Sankraanti

Those three days of Sankraanti every year from the times i've known it was as if the house was flodded with people from all walks of life and we were designers, architects and land-scapers into the late hours returned dad from his endless hours of work and then the night would come alive trunks of dolls carefully wrapped in our swaddling clothes were carefully spread on beds n blanktes-porcelean english lady that grandma brought from her maternal home, birth of jesus with mary and joseph on either side of the baby-bed, two variants of rama, sita, laxman and hanuman dasavataaras, brahmins at a meal, toddy tapper, ravenous crow, kirana merchant n his wfe, bowl of fruits, birds in delicate transperant glass-you name it, it's there and down below on either side were landscaped parks, forests, hospital, dotted with lanes of sprouted methis n mustrad... somehow dad had fascination only for the white procelean and none of those earthern gods in synthetic paint every year would be added a new doll all dolls collected over thirty years and now when i count the years, they're by now sixty plus sadly locked up in trunks and palced on the attic... the last even i recall was some twnety years ago when our own children were barely two years... all innovation and appropriate techology we learnt observing dad arranging some six to eight rows with every wooden plank to bricks and stoned from the road-side to rice tins and travel trunks precariously balancing all the dolls... people came all the three days to recieve 'taambulam' and praised the dolls endlessly and finally declare 'doctor ji has four dolls, why these again! ' and we would laugh shyly and see them off the fourth day was a sad farewell to the dolls once again wrapped carefully back into the trunk... life was simple, fun, and there was so much to look forward to...