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.

Rain Raga

Beneath the banyan tree, a woman sat singing some ragas. She was singing in her melodious voice some songs that invited the monsoons.  The land was dried up and the sky devoid of any trace of rain and the people draped in cottons gathered around with the sun scorching their brown skins.

The ragas reverberated in the blazing summers and were offered to the gods of the sky and the wind and the people remembered all the occasions when the land was blessed with rain in the scorching summer season. The children from the village played by the dried up temple pond, thinking of the days where they splashed in the cool water, sat idly in the cool recesses of the rocks, or sat chattering with the juice of ripe mangoes oozing on their hands and faces.

The singer went on singing and the people listened to the songs that praised the advent of the rains: oh you rain; much awaited the boon of heavens that brings joy to the earth, solace to the people, oh you rain, come with thunder and lightning and soak our brown skins with delight. Oh rain, the fulfilment of forecasts and incessant prayers, I invoke you in the names of the barren earth, the dried up rivers and lakes, the animals and birds, the silent trees and the people on earth.

The rains were invoked to end the blazing afternoons of summer heat with the first drops of summer rain and you set the warm smell of earth rising and you bedeck trees with jewels like brides, from furnace hot afternoons to nights of restless pace. It is for the rains, incense is burnt and prayers chanted and it is for you, the comforter on hot summer days. The land and the people waited for the comfort offered by the summer rains. However, the singer went on crooning the rain songs and soon and suddenly a wind blew over the land. The trees began to sway with the gust of wind and grey clouds rose to silhouette the sky with hints of a sudden outburst.

Then it started raining heavily. With the advent of the rain clouds, the entire city rejoiced as the wait was over. The days of drought are finally over and the soft rain pelted over the crowd with bolts of thunder and lightning. The people received in open hands stretched to skies what the heavens granted as comfort from the scorching heat of Indian summer. The rain fell over the land and the people danced in the rain with the beaming children screaming with delight when the droplets of rain drenched their brown bodies. The singer sat drenched still humming the megh malhar raga.

Under the banyan tree

Under the huge banyan tree
Who loves to sit with me,
And sing his soulful songs,
Watch the tender leaves flicker-
Come here, come here, come here!
Here we shall live
With no worries
All through this summer.


Our dreams soar sky high
Forever in the sunshine
Happy where we are
Happy with what we have
Come here, come here, come here!
Here we shall love
With no fears
All through this summer.

Letters to the Self

Dear Self,

I clearly remember the day I first saw a song on YouTube titled Ajitha Hare. I scrolled past it without listening, not knowing that it would one day become such an inseparable part of my inner world. Later, I came across a version sung by Gowri Lekshmi and something about it lingered within me for days. I listened to it again and again until I slowly learnt to sing it myself.

Only later did I discover that it was a Kathakali padam, woven into the rich cultural tradition of Kerala. From there began a quiet journey through its many renditions, each carrying its own emotion, devotion, and depth. Somewhere along the way, the song stopped being just music and became a refuge — a place of solace from the noise and restlessness of the outside world.

When I look back now, I feel grateful for the day the song entered my life. I think you feel different about the whole experience of listening to it. would not feel quite the same without it. Even today, I return to Ajitha Hare not merely to listen, but to lose myself completely in the beauty of the song and the timeless spirit of the Kathakali padam.

Love,

Self

Time

The ancient coils of time stretch endlessly, 
With its various names that are held sacred,  
While we go by the measures of the calendar,
Amidst the changing trends and the seasons. 

Good memories that flood your mind, 
Your thoughts fly to the innocent days
Spent near the River Green's placid waters
And the days of youth bring back life. 

You learn how to treasure the moments of joy
And meditate over them in times of strife
And you learn the art of distancing yourself 
From thoughts that destroy your happiness. 

You learn to lose yourself in the secrets, 
Whispered by the unending coils of time. 

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

My Dream Book

I have a dream book inside me named Journal of a Female Quixote. I want to record the daily thoughts and habits of an eccentric idealistic female and want to give it the form of a journal. I want to look at a few models and give it form by starting to write. I have carried this dream for a long time and published some posts in my blog as well but I haven't made much progress. 

But I don’t know when I will write this book and even if I don’t write the book, I want to say this dream aloud to somebody so that I might feel the need to put the dream in the form of words. So, my aim is to compile some posts I have written and start working on this project named Journal of a Female Quixote. 

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.

The monsoons

After much awaiting, the monsoons arrive quenching the wrath of the scorching summer that has gone by and you celebrate its advent along with nature. You forget the harshness of the summer season and the days spent expecting news of the arrival of the rains.

You recollect the burning heat of the summer season, the cool  summer drinks that offered you comfort, the visits to the beach that were part of the plan to soak yourself in the sea and the soothing baths that helped you sleep at night.

You sing the songs of the monsoon along with the rain and you love listening to the pitter patter of the raindrops on the roof. You rejoice by getting soaked to the bones in the first rain and enjoy it so much that your miserable summer is forgotten. 

Your mornings are spent snuggling inside your warm blanket listening to the pitter-patter of rain falling rhythmically on the tin roof.
 

honour

Comfy

Happy

mushroom cottage

Dear Diary

self love

life

choice

Fairies

Female Icarus

Your soul was a huge flame—blazing bright, leaping toward the sky in its effort to stand for what you truly wanted. You fought for your dreams until the end. But after many ups and downs, your soul grew weary. In the struggle with life, you lost the joy of living, and your spirit began to feel the heavy angst of existence.

When you look back at the years that have passed, you remember that you are like Icarus at heart—always flying above your mazes in your quest for freedom.

There were times when this soul was too silent, too shut away, too withdrawn—unable to find meaning in life. Yet over time, you learned to read the mazes and fly out of them. This dash for freedom began to feel effortless, even natural.

Still, the soul yearns for those yesterdays—when, like Icarus, you escaped the maze and conquered difficult situations with courage rather than caution. You were full of ingenuity and bravery, and though it took time to heal your hurt wings, you eventually dashed into the wild skies once more.

 

Journal: Serious and Trivial

The pages of my journal await to record a few thoughts. These could serious, trivial or even a mixture of both just like life. All these rambling thoughts were gathered from the same quixotic heart that has loved to dream, to fly, to win and to endure.

The serious thoughts were all about love and the longing to be with the one you love and the need to make him your heart's anchorage and sacred space, how from a chance acquaintance he grew into my world and how this love is celebrated in an alternate universe of togetherness.

The trivial thoughts were scribbled on early mornings as a bundle of words in the dream journal as a celebration of the pure delight of being alive, when a burst of fresh air, a bit of bright blue sky or a belief in the goodness of life were more than enough to keep this heart on cloud nine.

But the best ones are the mixed ones, a little serious and a little trivial about things that celebrate the joy of life that finds room in today's dream journal.