The seraphic seasoning of 'life'

I quote Robert Frost "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”

There are many different versions of "life" painted by life's very own essence since the concept of Universe dawned. Centuries have gone by, philosophical ethics unfolded, political theories garnered and science made remarkable progress spanning aeons, crossing boundaries and yet this whole Universe, its patterns and the big blue bubble where "life" germinated is still a wonder - the veil of its infancy is yet to be laid bare.

I love to bask in nature but do not recollect the genesis of my connecting to the life's handiwork. I have been very fortunate enough to echo Tagore since my budding years humming his icon"Listen, my heart, to the whispers of the world with which it makes love to you".That which is emerald in colour, fresh and in abundance and sapid to my senses had always appealed to me.

My childhood reared up in the nature's mystic fragrance and hues - thick coppice, lush paddy fields, the shaggy headed banyan tree standing tall and imposing at the mouth of the street which bended to an arterial road, the sunlight filtering through the dense śāl forests - the route we usually avoided taking after twilight hours but was whoopee to our tiny feet treading in the daytime kicking sand and mud along or stomping weeds or the dry fallen leaves and twigs, the tweedling colourful little birds mostly whose names I was unaware of nestling in the foliage near our home - stirred vibrations in my soul weaving a tapestry of radiance in the man-made epoxy world even after I husked out of my infantine years.

We had a neat manicured flower and vegetable front garden precisely supervised by my mom and Madanda, our weekly gardener. Between the scorching summer sun and school vacations both of them used to spend gruesome and tiring hours over gravel mulch for a trimmed landscape. Hibiscus was her all time favourite but she planted dear to her heart roses, gerberas, dahlias and marigolds in the winters so we all could enjoy the blooms up close on the patio.

There was a chhatim flower tree by my bedside window of the house where I grew up, whose enlivening whiff in the arid summer nights captured me alone and speechless - silence abounding. My old habit of reading books at bedtime with the windows wide and open during the summers often took my mind off to "all is quite in the garden now" - fireflies flashing its light, the warm breeze blowing, leaves rustling on the trees and the choruses of cicadas and tree frogs abuzz with silence gradually seeping in through the dark fabric of the starlit sky.

As children during school vacations we were paraded to the nearby woody and swampy riverbed with our picnic hampers. I was inept playing outdoors with other neighbourhood children. My favourite pastime then would be listening to the soft ripples of the river water gazing at its turquoise fathomless shape. Sitting on the grass underneath a tree my eyes would often wander at the blazing sky of the summer looking out for a hint of the overcast shadows and a splendour pour. Nay it never allayed my fancies.

But I enjoyed the traditional fishing boat rides with the others - the fishermen used to ferry us out towards the horizon with clumsy looking large wooden oars hacked from a single piece of wood. The hone of silence surrounded us sans our innocent peals of laughter amidst the water flowing in its fullness gladening my heart beyond measure.

My heart brews for silence and my eyes longs for ethereal portraits of nature at all times and in all places I visit even today. Growing up in a real world has been painful but years later hopping to different cities and countries, Tagore reminds me of the innate "Stream of Life" -

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

For me, nature's been an inspiration to stay afloat, to see beyond the malevolent and bilk human mind, to dye my spirit with its colours, and that it is quintessentially the name of the game called "life".

The coiffure chat

I made an appointment with a coiffeuse last Saturday after a period of four months - thanks to the impending spring holidays in Bali I'm longing for later this month -  bidding adieu to the pesky frizzy every day wave affair. 

Ever since I was a toddler I was following my mum's footsteps - she had long tresses, charcoal black, straight but a little wavy, shone like fine strands of silk, thick and gorgeous that came tumbling down beneath her knees - I too genetically inherited her long thick straight but a little wavy black mane but not as beautiful and ravishing as my mum's. Her tress tales, even today although age has started to clip its sheen, invite many a lady's envy and leave them itching for the established attribute of a woman's beauty. She, of course, went an extra mile to take care of her free flowing extra mane. Regular oiling, having fish in her diet and applying homemade hair pack (mixing amla, reetha, sheekakai) once in a week, plaiting her hair before hitting the bed in the night, helped her wear those black long locks with pride. I remember, her telling me when I was a kid, that when she was in her school and college days and ran on a tightier budget she could not even think of buying a bottle of shampoo.

Prior to fleeing the nest my mum took care of my locks as best as she could juggling between her work, home, kids, and kitchen garden. Despite my screaming and countless tears, she used to brush my hair everyday with a desparation trying to emphasise my feminity and making a spectacle of versatility of her natural black mane. Poor me - little did I make sense of it then that a mother daughter tress tales would actually benefit me rebuilding my already inherited healthy hair years later!

I started treading the hirsute journey with a great ardor in my late twenties - when I was packed off as a marriage material. The thought of bridal finery only complete with a comely hairdo on the D-day helped me fan my pruriency on tangible sides of life - I kicked off with my hair! Thus began the odessey with my mane.

Invariably I wanted to get the celebrity glow on my mane and drifted from one cosmetic indulgence to another. Hopping to a regular salon and hair dresser did not end my tress woes either. Open to experimenting with different hair products and hair colours from taming frizz to volumnizing flat hair for hogging the celebrity style limelight I forgot to indulge in my wellbeing to relax and rejuvenate.

With a demanding profession and marriage came stress bearing enormous negative impacts on my health. I was inept to life's real face - struggling to keep up to it's daily doses even now. However, I was hell bent on weaving a magic and set my heart and mind to it for a postive and optimistic frame of mind and body. And this realisation made me fall in love with my long black mane once again! The bygone mum-taking-care compassionate times blanketed my emotional keel.

I now pamper myself to a regular deep conditioning hot oil massage for strong and nourished strands, whole egg and yolk-only treatments once in a month for lustrous and soft hair and religiously swear by L'oreal's INOA hair colour products and treatments to beautiful hair. There are lots of hair care posts on the internet available (hair care varies from person to person due to different hair textures) educating and inspiring people to improve their health and happiness. Topping it all is eating healthy and drinking water adequately ultimately helps you with the image turnover.

Talking about the latest trends, I admit being a poor resource on this and leave that in the hands of the adroit professionals at A Cut Above - my present salon de beauté, with confidence.

I love long layers which is very feminine. Maybe this is what I inherited best from my mum - never did I realise before that her gestures with my black locks in my growing up years was a candid coiffure chat she wanted to convey.

The twig gradually branching out...

A rare gem in a troglodytic life

I was three years old when my father gifted me a book on 'alphabets' as convent schools started early those days. Little did I know at that time, or do the wee ones ever ponder considering the age I was, that the opuscule of knowledge in the form of published documents would grow on me, explore and expand profoundly enriching and forming the largest archive of my budding life.

Both my parents went out to work and although I was not their only child, the embryonic stages of my life passed by as a lone wolf - coy and demure. The books made me quarantined from a normal childhood. Books reinvented me - I felt unalone intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. However I had no hands on experience with the practical life. The invaluable social resource was never there in me and the building blocks of relationships came tumbling down for me. This has never left me feeling blue though.

I was more than ecstatic, soaking in the solace of volumes of 'lettered' knowledge that appealed to me more, was readily accessible (both my parents maintain a library that is to be gaped at - maybe I had it in my genes!), and the most patient of teachers I knew not. Many would gag at the knowledge that, even now, I draw the musty smell of the old ones and the inky smell of the new ones that wafts to me everytime I open a book to read - making my head swim with delight. Embracing the regular reading habit in the initial years of my growing up helped me find a confidante while soul searching serious answers in life and calmed my frayed nerves.

Still and going on - I nurture and polish this gem of a friendship in my austere life for the unpredictable days ahead - impregnating my life's slips with wisdom. I can never recollect a single day till date when I woke up to the chaos of the world without my fingers laced on this "rare gem".

 

 

I'm presently reading the Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz (Palace Walk; Palace of Desire; Sugar Street).

 

More on the leaves and twigs of my life in my next blog.