The Photograph

She was unlike any other tourist I had seen around here. I had met her at our street shop that sells souvenirs and beach dresses, and had taken an instant liking for her. Not because she didn’t haggle much, but because she smiled at me as soon as our eyes had met. ‘What is your name? Can I take your picture?’ she asked through her smile, as I handed her the change. I was pleasantly surprised. My first instinct was to say, ‘no’, but I ended up saying ‘yes’. I have been taught to be cautious with tourists, you see. But this one seemed different. I eyed around to make sure mother hadn’t returned from her break. She wouldn’t have liked me getting friendly with tourists. ‘Why do you want to take my picture?’ I asked the woman bashfully, suddenly becoming aware of my seedy clothes and unkempt looks. ‘Because I like your smile and I want to take it back with me. Here, give me a good pose.’ Taking my permission for granted, she stepped back a few feet and began to click. I felt like a film star. I had never posed in front of a camera. Hands on the hips. Face cupped in my palms. A tilt of the head. A half of a smile. I struck them all. When she was done, she showed me the photographs. ‘Do you like them? Er…you didn’t tell me your name,’ she said. ‘Lakshmi.’ I didn’t say anything about the pictures. I thought I looked comical in the poses and nothing like a film star. I wanted to ask her if she could remove them from her camera. Before I could speak, she turned towards the sea and peering through the camera, took a few pictures of it. She looked into the distance again, as if she was conversing with the horizon and clicked more. I had seen scores of men and women do this. Capture the sunset. It was something I had never understood. I wondered what was so special about it. I mean, it is just sun, setting. Something that turns day into night. Nothing more. ‘What are you taking photos of, didi?’ I snuck up from behind and asked. ‘The sunset,’ she said, her eyes flicking between the camera and the sea. ‘Why do you take photos of the sunset? What will you do with it?’ I almost meant to say, it is so pointless to take pictures of an everyday thing. ‘I love taking photos. I store my memories of the places I visit and the beautiful people I meet in them.’ My eyes wandered lazily to the spot of deep orange that was gradually dissolving in the sea. I deliberated on what she had just said – ‘memories of the places I visit and the beautiful people I meet…’ Like a miracle, a thought occurred suddenly. I asked excitedly, tucking my ghoongat behind my ears, ‘Am I beautiful people? Is that why you took my photo too?’ ‘Yes, you are beautiful. Very beautiful. Like the sunset. That’s why I took your photo,’ she affirmed, patting my cheek and giving me a light hug. ‘How old are you, Lakshmi?’ she asked fondly, preparing to leave. ‘Thirteen.’ As she packed her bag and walked into the lights spilling from the wayside shacks, I called out from behind. ‘Didi, will you remember me?’ ‘Forever,’ she said, waving at me. As I waved back, I knew – the sunsets will never be the same again to me.

My Lucky Red Beads

From a very young age, I have had an eye for home décor. Even in the small company quarters where I grew up, I used to improvise things and put them up as living room embellishment. Our pockets didn’t allow elaborate furnishing or ornamentation for a long time, in fact it remained so for several years even after I came to the Gulf. But the taste didn’t melt away, and I used whatever we had at our disposal to add glamour to our interiors. Our first centre and side tables in Muscat were cartons wrapped in colourful bed spreads. Show pieces were cheap stuff that I showcased like souvenirs from faraway lands. Slowly I began to collect curios that would make for decent living-room trimmings. Nothing lavish or outlandish, but cute little things on display that could elevate our home from being a mere four walls to a happy, harmonious living space. A small paradise that paraded things from sea shells that I picked to vases and figurines that I purchased. But things are not always as pretty as we perceive. It takes no time for the lens to shift and a charming picture to become distorted. It was the festive season of 2008 and we had invited a few friends home for dinner. One of them had a two year old, eager to reach out to all that were on display. The mother who was struggling to keep her little one’s hands off them suddenly said to me, ‘your house is not child friendly.’ I took a moment to gather my response, and said gently, ‘Yes, no children here. So we can afford to keep it this way.’ Not child-friendly. The phrase stuck with me for some unknown reason. Not in a bitter, rueful way, but there was something unsettling about the way it was uttered. Years later now, I have a two year old next door. Our house is still littered with bric-a-brac of various kinds. But little Aarav has his favourite thing. MANJADI KURU (called lucky red seeds). There is nothing else that draws his curiosity. The seeds that I have placed in front of a Krishna ensemble is the only thing he will lay his hands on when he is here. As soon as I open the door, Aarav barges in and darts straight to the brass crucible of manjadi. He runs his little hands in it, laughs with mirth and lisps excitedly, “manjadi, manjadi.’ Now and then, he runs around and returns to the red seeds as if it was where his soul lay. We caution him not to spill them. Yet a few fall on the floor as he holds them in his tiny fist. He picks them and puts them back dutifully. And the childish amusement continues. ‘Baby Krishna!’ I exclaim inwardly as I watch the spectacle with unbridled joy and amazement. One must not strive to explain such happenstances. So I just soak in the emotion it evokes until the end of play time. I am now ‘manjadi aunty’ to Aarav. And every time I open the door and let him in, I hum silently, ‘Swagatham Krishna, Sharanagatham Krishna.’ The lens has shifted again. The house that was once described as ‘not child friendly’ has now become the Lord’s favourite play area. Blessings and grace don’t come in prescribed forms, do they?

(P.S: For those uninitiated, Lord Krishna is believed to have a special love for manjadi seeds. Hence it is kept in all Krishna temples across Kerala. )

Salve to the Soul

I have returned to the quaint little town of Kalady after two and a half years.  This is where my mother leads a modest, non-descript life at a senior citizens’ home. This is where I used to come often to absorb uplifting vibes from the vedas echoing in its temple halls. It is here, on the lazy banks of the Kalady river, that I wrote most of the rain and river ditties included in my book of verse, ‘Hymns from the heart’. And it was here that I lost my father. It was here that I broke into shards and lost my bearings in October 2016. 

It is hard to believe that I could have stayed estranged with a place I was so smitten with for so long. But that’s what grief does. It makes you a stranger to your deepest loves and clouds your brightest sunshine. It makes you think that the world has no woe that compares to your pain. It makes you a frosted lump that refuses to thaw and be human again.

29 months. I think of how much has happened in the interim in this sacred town. It has been through its own share of maladies and misfortunes. 

As I dipped my feet in the quiet waters of the river yesterday and crossed the shadow of the Sankara Stupa in Kalady town today, I looked for signs of the deluge that drowned homes and disrupted lives only a few months ago. 

The river had no remains of the rage that it vented so dangerously last monsoon. Nothing that pointed at the ravage of a hundred years. The streets too had reclaimed their rightful place in the town’s rustic map, and life had shrugged the trauma off and regained its old tenor.

Talk to its people, and they recount the harrowing details of their nightmare. But they do it as if its shadows have long since retreated and life has moved on.Their resilience becomes apparent when they sign off by saying, ‘It was bad. But we are glad to have survived. We lost everything, but we are alive. And that is enough.’

As I write this note sitting by the banks of Poorna river this evening, with the sun calling it a day and sinking into its Arabian Sea jacuzzi, I reflect on the different tragedies that befall humans (and places) and I marvel at how wired we are to eventually heal and emerge from our rock bottoms. 

In a snap, I become aware of this vast capacity to cure ourselves. A place that I avoided for so long for the pain it gave me has today become my palliative with its own story of revival and restoration. In it I find lessons of survival. Somewhere behind me, the soothing strains of a philosophy that I hold close to my heart emanate from the precincts of the temple that resides the adi Guru. ADVAITA. This doctrine of the undivided Self is what I will take back with me again, like I did many times in the past before my connection with this place became dysfunctional for a brief period in time.