Every morning Sarita comes to sweep away the leaves in our garden. Her grandmother had migrated with my family from the famines in Rajasthan to the wetlands of Bihar more than a century ago. The fertile rice fields of Forbesganj in the foothill of the Himalayas far from the British, who seized grain for the World Wars , must have seemed very attractive to my grandfather and his brothers. The bouganvillea leaves merge with the pink light of dawn and the magenta of her sari.

The cast iron water pump under the mango tree is our only source of drinking water. My mother does not believe in plastic bottles, stored for months in warehouses and transported to homes across thousands of kilometres.

The wrought iron gates are always open. The garden is always overgrown and slightly wild. My mother says the squirrels, snails, birds and even the rats and mongoose must feel a sense of home and that the land belongs to them as much as to us.

My sister and I begin every morning with a walk in the lush monsoon green. Sometimes I see the ghosts of my grandmother and
great aunts at the entrance. Sometimes I meet Manoj and Shanti with the fresh fruits they have gathered.

The mouldy bookshelves and the dusty books are finally cleaned and arranged. I open some of my childhood books after decades. I find an old school drawing book, two broken brushes and 6 poster paints after 45 years. I decide to paint the grief and anger I feel-at the death of friends from Covid, of the murder and rape of an eight year old girl, Asifa, of the arrests and interrogations of my activist friends, of the hunger an death caused by the unnecessarily harsh lockdown among the women and girls that I work with in the red-light areas.

My father and I both sit down to write our memoirs! Its better to finish most work that requires concentration in the daytime before the mosquitoes take over. I think of my unfinished writing sessions with Gloria Steinem in New York.

Bahadur, the Nepali caretaker, always snaps his fingers near the Tulsi plant before he plucks its leaves. He says it is to prepare the plant for the slight pain he will inflict. His wife, Shanti lights a Diya every evening and puts it in the small alcove in in the four sided brick structure made especially for the plant. I watch them from my perch by the window. The trumpet vine has made a beautiful awning for the Tulsi plant.

Shanti goes up to dry clothes on the terrace every day. I go up with her to watch the trains at the station across the road.
My father and brother play carom on the porch.

The makeshift saloon inside a wooden box is open for business as is the fruit seller and the street musician across the street. Jamila Bua has also opened her shop for the odd railway passenger. It sells an assortment of things from bottled water to toys to scarves and bags. The betel paan shop, which can never close is open too. I can see that the daily worshippers must have come and made their morning offerings to the Hanuman idol under the Banyan tree.

I imagine leaving in the train as I nibble at a piece of the mango pickle drying in the sun. The clouds come and go, changing the
colours of the clothes, the terrace and even the train.

I look at the household near the railway tracks. They are so clean. The Dalit colony has painted its blue walls with beautiful flower motives. A man with a scroll is reciting a story poem to the women. The purple sari looks beautiful in the late morning light against the mud wall.

I retreat to a corner to read again, just like everyone else till lunch time. We eat on beautiful stainless steel thalis with my grandmother’s
name engraved on them. I see our old abandoned house come alive day after day week after week.

I can smell the scent of the monsoon clouds. I go out for a walk again. Everything is lush green and breathing with fresh life. I meet
sixteen living creatures on the walk.

Its time to go inside and back to reading under my mother’s quilt.

I realise that all my favourite things in the middle of the Covid lockdown are right here. My books, my writing, my blue dress, the red umbrella, the whatsapps with my dog and husband in New York, and and my mother’s garden. The routine and rhythm of my childhood keep the hostile outside world at bay-the Covid disease and death, the terrible hunger and loss of livelihoods of the women and girls in the red-light areas and the agonising arrests of my activist friends and students as the police takes over the streets. My Forbesganj garden holds me and gives me hope for the future.