A Glass of Lemonade

Just like most of the weary traveler scorched by the summer heat, you dream of cool water bodies to immerse yourself in or of drinking tall glasses of cool lemonade or applying unguents on your hot and tired body. In many of your summer dreams, you recollect your childhood spent playing near the River Green and spend days eating ripe mangoes from the tree in your yard. You long for your childhood companions and think of the times when you could play forever in the cool waters. The summer also brings back your dreams of a loved one and the quiet knowledge of his affection, not uttered aloud everyday but read through the love-light that you read in his eyes.

In the midst of this tedious summer, you find reasons to celebrate- like the first rain that brings smells of the wet earth and a sense of coming alive with nature. You feel the same resurgent life as you step into the River Green and forget time in its waters. Or when you sip a tall glass of tasty lemonade from a wayside shop just to quench your thirst. This sweet and tasty taste of lemonade quenches your thirst but keeps you craving for more, and this becomes linked in your mind with summer heat. Like the love-light in his eyes that you recall every now and then, going back again and again to your loved one and your dreams of being one with him in all senses- mind, body and spirit- you dream of the tasty lemonade that comes back to you every time you think of summer.

And, though this love has lasted several summers not one and has awakened in  you desires too deep for words, your thirst for this glass of elixir and your love of your dreams have stayed the same throughout the many summers. 

 

The Unsent Letters

The Unsent Letters

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. 

 

Good Morning

When you wake up early in the morning feeling quite content with life and you are happy that you have everything that you have always wanted in life, starting with the love of the one you desire. 

You wake up feeling that all your desires are met as his limbs coil around yours early in the morning and when you wake up with your lips locked in his and mumbling good morning in his ears. 

Your heart and soul are at peace and you look serene like a lotus in the pond, exactly where you are supposed to be. There is harmony in your soul because there is a brand new day to look forward to, full of new adventures. 

More than usual, there is a need to do something different ,out of ordinary on a morning like this. Though it's cloudy you decide to go on a walk outside after a long time, all because you feel high about the kind of joy you feel. 

 

The roads are quiet and the city is silent. The signs of life are only few with a few bicycles in the road and people out for walking who like me has decided to celebrate this happy day with a morning walk. 

On a day like this, much is done and much accomplished, when I woke with the sun and with your arms coiled around me. And, you feel excited to look forward to a brand new day full of exciting adventures and the memory of a perfect morning of love.

The Unsent letters

the unsent letters

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

Rain

This rain is like a woman on her periods, depressed and forbidden according to  custom. She feels strongly about how her disappointed ovum and how its bed of readiness burst into tears today.

This rain is like a gluttonous woman waiting for her man to satisfy her hunger. She feels the need to feel close to him and let him make love to her drained body aching with pains and desire.

This rain is a woman weeping without knowing why while on periods- may be for her unborn children or may be it brings restrictions to her daily needs as a woman.

This rain reminds you of a surge of desire that finds an answer in adorning yourself and drawing him in making up for all the lost moments during this taboo period.

Ode to the Puttu

In my college days, I was never fond of puttu for breakfast because it took a lot of time to eat when compared to the other breakfast dishes. But my mother always made puttu because my younger brother loved to eat it everyday and she used to call him putturumeese. My favourite at that time was sambar and idli which I could eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner without a single word of complaint. 

I remember how my grandfather used to recall a day from childhood when he had puttu from a wayside shop when he was going to Charalkunnu with his father. When he narrated this story, I was surprised to hear his love of puttu because I have never appreciated the dish. He described in detail how he watched this woman from the wayside shop mix the flour with expertise and how fast she had made the puttu though she was chatting to him. He had eaten it so fast and with relish because he was hungry after his long walk up the hill. 

Later, when I became a wife and expectant mother, I would long for the tastes of home and childhood as I have written in another post Ode to the Uppumanga. One of the cravings that I had when I was pregnant was for chemba puttu apart from a long list of items cooked by my mother and how I had recreated the same magic because my craving was so high. 

Now, there are a variety of puttu to choose from- oats, ragi, corn, wheat, millet- but I think to this day, my favourite is the familiar taste of chemba puttu along with rasakadali pazham. 

Though I belong to a generation who love the pizzas and the French fries and the Greek salad, and are much adapted to their surroundings, eating whatever is available and whatever one craves for. Yet, like the protagonist in Virasat, one longs for the tastes and smells of our childhood and this is a memory that stays with all of us. 

And, on social media, I see videos posted by people who are far from home and they recreate the tastes that they have known in the foreign land like in the videos shared by @appus08 or how food and memory are so interconnected in the narratives posted by Aparna Jeevan @inji_pennu. 

This post was triggered by a recent question by my brother about breakfast: Is it puttu today also? How times have changed!