Read Type-II: Memories Of My First House for Free Online

deficiency in our homes and made amends by providing
proper doors, our suffering reduced greatly. It became possible to
warm toes inside our heavy cotton-filled quilts.
    Every night, we
used to warm ourselves in front of a simple electric heater whose
tube-like element glowed red. If you stared at it fixedly and shut
your eyes, you saw different patterns dancing against a black
background, as in a kaleidoscope. Papa always told us to sit away
from it as the dry heat wasn’t good for skin. But just before
bedtime, my sister and I would push our hands very close to it to
warm up quickly. The intense red light shone through skin and made
even the backs of our hands glow. That heater had one other purpose
which it served round the year: bending and straightening and
loosening and tightening my parents’ plastic spectacle frames.
Whenever the fit became unsatisfactory, papa turned on the heater
and softened the frame in front of it before bending it this way or
that.
    For the night, our
main armour against the chill was heavy cotton-filled quilts that
warmed slowly but I loved the smell of naphthalene they became
imbued with after residing in a trunk for eight months in a year.
There was also a green Duckback rubber bottle that was passed
around to warm toes. When my sister and I were small, we slept very
snuggly, all four of us, on the double bed. Later, it was each one
to their own quilt, and I used to sleep with socks on to warm my
toes.
    Winter was a time
when we were allowed some coffee in milk. Papa and mummy were both
tea drinkers but he kept a little bottle of Nescafe at home. It was
used rarely, and sometimes, in the rains, the long-unused coffee
turned into hard stone from the moisture in the air and had to be
thrown away. Nescafe used to be a dark powder at first, the
granular instant coffee came later. The rich aroma of Nescafe from
those days has remained in my mind. I can even recall the
delectably bitter taste, but it’s not there in the Nescafe instant
coffee you get nowadays.
    We were
vegetarians. We still are, but papa let us have eggs in winter.
Mother used to retreat to the bedroom while he boiled them huddled
over an electric kettle in the verandah and we waited expectantly
around him. The eggs knocked against each other and the kettle wall
as the water boiled. We waited for steam to start rising out of the
kettle spout. First, it rose slowly like vapour, and then it came
fast and hissing. That’s when he turned the kettle off and waited
for the eggs to cook thoroughly in the boiling water. I liked
omelettes more than boiled eggs although I liked the latter’s yolk
very much and saved my salt and pepper for it.
    Papa made
omelettes without onions or herbs and his thin ones were the best
omelettes I ever had. I liked them with toasted bread but our
toaster was moody and used to break down frequently. But it was
easy to repair and he frequently bought mica elements from the
Sector 29 market for it. Such bread we had in those days! I have to
tell you about it.
    ***

Daily Bread
    There was
Dalima bread that papa was always nostalgic about but it came to
the shops in our neighbourhood rarely, so I cannot vouch for it.
There was Modern bread, made in a government factory that was
supposed to be modern and fully mechanized, but people said they
kneaded dough with feet at the factory. And we children believed
them (just as it was said about bubblegum that it had boiled worms
in it), but looking back now I don’t believe that story about the
bread. Anyway, we didn’t buy Modern bread, whatever the reason. And
then there was Bakeman’s bread with a chef for its symbol. It was
probably the largest selling bread in Chandigarh. And Bakeman’s
biscuits were very popular too. Although Parle was the king of
glucose biscuits across the country, Bakeman’s was a powerful
regional satrap. It was sad to see the brand lose its identity when
it wound up the bread and biscuits operations and was reduced to a
confectionery