Maveli Dreams

Little yellow circular pleasures – kaya chips they say in Kerala..

They froth and swim in a dreamy pool of coconut oil..

A bit crispy, a bit damp, a bit of mother’s touch..

They pop into ecstasy and announce the arrival of Onam.

 

Plucking flowers and shredding leaves

Flitting butterflies bursting into colours

A tradition of ‘pookkalam’ erupts every morning

Beautifying the courtyard of every Malayalee

 

Banana leaves swaying and waiting

The coconut flakes melting into curries

The rich ‘ada’ dissolving into milky oceans of payasam

Grand Onam feast is ready – colours and calories aplenty

 

The cottony white mundu caressing the resplendent gold ‘kasavu’

Ebony oily tresses cascading down the damsel ‘mangas’ of Kerala

Traditional weaves and handloom warps brimming with pride

Beauty, couture and culture draping the Onam ready Malayalees

 

Eyes brim with Maveli dreams of prosperity

Minds afloat with hopes of Maveli times of future

Masked – yet the smiles trickle out

Sanitized- yet the hands reach out to help another

 

The Malayalee awaits…Maveli days of cheer

 

 

Scent of the Chembakam

When the 'Chembakam' releases a haven of smells into the garden, I knew what I missed all this while in the confines of a home in the city. 

When the solitary 'Chembarathy' shines bright and red among its green companions, I know I am home – home to the greens of the plantain leaves, to the browns of mango leaves that have given all their mangoes away, to the ochres of jackfruit leaves that have a few token jackfruits left behind on the trees..

When your mornings are intruded with birdy chirps and calls of insects unknown..you unknowingly keep the beep of the incoming mails aside to participate in the sounds of the nature..when butterflies peek curiously while you relish a newspaper and a cuppa, you exhale – the stress of a virtual office seems distant in this tableau..

When ‘a handpicked tulsi finds its way to the morning tea, when mother hurriedly plucks ‘payar’ (lobia?) and cooks up lunch in a jiffy, when you inhale a medicinal plant to cure that nagging cold…you know that ‘garden to home’ takes a whole new meaning and that nature is never too far away.

When amongst the din of deadlines, daily updates and drumming, you hear the rain splattering and the winds wailing, seeking your attention - you unconsciously give in - disconnecting from the superficial stress of an email, connecting, caressing the monsoons as she ‘arrives’…

When you stumble upon a browned, donkey eared Nancy Drew as you clean and sweep, you are transported to eras past - the Enid Blytons of innocence that gave way to droolworthy Hardy Boys, a bit of Dickens, a bit of Kundera and Gibran – all pouring into your adolescence and finding its way through your adult mind – the scribblings of friendships and smells of places of your past..

As the sensory experiences add up, work from home turns to work from ‘home-home’, home to your roots, to your past, to the coconut trees that tower over the landscapes, to the rains that mischievously tickle and drop..to the rains that sometimes loses its manners and pours its monstrosity from up above – but who is complaining as I sit in my verandah and witness it all ?

Friendship remembered..

Maybe not the best of times to celebrate a friendship day but perhaps the best of times to revere and relish the friendships we have infused into your lives, so deep and so wide that they no longer feel different from our lives.

Friendships that changed each life event, that made each milestone seem different and created a ‘tag’ for each stage of our lives. Friends that interspersed with our lives so unknowingly that you can no longer differentiate the era from the friendship…

So you can never walk through your childhood corridors without the memories of the uniformed buddies who gulped canteen food and gossiped with the same energy… you can never remember Math without the ‘combined study’ sessions with a set of confused school buddies where we ate more and understood less of Math…you can never forget that cusp of adolescence without remembering the endless nights of girl talks…

You cannot but reminiscence of days of rebellion and ‘I know it all’ phases where your pride, your professional studies and your thoughts all mingled and molded in the company of friends we kept.. the journeys of studies and cramming, of thoughts, dreams, and ideas, of those ‘retro denims’ and hideous hairstyles – never a moment that you can savor without the friends who circled around you every moment…

And when life took you on uncharted territories of employment ,matrimony , motherhood and the likes…old faces, new faces all followed us through – some holding anchor, some ‘compassing’, some jesting, some steering and some simply ‘present’ to make the voyage a meaningful one..we aged, matured, ripened (and rot?) with friends in tow..

So this Friendship Day though I never understood ‘days’ and their meanings, I do feel a sense of longing, love and despair - did I hug enough, laugh enough and talk enough while I had the chance? While we mask and isolate ourselves more, can we hope for those nights of abandon and days of chatter and conscience cleansing conversations?

Perhaps this too is a phase where your zoom calls and virtual meet-ups will merge into the memory that we can create of a phase of COVIDness and isolation..and where memories are being made, a friendly face and a warm hand will never be too far away?