The peanuts are mildly warm to touch as I nuzzle them in my palms, remove their peel, and pop them. The crumbled but craftily-folded newspaper that holds them passes three other hands before coming back to me. It’s a strange comfort when Papa places some peeled peanuts into my hand before my turn, almost as comforting as the moist wind calming our persistent perspiration in the humid Alappuzha weather. I’m partially conscious of the sand beneath my feet; what if a little crab lives down there and would like to come out, now that dusk is upon us? Rolling my eyes at myself, the skeptic thinking of imaginary crabs, I cast my eyes back to the sea. We’re waiting for the Sun to drop.

Arabian sea murmurs and signs in anticipation of the night – her waves rolling and moaning, trying to enrapture us, but we are too busy to notice. Along with the crumbled newspaper, we pass stories of wonderful times we spent together. I talk of the day I hid behind a giant flowerpot, playing an imaginary hide and seek with Amma fifteen years ago. And she shares how that was one of the scariest experiences of her life, coming back home to find me gone. As the peanuts pass, chettan shares how his shoelace never remained tied unless Papa did them. And Papa tosses a few peanuts into his mouth, remembering fondly how I grinned at him all the time as a toddler.

One by one, we release the stories to the keen sea, who collects them as tax. With each account, the Sun lowers a little, at the sea’s request, I imagine – our gift for sharing yet another piece of our soul, a prospective Patronus memory.

Before us, a little boy and his father cast their fishing net to collect little mackerels. The boy is wearing only a pair of khaki shorts, his ebony skin seeping in the splashes and his hands detangling the net to transfer his catch to a plastic vessel he carries around. Selling the fish would fetch him nothing, but it’s probably all his family needs for dinner. The tired white dog Amma had shooed away earlier joins him and his father. They walk back, presumably home, with a vessel full of fish. The Sun is now half radiance, half reflection.

The boy reminds Papa of his childhood, and although the peanuts are over and the sky overcast by bloody indigo, we inhale in the sharp sting of dusk and continue reminiscing. Life by the green is never dull, nor is life shared with loved ones. As such memories are rarely formed now with lives lived kilometers apart, we make the unsettling evening memorable by sharing the old ones instead.

My eyes dampen as I remember Papa surprising me one school evening by flying back home, unannounced. I’m glad they all have their eyes on the Sun and aren’t watching me. They have almost bought my pretense of not being the silly little girl who cries for the most random reasons anymore. That’s when I notice, among all the stories we share, lie thousands of untold ones. Stories of how I cried my eyes out a few years ago in a lonely hostel room; how Amma never told anyone of her self-doubt and inhibitions. Tales of how Papa struggles between tradition and reason; how chettan fought with his own identity after replanting himself in this new land.

Among all the stories shared, there lie unsaid tales of who we really are and the fact that no amount of freshly caught fish could make a scrumptious dinner for us. We have all been on different paths for a while for that. We have a bagful of stories about each other and yet are strangers on some level—the inevitable strangeness of domestic familiarity. Even under the same roof, even amidst the warmth of everything familiar, none of us are living the ebony-skinned boy’s life. And he is probably the soul of Alappuzha – simple yet delighted with the freshly caught fish. While we four, sitting on the rock bed, were born of this land but hardly belong to it anymore. We have misplaced the bliss somewhere along the way, and no matter how much the sea moans, we can’t bring it back. But at least for this moment, amidst the wait for the last bits of red to drop, we are whole – a part of the city and village that fostered us, a part of the home that was always there.

We pick up our things – a famished umbrella and an Aquafina bottle – content yet cross at the Sun for still being out no matter how many stories we told and walk back to our car. I take chettan’s hand and turn for one last look at the impending night sky. The last of the Sun is gone; the tiny sliver had dipped in a fraction, just when we turned. Amma shakes her head at the poor timing, but I smile. The Sun wasn’t collecting stories as a bribe to set; he was holding on as much as he could to listen to our stories. And what was he to do, than retire for the day, once we stopped telling stories and started walking back? The warmth floats through me, and out of the corner of my eye, I see the tired white dog return. He walks along, drops us till our car, and looks on as we drive away.

No matter how many personalities we dorn, how many ever stories we leave untold, we belong here – to Alappuzha. The salty winds would always come rushing to hear whatever is left of our stories, whether of domestic friction or from across the Arabian sea. We are the family returning home with a bagful of fish into the heart of the Venice of the East.

<Originally published at Muffled>