Neelakurinji

It took very long for me to know that the hills I had nourished, made green with my love is just a heap of red, lava-like dirt. It took a night-long rain that ran into days to make my unwary eyes believe that even hills can crumble and become mounds of ruin.

For days, I feared to step on this loose, clayey earth, lest I should soil the silver anklets that I wear around my tanned feet as your souvenir. These old shackles have tarnished with time, but to allow the remains of a maverick monsoon to sully them would mean shaming that which I still hold sacred. Memories.

The clouds have now slowly cleared. I hear that the Gods have begun to scatter their new dreams in the deep forests. The slopes will soon be swathed in blue.

The Neelakurinji has returned, oblivious to what the hills have borne and lost in its absence. It will eagerly wait for us to meet in its purple shadows and lend our mingled fragrance to its hue, like we had lent a decade and two ago.

But who will tell the blooming dales that twelve years is a long time? That in the interim, a lot of things were washed away, including the kohl in my eyes that had waited in vain for a love’s return.

Who will tell the Neelakurinji that our blues are not the same?

(Pic from the Internet)