269

Reshma Ramesh

Grandmother’s yard

When we are travel far away from our home, we are getting closer to ourselves.

As I put my head out to look at mile stones lined with Gulmohar trees, swollen monsoons, empty roads, distant thunder, trees with hands on their heads, clouds looking like dyed wool, the wind in my hair making it fly all over the window, looking out at the Agumbe hills a tiny part of the mighty Western ghats that line the Indian subcontinent from Maharasthra to Kerala. The road is curved mostly, the monsoon just ended and the mountains are filled with tiny silver streaks which I thought at first were glistening rocks but then I realized it is water trickling down slowly to form streams. Though we don’t stop to touch the water I know that it is very cold just like the ones in Chickmanguluru which we stopped to feel last summer. There is something about flowing water especially on my feet that is soothing and takes me back to my childhood where I would stand by the beach and look fascinated at the sea while the small waves lap at my feet. Because you left me some warmth this winter In the belly of a jack fruit smelling of Directions given by strangers to familiar places Where you are lost and yet know the way somehow.

Because you left me with only notions Like earrings dangling from a jasmine To let me wonder if all the things you Said was dissolved in the clock Or leaving as vapors of time. Because you left me this place with fading maps, Crevices with unhurried ants, bruised eyed windows, Clogged bottles of hellos and goodbyes, Stainless steel tiffin boxes without yesterday's stale conversation, Howling books, old coins and kanjeevaram sarees full of no logic or love. Because you left me with this language Of amphibious rain and thoughts in transit I do not know how to be a person With all things straight or how to clean a family cupboard But I can only summon up courage Pretending to confront the rattle of your leftover hiss And the flat tire of your bicycle. So many memories are attached to fleeing things, relationships, experiences, places, time and memories within memories, like the water on my feet taking me back to the sea and the sea taking me to the taste of my grandmother’s pickles. It is April hot sultry summer afternoon; the temperature must be close to 37 degrees and usually everyone in the household naps after having a scrumptious meal. It is usually red boiled rice, fish curry, curd and pickle, mango pickle to be specific. In March the mango trees around our house which my grandfather planted when the house was built with love, would bloom and there would be birds chirping all around these yellow flowers and soon the whole tree would be pregnant with small baby mangoes. Grandmother would decide which ones would become pickles and would tell Eera to get the long bamboo stick with a sickle attached to it and he would nick the tender mangoes at the stalk. They would fall softly on the ground which would all be picked and spread on a sheet washed and dried. Grandmother would make sure there is no moisture on the mangoes, she would wipe them vigorously and sometimes

make us rub them with a cloth too and then she would sit down on the floor with a wooden stool which had a sickle attached to it in the front, which is a typical chopping instrument used in most household in the coastal region. She would then slice the mangoes in four and if they were small half or she would let them be, soak all of them in a mixture of salt, red chili and tampered oil. When she would tamper the kitchen would be filled with fragrance of turmeric and hing or asafetida which is a sulfurous smelling gummy plant extract that is traditionally used in Indian cooking which has a very distinctive savory flavor to the food and our mouth would water.

Grandmother’s feet remind me of the sea, the place you keep returning back to after travelling all over the world and they would remain in the same place, patiently waiting, loving you like no one else. The gentle waves beating against the shore over and over again, grandmother’s hands oiling my hair with coconut oil massaging my scalp until I become free from the noise, any noise, there is only me and the sea, only her wrinkled hands ironing out my worldly worries. I can be myself, wander around, knock on the doors of my past, smell jasmines, look at cats sleeping peacefully in the sun, boats sailing in the horizon and things moving so slowly like it would make me feel that they were still, like the world had stopped for me. How many life times the sea would have lived and how much wisdom it would hold, how many sunrises and how many fisherman’s songs it would have heard just like my grandmother. If only I could measure the weight of shells and my own loneliness growing roots into the loose sand, if only I could put in words for you to see the colors of the twilight, if only you were with me, like me

If you were like me You would know that A name is a place that you used to visit long back, A place where there are no farewells only shadows of fables, Where a river would flow around us in stillness and listen To the gentle beat of your heart.

You would know that

A name is a certain night where a sea is drawn from a window,

A night where you would fill my wounds with your poems, And the wind is made of clay. If you were like me You would know that

Some things remain with us and some things float away And you would fold a river into my palms So that when you leave they would Recall your fading footsteps. The open slits in the east wall that makes the house porous and lets the rain in is my favorite wall in the world. These holes in the huge wall that you will meet on the staircase while I run up to meet my grandfather which allows the early morning light to fills up the house are as much residents of the house as much as each one of us, so are the silver worms slithering in the old musty books, frogs that jump out of the pots that hang from the underpart of the roof and the old Bharani that sits now in the dark corner of the store room that no one visits until they are searching for something useless or old or something sharp to open stubborn things. Like I am stubborn with things I want to love, the corners of his eyes that glinted in the sun, his golden spectacles that he would never lose( I always lose mine, I have no idea how), the hair extension that my grandmother would carefully keep under the pillow and wear it with her bun as soon as she woke up in the morning and her nose ring that would move only when she frowned with disappointment. I think my grandmother was disappointed with many things but never let us know. She always made sure everyone was fed on time, trees were watered and my grandfather would have his lemon water at 3pm sharp. My Grandmother’s backyard is the only place in the whole world where I can always be what I want to be. A sweaty person full of breaking pimples, A woman draped in saree with Jasmine in her hair or a five year old bringing home stray puppies, a broken hearted teenager learning to love or just a poem. A poem that you continue to write and hopefully never get it right, a poem that my

grandmother would want to sing to the Lakshmi the cow when she milked her, a poem that is working its way around curiosity and pain.

You draw me like the rain draws shadows Filling empty cobwebs without names Breaking into memories of a town, a street, A yard and a window, a child sitting with a book Clasped in his hands with empty eyes. You draw me like unpossessed places do Like a traveler lost in the past leaning into the fading light Against a noise in the sea, searching for the burnt smell of autumn Searching for a midday shadow cast over a poem You draw me like distance, fleeing from all intimate things like Soft kisses, butterflies, breadcrumbs, trains and emptiness And put me in a book, among words where someone wrote About islands and children with lamp lit brows And an orchid pressed between the sheets.

Reshma Ramesh is a bilingual poet writing in English and Kannada. She has an unique honour of her poem being displayed permanently in the ruins of Ancient City of Olympos, Antalya, Turkey. She is a distinction holder in BFA photography (KSOU) and she practices Dental Surgery in Bangalore, India.