Alphabet Soup for Lovers

I guess it is quite natural for a foodie to indulge in a novel that features food in it though I cannot quite decide whether to call Anita Nair’s Alphabet Soup for Lovers (2015), a lovestory couched within a book on comfort foods or a book on comfort foods with a love story. She intertwines love, zest for life and memories in a novel set in a tea plantation in Anamalai Hills. 

The novel is narrated by Komathi, a maid who has been Lena’s family from the time she was a girl. Though she was a fiery brat in childhood, Lena  settles down into a quiet life with KK, her civil lawyer husband. However, Komathi is unhappy with the placid kind of relationship that Lena shares with KK. 

Lena chooses to marry KK precisely for the reason that she is not in love with him. They are childless as Lena lost a baby in an ectopic pregnancy. To while away her time, she teaches the children in the tea plantation creche. The entry on inji shows her attitude to the young couple, which she says is too placid for a couple in their late thirties.

The turning point in their lives is the arrival of Shoola Pani, a celebrated South Indian filmstar into their lives. He comes to stay in one of the vacation homes owned by the couple. Shoola Pani is a superstar and wants a break from his busy schedule. He shaves off his well groomed hair so that he will not be recognised during his holiday. 

During their first meeting, both Lena and Shoola Pani are completely repulsed by each other. Shoola Pani is shocked to realise that Lena is not bothered by his celebrity status and Shoola Pani dislikes the fact that she has recognised him. However, within a week he starts walking with her to the church cemetery in the hills.  The place becomes Arcadia and they become Lee and Ship to each other, whom she names after the proverbial phrase for strangers in love- “ships that pass in the night”. 

Komathi looks at Lena and recognises what she is up to and she remembers her own youth when she was in love with Rayar, a Marathi worker in the tea plantation. It was Lena who had caused him to go away much to Komathi’s heartbreak. 

She remembers the comfort food of thayir with rice she used to have when he went away or the wendiyum rice that Lena’s mother fed her when she lost her baby. Lena can stand the indifference that is part of her marriage but not her vulnerability when in love. 

In this well written and ingeniously woven novel, Anita Nair celebrates food and life and  the many interconnections between them. The book definitely made me crave for it to last a little longer. 


Pics: From the novel

Tonight

Dedication to my king

You wanted a book dedicated to you, my dear.  I could write many a story of you and me, words and silence, music and love, rain and summer.

You are a sacred space that I have never left; a home that keeps me grounded to the world of dreams, though some are lost and some found again. For I’m like the proverbial woman who lost a valuable coin and has found it again after thorough searching.

You have a bowl full of colours that fetch you happiness every day; while I keep mine clean and empty for an impulsive act of alms from you. Someday, you might give me a little from the lot you have, just to keep me from starving.

The clouds still heave and burst into tears, every now and then. Years have gone by; still you are special, by the way you brought back music to me; for I’d never forget that one day, when you made me understand that I had forgotten how to sing.

Every day, from dawn to dusk, your name is like a talisman that I keep safe from the world, till words form one by one and fill these blank pages.

Near the green fields

Love

I have my ebbs
And my tides;
I change
My nature,
With the moon.
Yet my love
For you dearest
Comes back
In full circle

days of love

 

Loving was living precariously. When the morning light drained through the windows she opened her eyes. Slowly she became conscious of everything around her. Last night, she had fallen asleep crying. Now her heart was empty but soon thoughts of reasoning and doubt would cloud it again. It was a day she had dreaded all this time. Throughout all the happy days the shadow of this inevitable day was on her happiness, on their happiness.

 

Back from bath, she thought, this one day I can look like an unhappy broken-hearted girl and make him unhappy.  So she chose her brightest smile and her brightest clothes and put them on with care. He would be waiting for her at the usual place, with a smile. How will I hide my heart from him, her mind asked her. She walked to the usual place with a bowed down heart and a bright face.

 

From the first glance itself of her walking in that resplendent dress, he read through her veneer of cheerfulness easily. How to calm her, he thought. His heart wanted to protect her from everything, make her his, so that she would never have to face her troubles again. Yet he didn’t move at all and looked at her with the utmost attention.

 

As if to read his thoughts, she looked straight into his eyes, reading deep into his soul with her deep sad eyes. In that one single glance, much was said. Without even uttering a word, he understood that the end had begun and smiled like he expected it all along like a stoic warrior sentenced to death. She didn’t move but went on looking at him with the same calmness.

 

He moved his hand to touch her cheek. She twined his hand in hers and placed it against her cheek. Slowly a tear fell on his hand. Then more came while she sobbed aloud. Now he couldn’t bear all this distance. He leaned close to her and kissed her forehead. She smiled through her tears and rested her head against his chest. Hugging each other, they sat for long in silence.

 

When her tears ceased, she looked at him with a strange calmness and smiled. This smile was from heart where a strange silence took possession of her. When tears had purged the dross out of her mind and the emptiness in the heart was gone, what she felt was hope. Nothing could cast a shadow on their bliss again. As long as they lived, as long as death took one of them away, there was hope for them. An overwhelming love for him flowed in her heart. This time the sun set on one of the probable days of inevitability.

 

Good Fortune

Struggle

A silence, a longing, a struggle, 
To get back my balance, 
Lost and found, lost and found, 
Like my love for you
Hiding in my own heart
Surprising and attacking me,
Attacking my reason, 
To follow your steps
Like a faithful disciple
Which my heart is, 
But my reason isnt.
Whom should I heed?

You

Flow with the rivers
Fly with the kites
When you come back
You are the river
You are the kite 
No more you. 

Dreams

Your fingers haunt me,

Your lips taunt me,

Are you real or a dream?

Your voice melts me,

Though I hold my heart safe,

Am I really safe from you?

Your presence is in dreams,

In every face in the crowd,

In every voice I hear.

Invisible and stealthy,

You intrude upon my silences,

And leave an emptiness beside.

Awake from your dream,

I know you were here, near me,

From the sweetness on my lips.

Seasons

How can you live like this,
Anywhere but here in this moment,
Held together by a million voices,
Glueing your existence,
In a life that doesnt move,
Yet with plans that astonish,
And never fail to astonish,
With perfect names for baby faces,
In the right order, too perfect.

How could you make it more perfect,
When beneath the resounding words,
The intent is hollow and changing,
With the moon, with the seasons,
Before deities that dont reply,
An emptiness chanting promises,
Yet at a loss for words,
For that which matters most,
True, close to the core.

There lies silence and a spirit,
That expands in directions,
And grows inward and inward only,
Eyes blind to the future and past,
Not even this moment alive,
Just there, for another dawn.

In another dawn, when the sky is red,
The spirits may call each other to a tryst,
That never was or never will be made,
Consciously by you or me.

A WOMAN CALLED RAIN

Rain sobs, hysterical woman.

Bleeding and lonely,

Forbidden by rule.

Rain sobs, love-lorn,

For loss of fulfilment,

On the surge.

Rain sobs, bursting ovum,

For unborn babies,

And forgotten needs.

Claustrophobia

Voices whisper in the head
Claims of having bred, fed and loved,
While they have done nothing but bled,
Tied by an invisible umblical cord,
A noose on the neck, 
Bled, this poor heart, 
From its freedom instead,
And coming back speaking of
Duties having bred, fed and loved,
When it would have been better
To have left alone without any claims.

A Promise

You gave me a promise

To hold this hand forever,

Through thick and thin,

Come rain or sunshine.

 

From this heart comes

A promise of growing older,

Stronger and wiser with you,

Always at my side. 

mindfulness

The Unsent Letters