Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge

Keeper of harmony Women are like creepers; my mother tells me-- or ought to be. Creepers braid themselves around trees-- no dissonance, only harmony. But I want to be the tree, I tell my Mom and she smiles. Mysteriously. The men of my village need to cut a tree whose trunk they will fashion into an Indra dwaja— the flagpole of victory. I shadow these men into the forest where they examine and reject trees pregnant with flowers; trees withered and dry; trees with thorns and parasites; trees with holes holding nests; trees injured by wind or [...]

Calendared Intention My mother calls me every morning and recites the panchangam = the Hindu calendar, beginning with the year, which shows, perhaps, her long view of life and belief in, if not immortality, at least a lengthy prelude to mortality where action influences attitude and creates gothras = people who were born in the same cowshed except today, bars invite folks to sit and commune, make conversation, form communities, and yes, build cowsheds where couples couple and create lineages that conform to rules, where people in the same cowshed cannot marry each other because it is [...]

in these ears lie ancient secrets (a riff on the film Roja) she tickles my ear with a golden brush i wake from my nap with a primal sound shakes like a jhimiki upside down thinks she’s game to ease my frown What does she know about my ears? This organ that she tickles so casually? these were the ears into which my father said we were going to Malgudi Taluk to see my bride these were the ears into which my brother whispered broken instructions about our first night these were the ears that my new [...]

Crows and ancestors A crow, dead? Hung from an Indian elm tree, splayed like black shorts on a fickle clothesline, except this was a glass-coatedmanjha kite-string used to cut off of the competition during the annual kite-flying Uttarayan festival when the sun moves northwards towards Capricorn. I watched from my balcony through worn binoculars as white-cheeked barbets, rose-ringed parakeets, and purple-rumped sunbirds flew around this shiny black jungle crow dangling between life and death. I did nothing. What could I do, I told the part where memory met guilt. A few hours later, my mother appeared, distraught. She [...]

The price of tomatoes the other day, Ma told me that she regretted not climbing Mt. Kailash seven decades ago then she asked for the price of tomatoes piled high on our dining table. when I told her that I got the tomatoes for half-off she smiled and I marvelled at how the discount on a hill of tomatoes could salvage a lifetime of regret over not climbing a mountain Published in Indian Literature Issue 342. Sahitya Akademi’s bimonthly journal July-August 2024