Roots

I drive today on windy roads as the monsoon takes a break from the torrential downpour it's accustomed to bestow on the region.  The timing is perfect.  The day is cloudy yet clear.  The houses on the sides of the road are small, with sloping, tiled roofs.  "Hanchina manegaLu".  Surrounded by coconut trees.  A little further, paddy fields,  scores of them.  More windy roads that go past rivers made rich with bountiful rain water.  Birds in the distance, rice fields glistening freshly.  And that smell in the air.  It fills my senses, and makes the hair on my arms rise.  Everytime I come back, that smell.  I can see and hear the ocean in the distance.  The sea breeze brings more smells.  Memories of my childhood.  My grandparents.  Uncles, aunts and cousins.  That old house down that narrow winding street.  The pond at the edge of the sprawling "thota".  The mango tree in the center of the garden.  The coconut trees.  The well outside the house.  The detached bathroom "bacchilu mane".  The water heated in a "hanDe" with coconut husks burning in a hearth underneath.  The smell of wood and smoke.  The smell of rain.  The smell of my grandmother making coffee early in the morning.

I take a deep breath and soak it all in.  This is my home.  These are my roots.  Even though I live thousands of miles from here, I am Mangalorean in my soul.