They are selling my ancestral house.

My great-grandmother sold all her dowry to buy land in the city so she could help her newlywed husband find his calling. Madhu was a city gal who refused to settle for mediocrity. She held on to one piece of jewellery: her huge diamond studs. She loved them dearly, and I have never seen a picture of her without those shiny rocks in her ears. Even when she was old, wrinkly, draped in white mul sarees (the uniform most widowers were expected to wear back then), she wore her diamond earrings. “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” originated from Madhu, I think.  

When she had her own kids, she made sure they got an education. Getting your daughter a university degree was not the usual way things were in pre-independent India, but Madhu made it happen. A genuine feminist. Even though her husband wanted his family to stay safe and away from the freedom struggle, she prepared meals for journeying freedom fighters, opened her home to those who needed a safe space for the night. In her own small ways, she fought for my country. Madhu was fearless. A dedicated patriot.

They are selling my ancestral house.

Her son saw his mother’s genius and started a business in her name. The business bloomed, and so he tore down the little house his parents had managed to get and built a six-floor bungalow for himself and his sons. It was the tallest house in the neighbourhood. He was a strong businessman, a successful one. He was religious and charitable, and naturally, the small social circle in Vadodara knew him, not by his name, but by his business name, meaning, by his mother’s name.

We became the Madhu Family. Madhu was an icon!

They are selling my ancestral house.

I was one when he passed away, two when his mother, the matriarch, the trailblazer, the original feminist, passed away.

I don’t really have memories with them. I don’t remember their voices. I don’t know how they called me. I have some pictures and a lot of stories. I am sure Madhu’s diamond earrings are somewhere in a bank locker. But I had their house. My ancestral house. I was born there. I was raised there. I formed my sense of self there. We only moved out during my adolescence. 

In a few years, I moved away from my parents’ house, and then I moved continents. Since then, I have been finding ways to identify, describe, build or just mimic home. Nevertheless, whenever someone asked where I was from, it was instinct to say Madhu family. Madhu’s house was where I was from. I had my childhood there, my history and my most deeply planted roots. I never know if I will own a house (who knows in this economy???) But I always had that house. 

They are selling my ancestral house. 

Maintenance is too much, all the grandkids have moved out of the city, and my grandmother has finally said goodbye. 

I have memories from my childhood when my mom would ask me to walk up to the provision store, and I wouldn’t be scared because everyone on the street would know me. Maybe not my name, but by relation to Madhu, they knew me. Even now, when I go home for my summer breaks and my dad is driving me around our old neighbourhood on his scooter for the sake of nostalgia, I see so many random people on the streets who wave at him. It’s like he knows everyone, and if he does pull up, they greet us with such reverence. Most people will struggle to place my face; they will ask if I am the younger one. Often, they will give me some money or free snacks and abundant blessings. 

I smile awkwardly, knowing that I am only given this love and respect because I am with my father. They wouldn’t know who I was if they saw me on my own. 

You see, when I was younger, everyone recognised me and I hated it. Imagine being a teenager, going to the movies, and your uncle’s friends catch you holding hands with this boy or going out with your friends and running into your grandmother’s cousin. I hated it, and as soon as I got the first chance to escape this small city, I ran. I wanted space. I wanted to build a reputation for myself.

Rotterdam gave me that, here I am Jasmita. And the only time people stop me on the street is to tell me that I am wearing an amazing outfit or that I have jam on my face. I wonder if Madhu moved out of the village for the same reasons. 

At 19, I was desperate to be unknown, but now that I am at the precipice of 23, they are selling my ancestral house, and nobody in my hometown recognises me. And as much as I would like to believe that this quirky life that I have chosen, in a far-off land to chase rainbows, was my trailblazing, feminist, iconic idea, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Madhu. She shattered many glass ceilings for the women in my bloodline, giving us the space, courage and independence to rebel and to speak and to choose. 

They are selling my ancestral house, and I cannot wait to see the revolution Madhu’s house ignites in the next residing family.