The summer we counted mosquito bites like they were stars

This summer had a strange quality to it, something I couldn’t quite place, which brought back memories I thought I’d lost to time. They came to me so vividly I could smell the heat and sweat of summer in Davangere, in my grandparents’ house where everything tasted rich and days lasted for months.

That summer, we measured time in mosquito bites, Some on the ankle, two on the elbow, one just under the eye. I think I loved everything then.

We would gather on the terrace and sleep in a neat row like a big sleep over, watching the stars twinkle and fade. I think that was the first time I saw three shooting stars, one after the other, racing each other across the sky.

I remember mumma softly waking me up to see it. We all just held each other and watched the shooting stars making silent wishes in our hearts. I don’t know what I wished for then.

All those summers I spent as a child in that house roll together into one stretching memory of summer haze. I don’t know if it’s the strong pull of nostalgia or the innocence of childhood that make it seem so full of life and colour.

My sisters and I would spend the days in tents made with our Ammamma’s saree fanning ourselves with paper fans we’d folded ourselves, playing board games and talking endlessly about topics long forgotten. We would come up with stories, songs and skits, excited to perform them to the family on the last day of vacation, just before returning to our lives in different cities.

We always chose a female warrior for the play. Sometimes it was Jhansi Ki Rani and other times Onake Obavva. We had so much fun trying to drape the sarees and hold sticks for swords.

It was just an added excitement that summer was the season for mangoes. We’d sneak onto our neighbour’s terrace to steal mangoes from behind their house. We always got caught after the first few mangoes; but honestly, the thrill was half the fun.

We were different people in summers - free and wild. That version of myself is locked deep inside me, I presume. I wonder what passing scent or feeling might someday pull it back to the surface.

I figure time came to a crawl in that home, in that season - beaten down by the unforgiving heat. Everything shimmered: the leaves, the windowpanes, the water from the garden hose.

Ah, that garden hose - and the cool, refreshing water. Sometimes, when Ammamma watered the plants, we’d run into the garden, squealing with joy as the spray hit our burning skin.

There was peace in that vast, humming stillness. A peace I’ve never known before, and probably never will again.

We used to visit every year. But then my grandfather passed, and the visits got fewer… I think we were all afraid to see the house without him in it.

I haven’t been back in years. I think life just sped up somewhere along the way and spread out in different directions for my sisters and me. But sometimes, like this summer, something slows down just enough for those memories to catch up to me again. Not in the same form, maybe, but in echoes.

I read somewhere that the only constant is change. There’s this quote by Heraclitus that comes to mind –

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”

As much as I agree to this, I believe that time can exist in little pockets that we can revisit, maybe not physically but through the senses, or the spaces in between.

Maybe it’s the whine of the fan, the smell of heat, the rich colour and taste of mangoes or even the sharp sting of a mosquito, and I’m right back in Davangere, listening to my Ammamma’s stories as she feeds my sisters and me as we sit in a circle around her; I’m back on the cool floor playing Carrom with Thatha and learning new tricks.

I suppose time works differently now that I’m older. The memories stay like little bubbles I can step into when the present feels too sharp, too fast and too heavy to hold.

Albert Camus in ‘The Outsider’ writes,

“The more I thought about it, the more things came back to me, things I hadn’t noticed before or had forgotten. I realised then that a man who had only lived for a single day could easily live a hundred years in prison. He would have enough memories to keep him from getting bored.”

Now, when someone asks me why I smile at the angry red sting of a mosquito bite in the peak of summer, when the leaves are too tired to move - I’ll smile and tell them it reminds me of the summer we counted mosquito bites like they were stars.