Her garden that was
In stories of her, she climbs trees, plucks mangoes to toss out many, piquant, some sour. A tiny breed of banana called yellaki sweetened every recipe, while gooseberries and tamarind pickled in clay pots were relished on the side with curd rice. She tells how abundant life was with vegetables like green peas, tomatoes, and beans bearing on the vine, lushly dripping over invisible stand-posts. It was so for its red soil—that glint in her eyes, as she sinks deep in time. Speaking aloud, her voice lacing the pain of the ineluctable now—an indefinable piece of a garden gone lifelessly left behind at her mother’s home; for a thirty-by-forty plot occupies a majestic house she moved into at 55, miles away in a land of black soil.
Moving between towns, shifting crockery, stoneware, and more, she never complained about the trees and vines, or the immovable, unreclaimable flowers and soil. She would draw and dig in the smallest patch in front of every house she relocated to. Plant more, compost more, bundle harvests for dozens to relish and live her every now. At 72, she is left sitting by the side of a window looking out to more such buildings, turning her back to the only coconut palm she planted—a half-chunk of the garden that remains here. Those she lived with all day, what breathed as home set among a coconut farm and much more, is elsewhere.
***
Time flies, like a harried sparrow
Eyes follow trees and grasses, shrubs and vines, the edge of the sea and water contained within. Travelling in the speed of a train, sitting by the window, they break the sequence of noise and breeze—as if ear and skin are made porous to soak it in.
Tracks run curved and the land slides the train, shifting its course and blurring the edge of everything I feel I happen to have seen: vegetation, trees and the back-and-forth of hues and shades of colour through the day. Something is not convincing me, between mind and doing. They run, zingy and full of noise.
The day happens as a day, one following another: a routine performed. Yet its experience lags and vanishes when I sit to recall, me forcing this self to recover as much at the end of the day.
Time flies when people are around. Things around, running a round. Among the crowd, walking past traffic signals, rarely do I notice a person whole — always drifting, harried like a sparrow. Not knowing why they stopped, or dropped the nesting material held in their beak, to feed on grains and fly off.
Image courtesy of the artist and Project 88, Mumbai