When

When the silence is comfortable and the drive is long and the music hums softly in the stillness. When your oversized grey sweatshirt is fresh out of the dryer, the warmth hugging your body on a cold-ish California winter day. When a song takes you back to the most specific moment in time and you're levitating on a feeling that you can't quite place. When the plum you bite into is just ripe enough. When the hibiscus is in full bloom, each of the five petals curving out in perfect harmony, velvety red and passionate. When sarcasm is your love language. When you're daydreaming on the summer sand and walking through waterfalls with the sun on your back and a breeze in your hair. When you drown in the easy flow of a conversation with long lost friend, words gushing out like water rushing through a once-dried river. When you nestle under the pink paisley prints of your eighteen-year-old bedspread.

today, i've eaten

morning matcha, the complex caffeine neutralized by a dollop of coconut cream, leftovers from my second life. beans poriyal with rice in a shiny steel plate, subtly spiced with sambar powder from across the ocean. licked clean by my fingers and tongue as I sit cross legged in bed nourishing myself with thoughts about life. 

bajji mixture, a pleasant shock of spice and tangy sweetness. bright yellow haldi doodh, the warm simmering spices seeping down my throat from delicate chinaware as I simultaneously swallow my blundering words. rose milk cake as I am devoured by memories of hot summer days, the floral flavors taking me back to a specific moment in time. the grand finale - refreshing scoops of watermelon and juicy lychee, water trickling down to my elbow, sticky sweet and soothing as I smack my lips in the sweltering heat that consumes me.

Writing Prompts

I am curled up on my bed, my grey Nokia phone clutched tightly in my hand.

Snake has got me hooked. I dream about it day and night, my thumbs subconsciously moving between the 2,4,6, and 8 buttons on the innocent, soap-box-sized piece of plastic. I take numerous "breaks" between study sessions to see if I can beat my previous high score. I question why my rapidly growing reptile can't slither smoothly in curvier "S" shapes, as opposed to the box-like, squarish movements the phone restricts him to. It has become an obsession. If I'm not playing, I'm thinking of playing. When I'm thinking of playing, I'm strategizing the best movements. When I'm strategizing, I wonder how I could make the game better, maybe work with Nokia on building a better prototype.

Red Rangayya (Writing Prompt - Ghost Stories)

The gravestone presses against my back, cool and soothing in the sultry summer heat. I turn my head to my right to look at Shreya. She is already looking at me, her body mimicking mine, head tilted left, palms on her stomach, back casually leaning against the tombstone.

We grin at each other and burst into fits of laughter. Nothing could be funnier than what we had just pulled off. Sneaking out of my aunt's house past 10pm is no mean feat. More importantly, we had got past the 6-year-old lab, Snoopy, who barks, whines, and growls at every opportunity. We had indeed achieved the impossible.

The Kalpalli Cemetery is less than a kilometer from Shreya's home, which is also my home for the summer. I am shipped to Bangalore every school break by Ammamma, who claims it is for me to "bond and explore" (which I love), but I know it is so she can get rid of me for a few weeks (which I don't love but wholeheartedly understand; I am a handful).

-

We first hear about Rangayya from the vendor uncle who sells banana and pomegranate and guava. Shreya and I are sent to buy a dozen bananas and four pomegranates (our first adult task for the summer) and told to bargain them down to twenty rupees (our first adult challenge). We are engrossed in a conversation about the latest ghost story we are attempting to write and vendor uncle, nosy as he is, decides to participate. 

"Have you heard of Rangayya?" he asks as he bags our dozen perfectly ripe bananas.

"Who's Rangayya?" my tongue gets ahead of me even as Shreya glares, unenthusiastic about making conversation with vendor uncle who has tattled on her to her mom in the past. I shrug. Curiosity wins.

"He's the ghost that haunts Kalpalli Cemetry down Old Madras Road. Go there at night and you won't miss him. My cousin has seen him with his own eyes."

My eyes widen but I challenge him, "I don't believe you uncle. I've never heard of anyone who has actually seen a ghost."

Uncle shakes his head, "You can see for yourself. Or ask other locals. Rangayya was a gravedigger many years ago. They say that he dug so many graves day in and day out that one day he went insane and buried himself in one of the graves he dug. And that was the end of him, but his soul never departed the graveyard and he haunts it to this day."

On our way home I convince Shreya that we must go. It's not as much a process of convincing as it is of telling, commanding, ordering, bullying her to accompany me. Then I call her a scaredy-cat and that's really all it takes.

-

"Do you think he'll come out tonight?" she whispers, once we recover from our fits of laughter and realize that we are very alone in this vast sea of graves.

"Absolutely." I do not feel as confident as I sound but putting on a brave face is my only personality trait, so I use it.

We sit in silence for a while, a stream of moonlight our only source of illumination. We hear the occasional rumble of a passing lorry or the honk of a motorbike a distance away along Old Madras Road, but even these noises taper down as the minutes tick on closer to midnight.

Midnight. I glance at my Titan wristwatch with the pink strap, the one I begged Ammamma for (it took eight months to convince her) and which I protect with my life (I have no choice, really). Anyone who knows anything about ghosts knows they come out at midnight. We are mere minutes away.

12:02. My heart sinks with disappointment. Where is he? I can feel Shreya's eyes on me, and I don't want to look at her. I had been so certain and had risked the both of us getting into huge trouble for sneaking out, it can't be for nothing...

And then we hear it. A gentle breeze at first, which I brush away as pure coincidence, but it soon picks up to be a continuous, softly howling wind. We are both up on our feet before we know it, clasping each other's hands. Soon, he appears, there is no mistaking him. 

Clad in a white shirt and with a grey cotton lungi wrapped around his waist, he steps out from behind a tombstone, seemingly rising from the ground beneath. His face is not ashen but covered with bright pink and red powders, starkly resembling the colored powders used during the festival of Holi. I am taking in every detail, more focused on remembering his appearance than anything else. I no longer have a grasp on Shreya's fingers, I can't even feel her presence.

"I have been waiting for you," he smiles as he walks towards me. He blows out a steady stream of red-colored powder, the moonlight illuminating the dazzling specks that slowly build into a whirlwind, a tornado of red, blinding me and eventually leading to the darkest darkness I've ever seen.

Autofiction-ish

 She labored through sweltering hot days and warm, balmy nights. She cooked and cleaned and cooked some more. Hot dosas from the cast iron pan, served with a steel spatula straight onto his shiny silver plate, her tiny feet pattering to and from the kitchen and the dining table. Back just in time to flip the next dosa on the stove, waiting for it to reach the peak of its delicious, crispy brown. On his plate she placed a spoon of coconut chutney and a heap of pappu podi, gently making a hole in the center of the lump of spiced beige powder and pouring in it some freshly melted ghee. An act so endearing but all I could think was "why can't he do that himself?" The hem of her bright blue sari grazed his starched white shirt, the colors melding together like white foam on greenish-blue waves. A formation born of turbulence in nature and a reflection of their relationship in reality - chaotic together, non-existent apart.

At least she could fake her happiness and feign a dignified life. Her daughter suffered a different kind of torment, left by her husband for another woman, four years and three babies later. She was forced to stay, because society, because money, because how would these three babies be fed and clothed and schooled for the rest of their lives when she had no means of making a single rupee, with no education or generational wealth to her name? She stayed with her husband's family but without her husband, an arrangement so convoluted, a plan so intricately designed for the outer circles of society that almost no one suspected a thing. Why would they, when he dutifully visited every once in a while, attended family events, brought home presents for his sons and his daughter? And so she waited in painful agony for her children to be grown and she resigned to this fate.

I told myself I wouldn't be like them. Staying because leaving wasn't a choice, working to pieces because relaxing wasn't an option, choosing submission because anything otherwise meant not even having the bare necessities. Because financial independence was a possibility as far-fetched as snow on the beach in the sweltering Chennai summer.

I told myself I wouldn't be like them. I would break the cycle of generations of free-labor; of our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers and aunts. At first, I refused to do it at all. And then, I did it for myself. And finally, I did it for a price, because I told myself I knew my worth, and that worth was far from free.

And so I sit a million miles away, clanking on my laptop, drinking my fancy red wine and eating my expensive meals, believing that I lead a better life - but oftentimes still unsure if that is true.

31

disorder around the staircase
the rattle of metal rods and the patter of small feet
drown the gentle ringing of bells
that dangle on the door of the puja room
intricately placed within perfectly carved bell-shaped holes

mixed and mingled
with the steamy hiss of a pressure cooker in the kitchen
filled with hot, soft idlis
waiting to be devoured with ghee and karapodi
by eager hands and hungry mouths

in the background somewhere

a serial plays on Gemini TV

a rerun from the night before

the high-pitched voice of a televised mother-in-law

contrasts with the low-pitched voice of the real-life one

layers and layers of sounds

further blanketed by the ringing of the doorbell

its ten-second tune momentarily muting the rest of the chaos

despite being chaos itself

the lucky ones

People said they were the lucky ones.

Beams of warm sunlight reflected off their shiny brown skin, self-moisturized by the humidity. Their lungs were strong and clean from decades of living by the sea, breathing in air that was rid of the pollutants weighing down the rest of the world. Their arms were gently toned from a lifetime of repetitive but moderate labor, their nutritional intake fueled by the fish and vegetables that nature so kindly offered them. They basked in the beauty of life, seemingly unburdened by the ruined world outside their borders.

People said they were the lucky ones, but I knew better. I knew of the ruling panchayat and their cruel ways. Of the nine-year-old girl who had died during childbirth and the sixteen-year-old boy who was stoned for dressing like a girl. Of the old woman who had spent a lifetime waiting for a husband who had abandoned her when she was twelve. Of the middle-aged man who was so very curious about the world outside their so-called haven, but was forbidden from crossing the boundaries.

People said they were the lucky ones, but the glossy exterior was a farce. Their world was as battered as the one surrounding them. 

what we saw vs. what she told me (at the beach)

raw mangoes sprinkled with chili powder, the sharp, spicy seasoning amalgamating with the sweet saliva in our mouths; for when she confessed to me that she sometimes felt relief in distress, comfort in unease, solace in trouble.

balloons going pop, tiny toy bullets colliding with multicolored plastic; for when she told me about her hopes and dreams that would float around, only to be burst by the ones she loved (and the ones she did not).

little green parrots hopping about, picking tarot cards with their tiny beaks and predicting the future; for when she wondered about her own, things that could be and should be but things that weren’t, yet.

sandcastles being built and torn down; for when she reminded me that what goes up must come down, what is created must be destroyed, and what we get attached to, we must dissociate with.

and finally, corn on the cob, charred nearly black over a coal-fueled stove, golden sparks flying around against the dimming horizon; for the darkness within her that came before blinding glimmers of hope.

Guava

The summer Naiynayya died, the guavas were the sweetest they had ever been. She was pregnant with her first child, a girl, although the world around her was hoping for a boy. "Goh-uh," she would say, while purchasing the fruit from the street vendor, and it would only be years later that she would learn the correct pronunciation from her daughter - "gwaa-vuh." She much preferred the Telugu word, jaamapandu, but it was a time when English words were thrown into most sentences, a consequence of colonialism.

She started each morning with three slices of the bright green fruit, the white, seeded inner flesh always so alluring. The sticky insides created a gum-like texture between her fingertips as she rubbed them with the tiniest pinch of salt, exactly how she loved eating them as a child. The stubborn seeds would get stuck in every little crevice of her mouth, and some even managed to find a home down her throat.

There was something so pleasurable about this unique culinary experience that no other fruit seemed to offer. A seed or two would remain in her teeth for hours after, and her tongue would brush past one, a sudden surprise, when she was in the middle of making a cup of masala tea or frying an appadam for lunch.

 

Three days before she gave birth to her baby girl, they got the news. A heart attack had taken him in his sleep. They burned his body in Thalluru, behind the guava tree that they had spent many summers chasing him around.

It seemed only fitting.

The Breech Birth

Lakshmamma’s water had broken nine days ago. Nine. The midwife, the mantrasani, had come to her aid to assist with the birth, but the baby inside of her refused to turn his little frame around. ­­­Feet first was his preferred path out, and the mantrasani was left helpless.

There were prayers and incantations. The local village women invoked the name of Durga, the Hindu goddess of protection, strength and motherhood. They pleaded with her to bring the baby out quickly, less painfully, and most importantly, alive. Perhaps the stars, the nakshatra, were misaligned, causing this traumatic turn of events. There were many moments when the midwife considered cutting the baby out and sacrificing his life to save the mother.

 

On the 4th night the midwife said that the baby was doomed. But Lakshmamma refused to give up. So, the prayers continued. Tiny clay lamps were lit, and little fires were ignited around the hut. Smoke seeped through the square windows. Bunches of agarbathi were burned, the flickering flames slowly eating through the bamboo incense sticks. The ash formed heaps on the fading earthen floor, as though attempting to mark time with the increasing pile of grey residue. The woody fragrance that filled the room provided small comfort and calm.

 

Lakshmamma's red cotton sari was drenched in sweat.  The midwife poured water into her mouth from a clay pot, trying to cool her body from the relentless heat. She licked her cracked lips, tasting the sweet drops of water, her mind fogged with the pain that was overtaking her. A wet white cotton handkerchief was placed on her forehead, an attempt at absorbing the heat from her burning skin. She had been tilted and turned and inverted into so many strange positions over the past few days, with the hope that gravity would rotate the baby to come out headfirst. She was exhausted. She felt like she was in a fever dream.

 

It was 6.30am on January 1st, 1932, in Ramabadhrapuram, Andhra Pradesh, when Koti Reddy Idamakanti defied the odds and finally embraced the world outside. The sun was peeping through the thatched roof of the hut, gentle rays glimmering on his brown and bloody wrinkled baby skin. The chaos of the past nine days had settled into a silent calm. It was the first day of a new year, 15 years pre-independence, and so much was yet to happen.

 

Lakshmamma stared into her baby's eyes, relieved and amazed. Moments before the birth, she had really believed that she was at her very last breath, her aakiri oopiri. She was soon shaken out of her serene moment. "Ayipondhi!" the midwife exclaimed loudly in Telugu, the word rolling out with relief as she knelt on the mud floor, trembling more than the mother who had just experienced nine days of labor. It's done.

Bangles

She left behind the bare minimum, unsurprising to anyone who knew her. Gold jewellery, a symbol of prosperity and wealth in Indian society, was something she cared very little for. Amongst her sparse collection, we found six simple gold bangles. A worn-out, oxidized gold - not the shiny kind. Subtle and tasteful - not loud or attention-seeking. Dignified, just like her. 

If you look closely, they are slightly dented and bent, having survived the test of time. Crooked. Vankara -  the word she used to tease me and my curved and crooked posture as she smiled a wide smile showing her pearly white dentures. 

Fortunate as I am to be her granddaughter, two of these heirloom bangles ended up adorning my arms. I do not know where she got them from or when she got them. An addition to the long list of questions that I wish I had asked but never did. A laundry list of questions.

Laundry, that she folded dutifully to her very last day. Her wrinkled hands with the simple bangles gently brushing against Thatha’s stiff white cotton shirt and pancha. No one else was allowed to perform this sacred duty.

The same hands that made soft sweeping motions with the rice chata, manually separating black stones from white rice. Her skilful fingers would later mix an aromatic infusion of tamarind and spices with the now cleaned and cooked rice. I can still hear the soft clink of the bangles against the stainless steel vessel filled with pulihora.

A meal that she would eat with such satisfaction while situated comfortably on her favorite chair. The position I’ll most often remember her in - her bangled arms wrapped around her knee in a style of sitting that I have adopted. One leg folded flat on the chair, the other propped upright, knee underneath her chin. Unruly, I am called, when I sit that way. Though on her it was nothing but elegant.

I wear the same bangles but now the bangles have a different life. They clink against laptops and steering wheels and glasses of wine in a city 8000 miles from where they were made. By some miracle or not, they now see different sights and hear different words, sights and words that they had no way of encountering in their previous existence.

I cannot say if one life is better than the other. It is easy to think that the new life these two gold circles now experience is more liberating. After all, they spend far less time confined to conventional roles. They "broke free," a phrase so coveted and cherished by the modern Indian woman. But who is to say that their previous life was not just as fulfilling (or perhaps more)? For I don’t believe they will ever again see the vibrancy and hues and bittersweet troubles of their previous existence - complexities so beautiful and rich that people can only strive to experience them in their lifetimes. 

Ammamma

 “Ammamma,” the word that rolled off of six tongues myriad times over many years, with the paternal variation of it rolling off another two tongues. One word, literally translating to “mother's mother” - “Amma’s amma,” merged together in our native tongue of Telugu to represent three syllables that hold a treasure trove of memories and emotions for the eight now-adults. Grandma.

For me, it’s been thirty years of knowing her and seeing her at varying frequencies - from living with her in her own house, to living a few miles away from her and visiting her weekly, to eventually living far away from her, perhaps too far for comfort. My mind is etched with how she looked during each of these time periods. Her long dark hair was always tied in a tight bun at the nape of her neck, a hairstyle that lasted decades with the color slowly changing from natural black, to the jet black of Godrej black hair dye, to the red tinge of henna, to the grayish white of her final days. While wrinkles lined her face slowly over time, some things stayed the same, like the large red bindi on her forehead and her attire of simple silk-cotton saris with contrasting zari borders and matching blouses, tied around her tiny 5-foot tall frame. The body that went through five childbirths and one loss, stage five ovarian cancer, varying levels of blood sugar, and finally, a cardiac arrest at age eighty-three.

How little I seem to know about her childhood, self-absorbed as I was in my own silly battles with her. Or perhaps I was playing on the patriarchal strings of society and was convinced that the lives of my grandfathers were far more interesting than those of my grandmothers. While she herself did not know her exact birthday, I have very few details of her actual birth and her childhood years. She married my grandad at the age of sixteen in a traditional arranged marriage, and moved from a small village to the big city of Chennai. Her life seemed to have been overshadowed by her husband’s achievements, perhaps common for women of that generation in India. My grandad (Thatha) is intelligent, respected, powerful and self-made. College educated, as opposed to my grandma’s elementary-school non-English education. Physically too, he was a foot taller than her, dressed prim and proper in white,  bringing an air of command with him into any room he entered. All his grandchildren loved him, but also feared him and tip-toed around him while growing up.

But with Ammamma, the difference was stark. We’d casually put our feet up on the sofa and play whatever we wanted to on the television after a long day at school. We'd cry and throw tantrums in front of her. Beg her to take us shopping to buy the latest trend of bell-bottom jeans embroidered with pink flowers along the seams. Argue with her to let us wear those “fashionable” sleeveless tank tops, showing an extra four-inches of our lanky pre-teen arms, something that was close to unacceptable in her conservative eyes.  Bargain with her to give us eight finger-chips to accompany our lunch of steaming rice and rasam, instead of the seven that she carefully counted and placed on each of our plates. Convince her that we did in fact need that extra squeeze of tomato ketchup with our already saucy Maggi noodles.

Her relationship with her grandchildren was unique. It amazes me that she was able to touch each of her eight grandchildren’s lives with such intensity, despite the sixteen-year gap between the oldest and the youngest. My mom says that with her first grandchild, she learned how to love, how to care, maybe even how to be a mom, and her real experience at motherhood had started after her own children had grown up. So close was that bond that my oldest cousin ended up calling her “Amma,” viewing her as she would her own mother.

While all the grandchildren (and even some great-grandchildren) were blessed to experience remarkable moments of life with her and witness her positive and endearing side, full of care and the very definition of tough love, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that her relationship with her own children was complicated at best. Perhaps every family has its surmounting tensions, inexplicable losses and dark secrets looming over, but some of these took over her life and her relationships with her children and husband. While she had a wonderful, fulfilling life, I am also acutely aware that she perhaps had slightly more tumultuous experiences in her later years, with many incidents that were out of the ordinary. But she powered through and survived them all, resilient and brave as she was.

Her large house in Chennai is where everything begins and ends - we’ve all lived there at different times, spent sweltering summer vacations there, visited on random weekends, eaten delicious weeknight dinners on the all-too-familiar dining table, had unions, and so many reunions. Each of the five bedrooms, the open and breezy terrace, even the tiny musty-smelling storage room, are all full of cherished memories. The truth is all my fondest childhood moments completely center around Ammamma. The house where everything happened, 31 Hindi Prachara Sabha Street, will never be the same without her. 

Slow Living

I scroll through instagram and visit a profile I love. Slow living, says the description. The feed is filled with pictures of sourdough baking, gardening, homemade kimchi and kombucha. 

I dream of slow living. Of waking up and walking down the stairs, one step at a time, savoring the feeling of the dark brown wood against my bare feet. Of drawing back my printed yellow and red curtains acquired from Fab India, the soft cloth cool against my skin; the curtains that are often mistaken to be made from an old sari. Of gazing fondly at my herbs, as the sunlight seeps in through the balcony window.

I walk towards the kettle, fill it up and wait for my water to boil. I squeeze some lemon into my teacup, adding fresh mint, cinnamon, turmeric and black pepper. Filling it to the brim with my boiled water, I take in the gentle aroma of my hot herbal mix; my one solace each morning and a truly delicious concoction. 

I make my way to the front door, opening it and walking into more sunlight, each ray bouncing off my dark brown skin. Sipping my drink, I sit with my plants. With my hibiscus and aloe vera, my mint and parsley, my spinach, my tomatoes. I spend my mornings gardening, my afternoons fermenting, my nights writing.

I understand the privilege of dreaming of this lifestyle, of even thinking of it as a possibility. But if it is a possibility, oh the wonders of it. If it is. 

Bob the Lizard

The sharp and slender green tail of the house lizard disappeared under the white and pink bed frame, once again escaping their broomstick. It was day ten of dorm life, and Shruti and Prerana had spent the last hour trying to chase the slippery reptile out of their tiny dorm room. After many minutes of deliberation and discussion, they brought out their green-bristled broomstick, a recent and cheap $5 purchase from FairPrice. They had not anticipated using this for anything other than cleaning. The plan was to slowly nudge the lizard out with the broomstick. It felt like a solid plan. How hard could it be anyway? 

Hall 15 of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore was very pink (in color) and very green (in plant and lizard life). The building was made alive with these reptiles. They were constantly darting across the walls, mostly active at night, their scaly skin glistening against the bright beams of nearby street lights. 

It was 10pm that Tuesday night when the lizard had escaped their clutches for the eighth time. They were exhausted and on the brink of giving up. But fear truly outweighed exhaustion and the thought of falling asleep with a lizard in the room was almost too horrifying to fathom. Shruti thought about how it might creep into her bed at night, finding its way into her hair, or worse, into her ears or mouth. Though she’d grown up with house lizards in India, the ones in Singapore seemed a little more adamant, and a little less scared of humans. The compact dorm space didn’t help and made her feel like the lizard was too close for comfort.

They decided to take a break. Fully alert, they went back to doing some school work, all the while keeping their eyes peeled for a green flicker against the light brown plywood floor. Shruti had the broomstick plopped against her desk, within arms’ reach. She was only half focused on her Mechanics of Materials homework, her eyes glazing over the vector calculations.

In less than ten minutes, a sudden motion caught her eye. She jerked up and beckoned Prerana. She felt like she was going into battle, sleeves rolled up, broomstick in hand. They were going to banish the creepy little critter this time. This was serious business.

Or not. Now it was almost midnight and resignation was upon them. “I think we should name him Bob.” said Prerana, as she plopped onto her bed. Shruti looked up. “So we’re keeping him?” And so it was decided. They’d live with Bob, he’d be their friend. And they’d overcome their fears. And everyone would be happy(-ish) under the illusion that Bob was harmless, would not creep up on them, and would generally just live in harmony with them in Hall 15, Block 72, Room 1503. 

Writing Prompt - Write a story that begins with someone's popsicle melting

The orange ice from her popsicle dripped quickly into the hot sand as Shruti tried to save it. The scorching 40C heat got the better of her though. Before she knew it, there was more sticky, sugary water sliding down her arm and to her elbow, eventually falling to the ground and forming tiny damp dents in the soft sand she was sitting on. Almost seconds later, all that remained of the delicious purchase was the light brown wooden stick.

Shruti quickly looked at her grandma, who had already required a lot of coaxing before agreeing to buy her the popsicle. She was sitting grimly next to Shruti, sand nestled in the folds of her green sari. Her grandma was a curious creature, if one could dare use that phrase on this woman. When it came to ice cream (amongst other things), she was quite the authoritarian. She only allowed Shruti to purchase ice cream from a Kwality Walls ice cream cart. The beach had many brands of ice cream- Kwality, Amul, Lazza, and a couple others that Shruti’s eyes always glazed over. Perhaps it was the quality in Kwality, Shruti thought to herself smiling, that made it more appealing to her grandma. The safer sounding option in the vast sea of questionable ice-cream carts that lined themselves up each evening at Marina Beach. 

Shruti heard the jingling bells of another Kwality Walls cart passing by, and she jumped at the opportunity. “Ammamma, my ice-cream melted, can I please get another one?” Being simple and straightforward was the best way to deal with her grandma. She knew this after spending the past year under her care, and having to ask (and sometimes beg) for many things. Her grandma’s eyes narrowed, her lips beginning to shape into a no . “The orange one is only five rupees, it’s the cheapest one they have!” Shruti quickly added. She hoped the money justification would do the trick - the solid pitch that she was buying the most inexpensive ice cream, and hence the ice cream of best value, had to help. 

Her grandma quickly resigned. Perhaps it was the scorching heat and the desire to get back into the air-conditioned car, or perhaps the pressure of the ice cream seller who had overheard the exchange and had stopped to wait for the final decision. Her grandma unbuttoned her brown Rexine purse and pulled out a thick five-rupee coin. Shruti eagerly grabbed it and hopped over to the ice cream cart. This time, she’d be wiser and eat it as soon as it was unwrapped. 

A Common History

History happened here. It wasn’t the kind of history that made the news, or the kind that was mentioned in history text books that children thirty years from now would have to memorize. It wasn’t even the kind of history that the village would talk about in the coming months or years. It was a simple history. A history of love and kindness. Of sacrifice. Of a mother and a son. Of long days under the scorching sun and short nights on cold and sandy floors. Of infinite paddy fields surrounding their mud thatched house. Of one jute sleeping mat, patterned green and red, spread on the floor. Of a mosquito net unfurled, protective, above the mat. Of clay floor stoves just inches away, surrounded by steel pans and mud pots. Of spice jars filled with every flavor imaginable. Of a tiny well shared by a hundred villagers. Of the two mile walk from their thatched house to the well, women barefoot and braving the heat. Of the little brass pot that was filled with their days' water supply, that they rationed ever so carefully. History happened here, and all it was, was the struggle of everyday life. The greatest history ever.

Writing prompts: Character sketches

Almost as if forced into a uniform, my grandfather would spend everyday in white attire - a cotton shirt and pant, with very stereotypical brown sandals that almost every South Indian man over forty could be seen wearing. The outfit was starched to stiffness and as crisp as a hundred rupee note. I don’t have a single memory of him wearing something out of this patterned white - a white that matched his hair, his smile, and the talcum powder that he always smelled of.

Disciplined through and through, he would sit at the dining table for breakfast at 10am each morning, on the exact same chair, that was interestingly, NOT the quintessential ‘head of the table’ chair. My grandmother would place a large silver plate on the table, along with a steel water glass. Once he took his seat, my grandfather would pour some water from his glass into his right hand and rather artistically sprinkle it around his plate. I always wondered why he did that and I never, ever had the courage to ask. I found out years later that it is a South Indian tradition that is supposed to prevent ants and other insects from intruding into your food. 

My grandfather was also disciplined about his vices. In his younger days, he was a smoker. While he wasn’t a heavy drinker, he would end each day with a glass of  'Mcdowell's No. 1'  whiskey and soda. He had a mini fridge hidden in his bedroom- my grandparents' attempt at hiding this habit from their eight grandchildren.

Now, he is frail, weakened. He no longer drinks or smokes because his health doesn’t permit him to. But some old habits die hard; I visited him last summer and watched as he sat on the exact same chair, did his water sprinkle, ate. He started talking to me about food - a topic that hits home. My family has a farming background, and as a kid my grandfather worked hard on his families' fields. He knew the ins and outs of farming and was incredibly passionate about it.

"We never had to worry about food being ‘organic’. Everything we ate was farmed by us, and it genuinely was free of chemicals. It was all fresh, and absolutely delicious. When I moved to the city, this was one of the biggest changes and challenges for me. I missed the days when I was actively involved in my families’ farm. We ate eggs right from chickens that we reared in our backyard. I helped decompose the manure that we used in all our fields."

He went on to tell me about how the price of milk and rice is a hundred times what it used to be, followed by other “in my time” grandfather phrases. He never spoke about himself or his feelings, and rarely spoke about his childhood. These few sentences were a treasure to me and while I was eager for more, the conversation quickly changed paths.

There are many things about my grandfather that are still intriguing to me. He absolutely adores my grandma but also never, ever calls her by her name. He is terrifying to his grandchildren to the point that we would all literally tiptoe around him- but with that fear comes great respect for this self-made man who left his tiny village for the big city and created a new life for his family. 

You are only as strong as your weakest link

The thing about people who are weak is that no matter how strong you are, their weakness is stronger. Their weakness is the strongest thing they have and it will trump anything - love and kindness and sincerity and conviction and strength, all. So much that everything you have fought for will seem insignificant, immaterial, a powerless speck of dust drifting in the vastness of the universe. 

How not to tear your hair out (and other summer stories)

Summers in India meant hair lice. This came along with ripe and juicy mangoes, trails of dust along the cobbled streets, and the distinct smell of heat (a concept you can fathom only after spending seventeen days in a row in 110 degrees Fahrenheit). Nevertheless, hair lice had to be the highlight. 

Hair lice are tiny parasites that live in the hair. Though scientifically defined as 'harmless', th little bloodsuckers are enough to drive one crazy. They bite, cause extensive itching, multiply like rabbits, and lay eggs in the same hair that they live in. They are nearly impossible to get rid of – believe me, I’ve tried.

Every summer growing up, my cousins and I would meet for an annual reunion at our grandparents' house. This reunion, given its large scale, called for a lot of coordination before each family embarked from their respective city. Numerous phone calls were made across states with conversations revolving around arrival and departure times, transportation from the train station, and the routine question of 'does anyone have lice?' This last question was the most important, given how contagious hair lice are. Depending on the range of answers, the summer would be planned accordingly, decisions would be made, agreements signed and very occasionally, a brave soul or two would chop their hair off to avoid any sort of parasite drama.

Nevertheless, every summer at least one of us arrived with a breeding ground for a head. So when we were finally reunited, we would spend a significant part of our holiday scratching our heads together (not as a result of any sort of intellectual pursuit). Invariably, we would have our mothers and grandmother lubricate our locks with strong coconut oil to make it easier to de-infest our hair. This would be followed by the whipping out of The Lice Comb, a device with incredibly sharp and close-set teeth that I'm pretty sure was, at some point in history, used as an instrument of torture. The Lice Comb had many notable abilities, the best of which was ripping our hair out in the most painful manner possible, closely followed by actually pulling out the lice.

One of many remedies- and this was usually used as a last resort, given the chemical nature of it- was a liquid medical marvel that promised to kill all lice if you bathed your hair in it. We used a clear green solution that smelled of very strong floor cleaner. Actually, it may have been just that, packaged, marketed and sold otherwise.  At some point during our summer shenanigans, this 'floor cleaner' would be brought to our doorstep, and we would all have a fun morning together- the green liquid, our mothers, and us.  None of us were the least bit happy during this exercise of lathering our heads with this toxic chemical. We had to quite literally be tied to the bed post to cooperate. Though we knew it was for the greater good, we thought it was a waste of our precious time, which could otherwise be used to steal sugar cubes from the top most kitchen shelf, run around the center staircase making 'music' with steel vessels, climb up the dangerous water tank for a spectacular city view, and essentially drive my grandmother crazy. 

Looking back- and this is something none of us really noticed in the moment, given the 'dangerous' nature of events- those tiny insects played their part in the larger scheme of things. Without their help summer breaks would not have been half as entertaining. There was a certain amusing twist to three generations of female figures locked up in a room battling a common cause. Growing up, a number of things brought my family together in times of need- the good, the bad, and the ugly. But nothing as seemingly insignificant as these wingless, stumpy legged parasites.

Writing Prompts: Cooking

The aromatic smell of eight different Indian masalas seeped through the hallway, along with the sound of sizzling mustard seeds, churning cumin, and the rather loud air vent.

My mother is a spectacular cook, and I don't exaggerate when I say that people traveled from far and wide for a taste of her food. She pretty much whips up a miracle every time she sets foot in the kitchen. 

My earliest memory of her food was home made puffs stuffed with potato masala. I distinctly remember her taking it out of the oven in our little apartment in Atlanta. Even then, when I knew nothing about cooking, I was fascinated by how she had made thirty soft and flaky puffs with three layers that melted in your mouth and a tangy potato center, from - powder, basically. 

Growing up, the only 'cooking' I partook in was when my cousins and I got together over the summer. My mom would encourage all of us to bake cakes as a group activity (though now I realize this was to keep us occupied enough to not have to deal with our antics that were, more often than not, dangerous to a deadly degree).  I'm positive that I agreed to this baking exercise only so I could sneak a few licks of batter and of course, a large slice of cake at the end of it. 

As a teenager, I was an adamant and naive feminist (or that's what I called myself). I believed that feminism meant a lot of great things that make sense to me even now, but I also believed that it meant women shouldn't cook. I admit, this was a very simplistic view of things. I refused to set foot in the kitchen based on the belief that I was truly breaking gender barriers here. 

For years when people asked me about cooking, I joked and stated that my mom's amazing cooking genes just skipped me- when in honesty I had never even tried. Through university, I was surrounded by amazing cooks and found no necessity to attempt any possible/probable disaster in the kitchen, when home-food was a knock away. So at the end of my twenty-fourth birthday, boiling water was the only real culinary skill I had.

It wasn't until my brother soon blossomed into an amazing cook that I really sat down and rethought my life choices. When I visited him that summer, he whipped up some of my mom's signature dishes for me. I must admit that I was quite ashamed of myself. I had clearly let my adamant and childish views of the world get in the way of what could have been a great skill to have.  

I'm not sure if it was competitiveness, shame, being broke or just basic hunger that resulted in me finally deciding to grab a spatula. One thing I will say is, once I started there was no turning back. What started off as an evening ritual of dumping all the vegetables from my vague attempt at grocery shopping into a pot, led to some pretty elaborate spinach ravioli from scratch, healthy cauliflower crust pizza and complicated South Indian dishes packed with coconut, curry leaves and spices. 

My mom has a hand written cookbook. Though she no longer uses it (given her years of experience I believe every recipe sits safely in her brain), I know it still exists somewhere in her treasure trove. I always thought that I would never want or need it, and had come to terms with the fact that my brother deserved it more than I did. But with the recent turn of events, i think we are down for a battle for the cookbook. May the best child, I mean, cook, win.