MEMOIR
I spotted this house one evening during a walk in Istanbul. In one of its most colourful neighbourhoods. There were row houses and ateliers in rainbow colours. Together they appeared like luscious cupcakes spread out on a tray. I wanted to airlift several of them to my home. Then I came upon this yellow house. Just around the corner of the road that led to the church on the hill. As quotidian as it could have been, in its plebeian shade of mustard, it had me at first sight.
I stopped to gaze upon it because its appearance reminded me of so many things from a long time ago. The sun rays streaming into my room through the glass window at tea time. The dead Gulmohar flowers lying on the patio, some of which I would pick up later in the day, and turn into bookmarks. The colour of the saree dotted with leafy green paisleys that my English teacher would wear to school every so often. The act of intermixing water colour paints on the palette to get the right shade of ochre. The dried, flaky mud on my school shoes that I would be desperate to get rid of. The fruit cake in my tiffin box with little cherries peeking out. The mustard seeds my mother would grind as part of her cooking rituals to make our meals special. The cake batter she would let me lick off the ramekin before it went into the oven.
Is my favourite colour yellow?
Yellow is the colour of sunset, my favourite time of the day. And Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ that hang in my study. Yellow, oh that yellow of Fall in Kashmir when the Chinars shed their leaves on soporific October afternoons.
That song stuck in my head, isn’t that yellow?
Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you
And everything you do
Yeah they were all yellow.
Yellow is that day when you and I met in Bombay for the first time. Just after the rains. And the post-it love note you left on my table soon after.
Yellow is what I want to come back to: My home. My heart.
Deyscriptions 