Coexistence

O come all ye faithful and joy to the world

Ring in cheer along with the fervour of yentaro mahanubhavulu and bruhimukundeti.

While the smell of filter kaapi engulfs Chennai's December air,

A glass of red wine and a slab of plum cake threaten to entertain better.

Chennai's December is special;

A shankarabharanam of sorts:

When the western notes of shankarabaranam seamlessly blend with its carnatic counterpart.

A point of convergence- Carols vs Kutcheris or Kutcheris vs Carols?

All the same- for its Chennai, and coexistence is a way of life!

Thirst

The pen drank some ink;

To quench its thirst:

For it had dried up fast;

Keeping up pace with the rush of her thoughts!

Balancing

Bhayya, one plate pani puri please-
He is quick to ready a plate;
Puris placed demurely
Broken only at the top-
(As though an egg is tapped on its top for yolk)
Stuffed with appetising fillings:
Boiled potatoes, onions, chopped chillies-
And then the elixir of hunger:
Meeta and tika - jaljeera pani
A rush now- that ends with a hiss when spicy masala hits the palate
Bhayya gets ready with one after the other;
Stirring the urge to be lost in crunchy delight-
A faint virtue develops-
That of 'Balancing';
The mouth, the puris and my shaky hands;
Quite tactfully blended; along with the salt from bhayya's hands,
All until he signals- "hogaya!"

Prick

Why do you never fail to prick?
No matter how carefully I hold you, you still prick.
But your very beauty is brought out best;
Only when you are felt, fully.
So pretty, lost in the prettiness of your petals, layered one after the other,
I touch you with blithe disregard-
Forgetting your quality of pricking;
And yes, I hiss in pain.
Is it the anger you want to vent out,
Because we don't let you be, and pluck you?
You just do not know, dear 'rose',
You add beauty to us, or even lend it to us in full,
In return, you give us that 'prick';
Just so you are remembered...

Fragrance

They longed to meet
They never had met though;
Until then, they decided to -
Bottle up their emotions;
Store them in tinted glass bottles;
Use them, as though they'd use their perfume-
Rendering fragrance to each passing day...

Shampoo

Long, yet no so long tresses. That fell on her neck and the sides of her ear lobes- with the earrings barely visible. Thick strands of hair; not black- brown, or rather the colour of rust- that was the colour of her hair. Hair up until her waistline- that was the length. 

Shampoo: She loved shampooing. Neatly oiled hair- with oil soaking in every strand of her hair like pickle; for a couple of hours. Each time a new bottle of shampoo was bought she would make up a reason in her mind to wash her hair at the earliest. For the mere love of trying the new product out- same was the case with all toiletries- face wash, soap, toothpaste too! A ridiculous craving to try out something new. 

She loved reading the description about the shampoo- what it would do to her hair when applied. She had been shampooing since time immemorial. Yet each time a shampoo was bought, she would hold the bottle in her hands against droplets of water from the overhead shower and read instructions to rinse with a girlish delight. Wiping out the water off the wet bottle of shampoo with her already moist hands, much to her fancy, she believed to this date, that the shampoo would exactly do what is written on the back of the bottle. She would also diligently read the French bit on these bottles. Most of these bottles carry instruction and some advertising matter in French as well perhaps because the language is as popular or even more widely spoken than English. She had a quaint craze for checking out packaging and manufacturing details- the place of manufacture, the place of packaging, and who marketed it. How did it matter anyway now that she was a already a buyer of the product? Ah some gobbledygook reason. Inexplicable. 

Once washed, she would collect strands of her hair together, and hold it like how a bunch of coriander or spinach is held, and smell it until its tip; run her fingers across the texture of her hair and test if the instructions on the shampoo had indeed worked! 

Silliness, a lathery indulgence it was.

Red

Red- not just about any red though. It was the red that rendered colour to the maruti 800 of the early 90's. Her first favourite colour was that particular red. She loved to wear red-hued cut shoes: one of her school-time crazes. She liked to see her feet covered with cut shoes in red colour, especially the ones that had a tiny red bow on them, and a certain sound that these shoes made- cluck-clucking, as that of a police officer, it sounded crispy. She considered red to be springing some luck. Every time she saw a red-coloured car, she used to blow a kiss to it- a flying kiss. If she did so, that evening was going to be lucky for sure, at least she believed with all her childish innocence. Well, much to her innocuous delight, when she returned home from school, she would see what she wanted, yearned for, as a child. Nothing great- just some favourite food or snack would have been prepared by her mom. How she loved to eat them daily: she never got them on a regular day; lest she blew a kiss to a red-coloured car. This soon became a hobby; each time she saw a red car that is. Staying in a joint family meant a lot of disadvantage- she would get to eat what she wanted only if it happened to be on the day's menu. In other words, she could not demand, she just had to obey and enjoy what was provided to her. But this new technique of blowing kisses to a red car, got her all she wanted: sweet little something- bajji, vada, or her favourite crispy adai; that's all.

 She was an understanding child- was not too demanding. However red had made her feel empowered; charged up. She loved her ball-pointed Reynolds in red ink. She used to scribble on her white Nataraj eraser with her Reynolds pen in red ink which only teachers used for correction. She scribbled so hard on it that she felt the ink all smudgy, sticking to her fingers- she ran her index finger through the texture of the eraser and feel her finger print against the white eraser. She enjoyed this exercise- for after a few days, the eraser assumes a whitish-red hue. She loved to see that colour. Erasing with her Nataraj eraser now was more fun, for she had lent colour to it- Red! 

Red Riding Hood and poems on red and all things Red formed part of her childhood. 

Black was next. All pervasive- she grew up- to be a beautiful woman-embracing black- the colour of Krishna.