I am in Kesargadde, the village where I grew up. Presently, I am living in my father’s ancestral house, where the passage of sunlight is narrow, owing to the design and location of the windows. The antique bathroom located outside has a doorless window through which I see the banana plant and wonder if the very sight could be frozen with the help of a camera.

One evening, I took pictures of the bathroom, along with the copper cauldron, which was warmed by the fire kindled by dry coconut leaves, among other kindling. The photograph of the banana plant captured from the opening failed to look as lovely as when seen in reality. In the backyard behind the bathroom, the sun gleams illumined the leaves as they peered through them, sometimes forming rays of light along the contours of a papaya trunk and a banana inflorescence. The same evening, I l eft the town to visit my pregnant cousin.

Today, Mother and I visited our old neighbours in Kesargadde. I was pleased to see them after a very long time. They showed us a video of a recent wedding in their family. They gave us sweet flatbread, banana chips, and ice-cream cones. Their calico cat has three kittens. Ramlat, one of the family members, told me that Dora, my blue-eyed kitten, was chased by a dog, ten years ago. I took pictures of them, and with them.

To walk on the same road, under the same moon, among the same trees, after eleven years, was comforting. Photographs of the moon encircled by the branches of a tree that stood beside an electric pole were taken, sometimes with the speeding vehicles in the foreground. I will have several pictures to edit, when I return to the city.

The reminiscences of growing up and the minutiae associated with this place are holding me together, as it seems, in a phase of life when distractions are sought. The shape and the vividness of the moon, as seen from here, do not seem to have altered to my eyes. I used to like walking in the moonlight when the village was asleep.

The unceasing drive of vehicles on the road here reminds me of the song Sand in My Shoes by Dido. The knowledge of losing this green space to a national highway is disheartening. What may divert dejection is the prospect of uniting with the place—the golden fields where we role-played detectives, the forest where we role-played scientists, the stream where tiny fish swam during monsoons, the fen where an exotic animal lived—in the distant future, hoping all of it is unaltered, like my memory of it.