even bought a cartload of mangoes in the middle of the night at Srinivasapura to feed us.

There were relatives from Mysuru, Ramanagara, Hyderabad and Bengaluru joining the cavalcade. My grand aunt cooked for the entire caboodle on logwood fire. Her son, Manu, was her assistant. The aunts helped in peeling and chopping. Soon, long strips of mats lined the courtyard and piping hot rice and curries were served on leaf plates. Same old stories of fierce granddads and stoic grandmothers were retold around a campfire.

We children fell asleep on those very mats to the rhythm of distant drums pulsating through the night and were carried to a long room, lined with mattresses.

When the grandparents died, our reunions shifted to Hyderabad, Chennai, Coonoor or my family home in Whitefield. A few of us have settled abroad and any homecoming is reason enough for the clan to get together. It is hard to picture a wedding or christening without at least some 70 of us in any of our homes.

All the women and some of the men are great cooks and musicians. So every gathering begins and ends with music and great traditional meals.

We have all grown up, found careers, husbands or wives and moved away but our family ties sustain us, making us want to come home to the warm reassurance of a larger family.

In those days, it was not easy to travel from Whitefield to our ‘hallimane’. Today it is just as difficult to drive down from say, Rajarajeshwarinagar to Whitefield but the will to share a togetherness and to feel our ancestors sighing in deep content brings us together.

Which is why last weekend our garden in Whitefield sported a shamiana and a serving station set up by caterers. Soon it brimmed over with incessant chatter, laughter, music and singing. Our children ran about in mad abandon or told ghost stories huddled up on my great-grandfather’s four-poster.

We connect on a daily WhatsApp basis; sharing our fears and joys, sending up a united WhatsApp wish for a sick one or thanks for blessings.