I am the most significant character in this whole house. Sometimes I feel I form the base foundation of the relationships that exist in the house. I think I am in this family since I was born and don’t remember when I moved into this house. I am not yet sure if anyone else lived in this house before me and felt as significant as I feel today.
I have seen both happiness and difficult times the family has gone through. I had been there always to gather all of the family members every day. All the incidents each one of them have gone through on that day is recited before the whole family. There is happiness, sadness, joy, confusion, laughter and what not in the whole set of stories recited. For every problem a solution is found collectively, for every success there is a collective appreciation, for every joke there is uncontrollable laughter, for every let down shoulder there is always a couple of comforting hands patting on the back. That half an hour to one hour is what I wait for all through the day. Then the lights go off and I go to sleep like the rest of the family.
Every morning is busy and we don’t get to meet all of them together, each one of us has our certain duties to do. I am the most privileged one who get to meet at least each of the family members individually. I am not sure if all of them see each other in the morning. But each one of them at least spends few minutes sitting down with me. Hardly there is any talk as each one of them may be quickly catching up with the Newspaper, sending SMS, answering calls, reading books and so on. I am happy at least they are able to sit with me for those few minutes amidst of all busy schedules.
I don’t go out of house to work so I stay all day long in the house eagerly waiting for each one of them to return from office, school … Evenings are always pleasant. Every one returns back and try to catch up with life they had missed. But before that I assume they may have some important work to do at home also. They sit in the near by room and watch TV, do the homework. I wonder if they talk to each other then, as the only sound I hear is the one that comes from the TV Channels, which changes very frequently. If at all they talk I hear them talking or arguing about changing channels.
The time for get together has come. All of them come and sit around me and there is life. All of us catch up with life that has been missed all through the day. I am thankful there is no TV in the room I am present. There is happiness again each one of them has their own set of anecdotes to share and each of the other has very patient ears to listen. Its joy again. I am happy to be the part of this family.
All the members of the family call me the "Dining Table". Every morning I don’t forget to say to each one of them "Come home for dinner tonight!" and eagerly wait for it the whole day.
Raja Saravanan 