Dear Self

Shivsakthi Talks

The Unsent Letters

 

 

Dear Sean, 

Just the other day, I heard the song Phir Le Aaya Dil from the movie Barfi on the radio. I was transported to the time when we were head over heels in love with each other. When I think of our days at college, I wonder how naive we were and what a beautiful bond we shared. 
 

For me, you were a refuge from the troubles of this world and your hand held unconditional support in those days. Now, in an era of infinite longing, I am reminded of those good old days of togetherness,whenever I hear this song. 

Love

Berry 

 

The Unsent Letters

Dear Sean

Do you remember how you had given me a CD of popular songs and soon they became my favourites as well. It was your way of making people happy that made you a favourite among them.  I was smitten by your charm and what was missing after you were gone was your ways of making one feel special.

The OSTs from popular movies were my favourites- be it Titanic or Armageddon or Robinhood. Our world revolved around discussions about books, films and music. This year, as I am making a playlist memories of our candid chats pop up before me and once again I feel happy to have met you though we lost touch somewhere along the way. This year, I will create a playlist for you so that you will get a chance to listen to my favourites and croon them in your melodious way.

Love

Berry

 

Two of Cups

Though we may be apart, in a sense we are always together, across all lives, present and future. For this sense of aloneness creeps on you when you stand in the crowds.

You are my other half, my twin flame in this life, for it is with you that my dreams run wild and I weave stories of togetherness in an unreal realm. And, I have become like you in the years that followed.

In a way, when I look back on life, like a traditional Indian bride, I have walked with you around every revolution around the sun, I have stayed loyal to your love and held your name holy like a talisman.

You are my other self, whom I do not know for I have never seen you as you really are, for I was struck blind by your light. Yet I know you were with me in each and every circle round the holy fire and will find you near me in every dream. 

Even when I dream, you are with me and I return to your thoughts time and again just to hold your hand in an unreal realm where rules don't matter and hearts speak only the truth. In another world, in a parallel universe, we celebrate our life of eternal togetherness.

It is destiny that brought us together and again we spend our time chatting away about how life has been during these years of absence. I dream of a life of togetherness again, stargazing or soul gazing or learning more of each other.

And, though apart in real, in every circambulation around the sun, you and I will grow together in wisdom and though our lives will remain apart, you and I will find that this sense of oneness with each other in spirit, that itself is a reason for celebration. 

 

Green Again

A bit of bright blue sky to sing aloud;  

A pelt of rain to sleep comfortably;
A bit of thunder and lightning to look
And feel brave and happy at times.

The swooping  airshow by the kites;
Caught by the eye and not on the lens,
The evening palettes in hues of blue,
That brings back some thoughts of you.

Like a chorus in a song, you play nonstop,
While I watch the skies and the rain,
Look at the fresh green banyan leaves
Turn wan in the summer sun like me.

The tiny heart-shaped leaves will flicker,
And our hearts will turn green once again.

Us

I have a self that knows years of sense and more nonsense. I stand alone in crowds yet walk with you in green fields at the same time. I run in many new paths sitting at my armchair though I never leave my  world but for fresh signs or old paths. 

You are my other self, whom I do not know for I have never seen you as you really are, for I was struck blind by your light. and love was something that naturally followed. You were not with me in the physical sense yet I know you were with me in each and every circle round the holy fire and will find you near me in every dream.  

You are my favourite daydream that I return to time and again just to hold your hand in an unreal realm where rules don't matter and hearts speak only the truth. In another world, in a different circle of life, you and I will win our eternal game of love and may understand each other perfectly well. For us, time and space have never been important concerns for both of us and all that remains is the sense of unconditional love for the self and the other.

A lament about lost love: K R Meera's novella Meera Sadhu

Love is like milk, with the passage of time,it sours, splits and becomes poison.

The novel portrays the tragic life of Tulsi torn between duty and love and she chooses to run away with Madhavan instead of marrying her classmate Vinayan. She finds that though she loves Vinayan, she gets carried off her feet by the kind of love that Madhavan gives her.

She runs away with Madhavan on the eve of her wedding though she knows from his own mouth that she is his 27th girlfriend. Soon, she recognises that she does not have a role in his life and the story is a lament about lost love.

Through lyrical passages that describe the desire that Madhavan arouses in Tulsi, the author captures the beauty of love buy equally descriptive are her details about his treachery in love, the countless women that he has relations with. This wounds her and she grieves how she sacrificed her career and her life for the sake of the man she chose to be with in life.

The novel details the transformation of Tulsi from a loving wife to Meera Sadhu grieving her life and serving others in the ghats of Varanasi. The frequent shifts in time cleverly portray her memories about her marital life including the good times and the bad times.

The Wanderers

You were a wanderer who left behind your hometown to start a new life, to prove yourself in the eyes of your near and dear ones. I was a dreamer who could listen with wonder to your ramblings and walk with you everywhere, one who could go places without leaving my favourite armchair.  

In the many years of absence from each other, you and I travelled together across many exotic lands. From these wanderings, we have gathered so much of wisdom and have arrived at a place of mutual understanding. I stand alone in crowds yet walk with you in green fields at the same time. I run in many new paths sitting at my armchair though I never leave my  world but for fresh signs or old paths. 

You are my other self, whom I do not know for I have never seen you as you really are, for I was struck blind by your light. Yet I know you were with me in each and every circle round the holy fire and will find you near me in every dream.  

You are my favourite daydream that I return to time and again just to hold your hand in an unreal realm where rules don't matter and hearts speak only the truth. In another world, in a different circle of life, you and I will win our eternal game of love.  

In the long years you have been away, I have glimpsed you in many forms but not in real but I still remember your strong belief in sticking to your dreams and nothing else. For me, who have lately started following your footsteps, the world looks new and vistas inviting.  

May be this is not a dream at all but a piece taken out of tattered lives like yours and mine, but when these words come to fruition, it is more achingly perfect than anything else heard, felt or seen. And, together we travel across the blue waters resting in an understanding that goes beyond words with a love that recompenses the eons lost and gone. 

Ode to the Mysore Pak

The days had become miserable, marked by medicines taken in the hope of sleep. Nights passed counting sheep, while the days that followed were clouded by the drowsiness of accumulated sleep debt. I do not know why I had been feeling so low when a simple piece of Mysore pak came to usher a little sweetness into an otherwise dreary life.

It was on an ordinary day of weariness that my neighbour brought over a few sweets to savour—a piece of Mysore pak and a selection of Kerala sweets. Many people prefer the rich, ghee-soaked version of Mysore pak, but I have always liked the dry variety, with its crumbly texture and understated sweetness.

That day, when my spirits had sunk to one of their lowest points, the sweet seemed to possess an unexpected grace. I wanted to savour every bite, allowing its sweetness to linger. The moment became strangely profound. That humble piece of Mysore pak rekindled a joie de vivre that had quietly slipped away over the previous days.

It was, after all, only an ordinary sweet. Yet it possessed the remarkable power to lift the spirit out of its rut and remind me that happiness sometimes arrives in the smallest, most unassuming forms. In a season overshadowed by sleeplessness and fatigue, that simple offering became more than a confection; it became a gentle reminder that life's sweetness often returns when we least expect it.

Evenings at the Indian Coffee House

In this middle age, I wonder how life has turned out to be, so different from the images that I had when someone asked me to imagine how life will be after ten years. I have always dreamt of you at my side as my life-partner, with two lovely children of ours to greet the days, a comfortable set of old friends to grow old together and a cosy little home that I took time to decorate with curios from the places we visited together as a couple and a huge library of all the books that we used to read. 

But when I reached this milestone all I have is a history of losses- the disappointment of a broken love that almost came to fruition, the years spent trying to pull yourself back together, the indifference of your loved ones, the absence of real friends and the lacks that are spelt so clearly and in bold letters everyday. It has been years since you called anyone a friend as you have only acquiantances and you never offer a shoulder to cry as you used to do before nor ask solace from anyone despite of being miserable and broken. You wear a brave face in the crowds and break down miserably in your solitude as you plod on with your busy everyday life. 

Then in the evenings and weekends you form a bond with your workmate and share the same sense of joy at the aroma of freshly ground coffee and piping hot Masala dosa at your favourite haunt, the old Coffee House in the city. On some busy days, you have to scream to make your companion understand what you are trying to say, all amidst the hustle and bustle of the staff in the old Coffeehouse, full of life. 

Over a period of months, we form a unique bond, minus our histories and sad luggage, looking forward to what is served on the menu only with a common love shared for solitary hangouts be it an evening by the seashore or a quiet swim in the nearby river. Gradually, your sad face attains a brightness of being loved in return without knowing any of your past  wounds and your time is spent in tasting the old brew of hot coffee and eating the same Masala dosas. We write a life of being in the moment -looking forward to our days of favourite comfort food at our favourite hangout.

Song of the Summer

In the rising heat of the season, you dream of the monsoons, the waterbodies that give you comfort and tall glasses of cool and tasty drinks that offer you solace. You read up old lores on how the ancient Indian musician Tansen made rain with his raga Megh Malhar and the power of music to bring about change in nature. And, there you are lost watching a video online of an Indian musician sitting under a banyan tree singing this raga and in ten minutes, it starts raining all of a sudden. 

On the way back from work, you look with longing at the river nearby and long to immerse yourself in its soothing waters till you no longer remember the sizzling heat of summer. In the orchards, you watch how the waterspouts drizzle the plants to prevent them from turning wan. And, you long to play in the water like you did in a long lost childhood near the River Green. 

The fruit heaps on the wayside shop beckon you with their fragrances-guavas, watermelons, lime and mangoes. When you look at these and think of the cool fruit juices that you can make with crushed ice and some mint leaves. Yet, sometimes when no fruits are available, usually resort to your traditional summer drink of buttermilk that you enjoy making at home mixing the right amounts of buttermilk, shallots ginger, curry leaves, jeera powder and salt. And, you wonder how some simple ingredients available at home can create a magical drink that makes you forget the woes of this scorching season. In the lazy evenings, you smear yourself with turmeric and sandalwood in a routine to beat the heat. The sun shows on your face and in the exposed parts of your body way too much and the paste cools you down and helps you sleep better.

In this summer tedium, one longs for the beats of the monsoon,the warm smell of rising earth during the first rain, the lazy mornings when one sleeps in when you don't have to go anywhere and just like that in this between time of twilight, when the lamps are lit for prayer and prayers chanted in the temples, one dreams of home, of being one with you and one longs for the comforts of cool water and refreshing drinks.

#summer

Earworm

You play like a song that is stuck in my head even though the passage of time has brought so many changes. You have stayed like a persistent song and you are the place where my thoughts end, the place where they reach home. 

Once we were wanderers in the strange lands and went through the different phases of being the dreamer, the nurturer and the wanderer. Our outwardly selves were quiet but we loved dancing to wild beats of music and at the same time loved our silences. 

Now, though the years have gone so by, your memory plays in my being like a soulful monsoon melody. For those who are wiser advise that to cure one earworm, you need another one but my thoughts find you as their home. 

For when I met you, I never knew that you are my perfect earworm ever possible, one that stays my favourite and that I will never get bored even if it plays from morning till midnight.

Separation

I became a loser when I had to leave my home of seven years. The very memory brings tears to my eyes. The thought is devastating- I have to go leaving behind my home, my child and my in-laws. The sight of these rooms makes me cry including the floors you have scrubbed and the nooks that your hands cleaned. 

You sigh at the memory of the well-kept kitchen and what I see are the necessities of everyday life—including coffee, sugar and bread.Yet tucked away among these ordinary things are remnants of old emotions: the daily activities of a housewife toiling in the kitchen and scrubbing the floors and kitchen utensils. 

The memories from a dysfunctional family remain strongly etched in the memory and how one hated home in a general sense. In the beginning, married life was bliss but it became a pattern to repeat your dysfunctional family here.

And, you need to leave your home of seven years to go back to the home you disliked as a growing youth. What fills your mind is a sense of disbelief at the loss you have encountered and sadness at losing the home you had created. 

Happy Birthday KS Chithra

Sometimes, you long to listen to some soulful melodies you have heard before and then you recognize that these songs bring comfort to your weary soul. 

Here are some of my favourites among the thousands of  songs sung by the Nightingale of South India, KS Chithra

1. Manjal Prasadavum

2. Indraneelimayolum

4. Pudamurikalyanam

5. Aa rathri

6. Kannan Thumbi

7. Mounam Swaramayi

8. Attirambile

10. Aayiram Kannumayi

11. Indupushpam

12. Yathrayee Sooryankuram

13. Ponnil Kulichu

14. Varmukile

15. Panchavarna painkili penne

The Monsoons

Memories

Earlier, life was celebrated fully and these cherished moments were captured on the lens. Most of the time, you loved to stand and stare and wander and find joy in the things around you. For you could watch with delight whatever was offered on the wayside and in your wanderings you came across many sights that always caught your eye. 

Every occasion was marked by countless snaps took on the camera and sometimes even our days of togetherness were treasured memories in small pixels. But with the passage of time, on growing older and wiser and lazier, you have changed a lot and you no longer believe in the power of the lens to capture memorable moments. Now, you want to sit still and enjoy the moment, be mindful and present, taking in the whole experience in its entirety. 

The sights that you see around are captured on your mind’s eye as you savour and record each and every sensory detail- the miracle of your child's first cry, the morning sights on the city roads, the sunsets by the beach and the soothing sight of the waves crashing against the shore, the rhythmic way your wayside shopkeeper makes your favourite pani puri and the countless moments that are too good to be caught on the lens. 

I find that there are moments more cherished than all these, like our days of togetherness though not caught on any lens any day. What you and I try to do is to find the magic of togetherness in the everyday life and beauty in the mundane around us. 

You need to wait so that you and I can set forth on our wanderings and find delight in the solace that nature offers. I wish for more days when we can sit idle near the seashore listening to the soothing music of waves thrashing against the shore or wander in the city basking in the morning light. 

Anyway, I would say you are my favourite movie rerun in my mind's eye, with the smallest details and more precious than any captured moments and I would trade everything just to capture your smile on the lens, with you watching the beauty around you.

The best

What you want

The Unsent Letters