Story time

It is touching to see stories work their charm on a two year old. The eagerness with which she innocently enters the unknown world in the story, her impatience to know what comes next- will the poochakutty find a home?, her sorrowfilled eyes holding in its sympathetic gaze the rain drenched poochakutty , the sheer joy in her face at the happy ending - she comes out of each story changed in some intangible way. Every story lures her out of herself and her known world, teaches her to open up to the mysteries of life and immerse herself in the suffering and sorrows and happiness that is not her own. Each story makes her world richer. For how long will she be protected from knowing that all stories need not have a happy ending?

Mamma

Angelface sleeps, her fingers clutching mamma's hand, her head nestling over the crook of mamma's arm, her face tilted towards mamma's, mouth slightly open.
Open up my little flower, don't cling on to me
open windows into the world and into yourself, my little butterfly
fly far, soar high, give in to the lure of the blue skies
So mamma brings in a book.
Look, kitty has a red ball and bowbow has a blue ball. now here comes a little bowbow. why's little bowbow crying? kitty gives a yellow ball to little bowbow and look now little bowbow is happy and smiling
Baby sleeps clutching on to bowbow and kitty, her cheek resting on the book, legs outstretched as though ready for flight. And then mamma yearns to throw away the book and cradle her precious one in her arms.

At the hotel

i watched two women watching a woman swim at the puddle shaped pool, it was like watching music with eyes closed.
With her cup paused midway in its way to her lips the woman at the third floor window watched the woman at the pool swim as though her body was being poured into water, and from the seventh floor window the woman in the house keeper's garb craned her neck and watched the woman at the pool swim as though she could bring her entire life to this moment. Someday as we thrash about gasping for breath, the woman with the cup, the woman in the housekeeper's garb and i will fish out this memory and swim through the day, so quit telling me it is not possible to see the woman who swam and the women who watched from my window.

A wrecked pier, some trees, an old man, and so on

On our last day at college my friend, who is by no means overtly emotional or disposed to tears, went around hugging the huge pillars lining the corridors of college. I pulled her legs to no end. I should have known better.

The city I call home has a long stretch of beach and we spent a good part of our childhood frolicking in the waves. We would dump our sandals somewhere and dash into the water- those days we could leave everything behind and move on. The wind, the waves, the music. If we looked up from our play we could see the long old iron pier stretching into the sea. Calicut's own historian MGS Narayanan says that this pier was built in 1871, and it was a place of hectic activity with the spice trade in full swing. As kids we were least bothered by the splendid history of the pier. It was just there. Like your first memories of waking up at the middle of the night and stretching both your arms to touch mom and dad, we could look up any moment from our play and it would be there. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about the structure, just an iron pier with the waves lashing against the pillars.

Last time i went home i saw that the pier was almost gone. Gone is a bad bad word. A few disjointed pillars stood there looking shaken. Have you ever been away for a year or two from your dear ones and then been hit by the sights of their beaten faces showing decades of aging?But then this is just an old useless pier and we had hardly ever noticed it while it was there. Now that it is gone i begin to see it vividly even in the middle of a traffic jam in a busy highway in the US.

Some afternoons i take my baby girl for a stroll in the neighbourhood, and everytime we see an old man sitting on a corner park bench gazing at a clump of pine trees. One day i might just gather up the courage to walk up to him and ask him what he is looking at, or what he is looking for. Does those trees take him to some other place? some other time? There is a very unique tree nearby the railway track in front of the building which hosts Sangeeth cool bar in Calicut. A wall goes right next to it and its roots pierce and emerge through the wall and run all along it intertwined. It's simply a treat for the eyes, the roots weaving in and out of the moss covered wall. Everytime i see it am moved.There is something that i ought to do, i'm just not sure what. Go and touch the roots? Take a picture? dunno. i wish i had hugged those pillars that day with her.

Us

We

give and take..... take and give

live and love..... love and live

and

leave

the invisible wall

between

intact.

How many spoonsful of sugar in your tea?

How many spoonsful of sugar in your tea? our hostess asked; a silver spoonful of sugar paused over a cup. Silverware gleamed, crystal vases sparkled and soft lighting threw its warmth on us. She gracefully measured and added sugar to each of our cups, half a spoonful for Parag, two spoonsful for Kiran, a spoonful each for Ramya and Azhar, and so on. Garam chai and bhajias, Kishore kumar's deep voice and a roaring fire in the fire place. We sat scattered on sleek leather couches, as our carefully measured words slithered out, greeted each other, paused, and vanished into thin air before they could mean something. Outside the door lie a world where Narendra Modi wears the crown for the second time, and Mullas sit in dark corners sowing hatred into insecure minds. How many spoonsful of sugar in your tea, dear?

lone

A withered leaf
cracked me
open.

Some days

Some days you write just to hear the krikkettykrat of pen on paper. You let go the drive to communicate, to elicit a response, to mean. Some days its just for the pleasure of seeing the letters pop up, come together and define their own form on the blank page.

Some days i smell a riot in my masala-dabba. The moment i open the dabba everyone sits still, holding their breaths, but not before they can scramble back to their places. That's how i catch the cloves tearing into the chilli powder which bleeds on the jeera as mustard seeds try to hide between fenugreek seeds.

Some days it is as though an abyss hides in my doorway. I step out
fall
fall
fall
through a blur and the pine trees outside stand startled as I meekly fumble around.

i let days like these slide off my mind, careful not to let them cling on, careful not to let their gazillion spokes scratch me. Some days one has to write just to hear the clickettyclak of the keyboard.

while it lasts

Is there something more to mehendi than what meets the eye? Are untold tales woven into its intricate patterns? Is it a secret language, a signal, a symbol, a silent reaching out like the quilts made by people escaping slavery? That just sounds too far-fetched.

What is it then about the mehendi that rustles memory, teases emotions and sends a song to your tongue , even whan you know that it cannot last for long? Is it just another way to love this earth and all it holds before everything fades away? All i can be sure of is that while it lasts i'm in love with red red mehendi.

Reading a used book

A quaint smell stretches out its arms from within the pages, the smell of all those hands that had once held the book with so much love.
'arf arf' barks a dog-ear 'here's an enchanting page', and another tugs at you 'this is where my reader drifted into a catnap'.
Nifty creases running all along the yellow pages hint at all the hidden paths in the book.
A pencilled star winks at you from the corner of a page; somebody has been willing to share with you a moment of epiphany.
Tea colored wishy-washy clouds and greasy smudges; clearly words were not the only ones devoured.
And somewhere a lonely soul once sat clutching at this book so hard as though it could steer a way through life, so hard that the book was moved and loosened its binds

...one hasn't even started reading the book.

Deja vu

This afternoon sunlight poured from above, tripped and tumbled over the dancing leaves and a windchime laughed in a distance. You slept through it, your cheek warming my shoulder. I will scoop up the glittering light from the leaves, pluck out the windchime's laughter, squeeze out the scent of pines and press it all together in between the pages of the telephone directory, so that sometime tomorrow we will plop this afternoon into our mouths and savor its wild sweetness. Sometime tomorrow you and i will lie down on the greenest grass and gaze at this afternoon sky, as the light trips and falls over the dancing leaves and the windchime bursts out in glee. We will watch till the blue seeps into us, we will watch till our eyes are quenched, and then you'll turn around and shoot a kick and i'll follow your lead , and the dogwood trees beside us will chuckle and shed a photo. Look mamma, it's us you'll shout, and in the photo you and i will be lying on greenest grass, as leaves danced and light tripped and windchime giggled and scent of pines curled out. I'd be vaguely surprised too.

Either, or

Last week daylillies bllomed in my backyard. Bold orange flowers with brown stamen stood upright on their stems. I was moved. I cut off a branch and placed it in a vase on my coffee table. One large flower and two buds. A moment passed, or perhaps a day or two. Two large flowers and a bud. I stood in awe. I vowed to witness the next miracle, and kept constant watch day and night. And, then there were three large flowers.

Either something so graceful opens up so freely that it is hard for the eye to capture, or something so dazzling bursts out with such violent energy that the eye dare not touch it.
Either way, it's a shame that I cannot witness something so beautiful as the blooming of a daylily.

There’s a word...

... which when set alone grows arms, long outstretched arms inviting you to sink into their warmth. Sink and warmth – the words suggest a yielding softness. Soft it is, even in its enunciation. Lips part and meet for a moment and the word is born.

Hold back.
I suspect its two syllables hold within them a brutal force that can trample all over you, even over that sacred space within you where you are just a being on this universe.

Hold back you cannot for long.
There’s an itch within you too that curls out unseen, and the next time you look at yourself you see that your arms are stretched out, just like the word Mom.

Teacake

A thin golden band around the rim of a gleaming fine bone china tea cup is all it takes to fish out a long forgotten scene, and you see it wholly for the first time, you see it too late. An ember pours out its brilliant gold, and dies instantly, and within you someone stands holding a fistful of ash, hands singed.

Miss Margaret and Miss Grace, the Anglo-Indian sisters I once went for tutions had a tea set like that. A fine bone china set of gleaming white, with a golden band and delicate pastel flowers on a side. Only once did I see them using the set, that evening when the mothers of the tuition girls were invited for tea. Miss Grace made the tea. Miss Margaret sliced the cake brought from the local bakery, and arranged it in neat overlapping circles in two plates, each honey colored crust falling gracefully on the creamy inside. We helped her set the tea cups. “Flowers for our guests,” she said as she went turning each cup so that the flowers faced the chairs. They debated on how to serve the tea, and finally decided that once everyone was seated, Miss Margaret would walk in with the tea pot. White lace table cloth, gleaming tea cups set neatly and the sugar pot in the middle- they stood watching the setting. We watched too, a nameless emotion beating within us. Manju’s mom was the only one to come. We sat around the table, Miss Margaret brought in the tea, Miss Grace passed on the milk and sugar, and I tried not to cough as the tea cake got stuck in my dry throat.

“Are we getting those?” hubby asked. He was getting tired of my touch and buy shopping. “No, not these, let’s look for some contemporary design.” I had moved on.

Yahoo! India Content Theft- Our voices count

I join the protest against yahoo! India's content theft.

Su of Suryagayathri writes, "Yahoo! India plagiarised contents from several blogs when Yahoo! launched their Malayalam portal. The giant corporation hasn't yet owned up to their responsibilitynor did they apologize to the bloggers. When accused, they silently removed the contents. This is not acceptable. We need an apology!" (read more )

Listen to other voices:

Protest against plagiarisation of Yahoo ! യാഹൂവിന്റെ ചോരണമാരണത്തില്‍ പ്രതിഷേധം

Geez!

someone's been stealing pickled gooseberries!

Unruffled

The trapped fly kept pummeling the clear window pane. Tricky transparency, I thought, and the alliteration tickled me. Headlong it flew, hit, swerved, and then once again thrashed against the glass with all its force. Does each fresh blow erase the memory of old pain?

I watched,
unruffled.
That's scary.

What Orkut does

What Orkut does is to hand you a sharp pointed pencil, and you kneel down on all your fours, as you used to do with your friends during recess prodding at the dirt that had accumulated in between the wooden planks of the flooring, digging out the dirt with the pointed pencil until it yields you enough goodies: rusted needles that escaped frustrating needle work periods: broken pencil points: bits of erasers: half-rotten rubber bands. Priceless stuff.

And, it throws at you the basketball with which you had gone thud-thud-thud in the court, your love of the game blossoming only in early Summers when the mango trees along the court flaunts small green mangoes.Thud-thud-thud you would throw the ball at those tantalizing bunches until a nun came out of one of the dark convent rooms and stood there on the verandah, expressionless.

It can file you in single lines of blue pinafores,

white shirts and shiny shoes and ribbons (often

cut out of your partner’s neat bows and frantically

tied around your hair just as the assembly

bell went off) with the sun shining above and

the day stretching before you. A tiny bit of ribbon

– no pleases or thankyous- you had it then,

friendship in its rarest form.

Orkut also gives startling gifts. It first tickles you with the memory of that Hindi teacher with bad English grammar, and you giggle like you did that day with the entire class as the teacher wrote new words on the blackboard, giggling and shuffling feet until she turned back, red-faced, eyes glaring, ‘I turn the board and you laugh, why?' and the class bursts out, ha ha ha you go at the memory, and somewhere along your laughter sandpapers your throat as you see that the look on her face that day was not of anger, but of humiliation.

It also takes.
That huge pupil tree behind the nursery, that one with tiny cement benches built around it, Orkut can take that away.
hop-hop-hop
you went leaping from one bench to the other in circles around the tree-
hop-hop-hop
your most cherished memory from the days of red gingham uniforms
hop-hop-hop
None of your long-lost-and-now-found friends remember such a tree, and you stand there dumb, robbed off the next bench to go…

The girl from the glass house

The girl from the glass house drowned herself in the well, and I listened to the news with fascination.To me , with that single-act which adults alone are capable of she had stepped into the remote world of adults. You know that for a twelve year old adulthood is what a star is to the moth, right?

She lived in a wasted house with tile roofs just behind my Grandma's house where I grew up. Mildew drew bizarre pictures on the outer walls of her house and the well stood in a silent corner. Large glass windows on all the three sides saved the house from blending into the many worn out houses that clustered by. There were no walls between any of these houses. Deep red shoe-flowers on green hedges softly marked their boundaries. Against this the wall of my Grandma’s house stood tall dividing the neighbourhood neatly into two worlds. Ridiculously tall.

We were of the same age; still I had seen her just once, a glimpse through a dusty window in one of the deserted upstairs rooms of my grandma’s house. She sat on the cement steps of her house, hunched over a book. A shabby kamees, wet hair let loose to dry- that’s all. Yet, she would join me in my silly games often, coming and going as I willed, even after she drowned herself in the well.

Last time I went to my Grandma’s house the tamarind tree in the backyard brought back memories of my old playmate. I tried to recall her face, and that’s when it struck me that I never knew her name.

The Blue Sofa

The most vivid memory of their life in that city of long winters was that of a blue sofa. It was a three seater with cotton upholstery of deep blue. They had bought it at the annual auction held by their University for an unbelievably low price. It came to them mottled with ugly stains, and with the thick upholstery frayed at the corners of the armrest revealing the teal colored inner lining. Each stain, they knew held a story within it. The first weekend they brought the sofa home, they tried to erase the tales with laundry stain remover. Subtle tell tale signs remained.

Over the days the blue sofa picked up from them newer, brighter stains. The stench of spices and hot oil that loafed around their apartment on days they cooked a real meal now clung to the sofa as though holding on to a long lost friend. Every afternoon sunlight fell on the top ends of the sofa and everyday it aged. It was an old three seater , frayed, faded and mottled with stains. Yet you couldn’t call it shabby. Old, used, dirty -yes. But not shabby.

Beneath its removable seat cushions it held a medley of things: a squished pop corn: a hair pin: an old pen: coupons- wisps of their history. On cold evenings he curled up on the blue sofa and drifted off to some mesmerizing landscape that PBS had been showing that evening. Some evenings he felt warmth radiating from the sofa, as though it could read his mind. She waved it off as his perception. A sofa after all is just a sofa. She felt she could write better papers sitting on the sofa with her fingers occasionally straying to caress the rough surface. It was as though the rough surface stimulated her thoughts. He said she was being superstitious. A sofa after all is just a sofa. This one in particular was an old sofa with a foul odor.

Moments before guests walked in one of them would hurriedly spray some cheap room freshener all over the sofa in an attempt to camouflage the foul odor. The effect was a heady mix of scents- over ripe bananas and spoilt milk- which left their guests’ olfactory senses bewildered. They never grew tired of narrating their favorite stories about the sofa – how they had brought it home strapped on the car late at night, how the single cushion that adorned it cost more than the sofa- tales that tickled their friends every time. Their friends never knew of the countless attempts they made at mending the tears and covering up the stains. It was an old three seater, frayed, faded and mottled with stains, and a sickening stench of spices and hot oil clung to it. It was the best sofa ever.