This is where some of my earliest memories are from

When I was a kid I though this place was Lucknow. Everything seems so much bigger when you're a kid. And you never thought about where you belong. Being pampered and fed and played with. I remember the smell of oranges and salad and rum and sitting on my grandfather's lap wearing his big bulky headphones while he watched the news for the hard of hearing. I remember watching my brother and cousin playing Mario in the lower rooms. Big fish in the cement tanks, me bathing in an iron tub in the courtyard. Bounding up the stairs and looking for treasures in the niches in the wall. Being too scared to go in the barsati room. The sound of my uncle's over zealous praying and the smells of good food in the upstairs kitchen. Nimbu paani kept in the Kelvinator fridge. "Aaram badi cheez hai, muh dhak ke soiye".  Creepy mounted deer heads on the wall of the baithak. Watching the older kids fly kites. Sleeping on the roof. All of those are just vignettes in my mind, either things I remember seeing or second hand memories. Whenever I return to this place I go peeping into the locked rooms, trying to discover new things hidden away in the corners. But now more and more things are falling into decay. I'm bigger. I belong to another city though I was born in this one. And I'm a stranger with a camera. So though it feels good to see and to hear about things from my great grandfather's time onwards, I know that I'll never belong to this house.