Summer 2024: Jayanthi Manoj

Jayanthi Manoj

This Summer in my Garden

The purple heart with its pink teeny-weeny flowers 

and dramatic foliage,

The peached easter lily with its baby-skinned blooms,

And the all-time resilient aloe vera

have a disquiet conversation

in my garden

on the near-scathing sunny attacks

of summer

and the calamitous irresponsibility of human nature.

***

The Colour Palette of Summer (Visuals)

The Purple Heart, Easter Lilies and Resilient Aloe Vera in Conversation

The Zesty Lemons- The Zing-Thing from my Neighbour’s Garden

The spirited cardinal red Ixora and their annual visitor Easter lilies

***

Bio: Jayanthi Manoj is Associate Professor of English, leadership and communication trainer, teacher-mentor, public speaker and Dean of International Affairs, Holy Cross College, Tiruchirappalli, India. A widely anthologized Indian English poet, her books include Sketches: From the Pages of my Diary, Poems (2008) and Mordecai Richler Texts and Contexts A New Historicist Approach (2022), a critique. Her academic lectures and literary readings are available on her YouTube channel 'Voices and Whispers'.

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Setu, May 2024

Journeys from Stereotypes to Prototypes

Reviewed by Jayanthi Manoj

Book: Guilt Trip and other Stories

Author: Lakshmi Kannan

Year: 2023

Pages: 236

Price: ₹ 395 INR

ISBN: 978-93-91125-74-5

Lakshmi Kannan's Guilt Trip and other Stories is an experience of food, emotions and relationships that make our everyday life. Less jargoned but treats with ample servings of the native flavours of Tamil and Kannada glossary, the 13 stories capture the innateness of the South-Indian sensibility. One can quickly relate with the ‘amma’ and ‘Patti’ of the Tamilian home space.

Kannan’s characters are closely real, simple and relatable. She handles the varied human expressions of care, guilt, jealousy, helplessness, loneliness and adventure with utmost authenticity. A woman who tries to tell what she needs can be seen as improper, but these stories navigate through the feminine terrains to find ways to voice it out. They are insightful and delve into the social behaviour that reflects the diverse worlds in which a woman is born into and the world which she creates as an evolved one.

The Guilt trips…

Guilt Trip… is a journey of characters that move from stereotypical characters who satisfy the kitchen roles to prototypes like young researchers and University Professors who find ways to balance the ladle and pen. The normalized role of women essentially is to cook and serve. This qualifying act is vividly discussed in ‘Dregs’. Sheila, “recalled her sisters-in-law in Tamil Nadu who slaved all day in a sooty kitchen, cooking elaborately for a large extended family” (56).

The drudgery of serving food is not because of the act of service but lack of value and affirmation that is due to a woman who eternally serves food in the household. Kannan clearly rips open the hierarchy and insensitivity that is normalised in this everyday ‘service-ritual’ that is religiously repeated without any consideration left for the women who slog in the kitchen. Sheila’s sisters-in-law went to bed half hungry. “Then they got up the next day to repeat the same work, cooked large meals, ate leftovers and went to bed hungry. The next day and the next… it was understood as a very normal thing for women” (57). Food has a prominent presence in this anthology highlighting subtly gender roles and gender non-conformity.

Sheila is a young researcher in a new land acing with her pen but pursued for the ladle. The male-colleagues did not come to check on her research themes, but on her kitchen. Dregs is a powerful symbol which signifies that a woman is a remnant of something left unworthy. Be it in Leeds or in her own hometown, Sheila is not questioned about her research pursuit, but she has to answer a lot of typical questions such as how would her husband manage food in her absence unmindful of the academic journey that she had voyaged to make it to the Leeds.

‘Dregs’ is a powerful meta story on the politics of cooking. Sheila is a prototype of a ‘thinking-woman’ who “…sleeps with monsters” as in Adrienne Rich’s ‘Snapshots of a daughter-in-law’ as opposed to the stereotype of ‘serving-woman’. Women’s place and role in the kitchen is an undercurrent theme that is recurrent in varied narratives in ‘The Colour Green’, ‘Ladies Watch’, ‘Kitchen fire’ and ‘VRS’ apart from ‘Dregs’. These stories are a wake-up call of changed roles of women who in spite of embracing their femineity can be women who start to think for themselves without the ‘guilt-trip’.

‘VRS’ is a voice call to empower the society that has to handle an empowered woman. An empowered woman is on a different realm, a separate genre, by herself as against the common given whom the world and household are familiar with. She is even part of the gossips among women who have not yet made their inner journey a celebration of sisterhood, and find ways to go by the heart's content.

Plating for food in the South Indian cuisine is more of serving. Serving food is a main ingredient in the Tamil cuisine. The ethos behind serving food is to serve the cooked food with love and care. It is believed it adds flavour to the food and the people who eat have the stomach and heart content. With family roles, many a time unconsciously ‘Serving’ has become a mark of ‘Servitude’. Women are designated to serve rather than be obliged to serve. Arundhati’s decision to go for a VRS is a backlash or a proactive response of a ‘thinking woman’ who no longer is willing to be exhausted in acts of servitude.

Arundhati is an answer to the kitchen politics, a proactive woman who stands up for herself and who echoes what Lakshmi Kannan has noted in the beautiful quotation of Maya Angelou, “Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it, possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women”. That is so beautifully brought out in Arundhati's character wherein she, even directly tells her helper, Rooparani, to stash away a little food for themselves and should not serve it even if they had to fall short of food that's put on the table. When we defy a stereotype, we need a model, a prototype to follow. Arundhati without guilt is Kannan’s model of an empowered woman who stands up for herself. She decides that she would no longer be exploited for her goodness, goodwill and resources, including finance and food.

There is a strong message beneath the subtle stories that food need not be just delegated only to the womenfolk and can be a shared endeavour. Kannan brings out the beauty of the shared endeavour in ‘Kitchen Fire’ where there are instances of Padma and her husband Raghuraman in spite of her heavy schedule and his ailment seamlessly make it as an act of mutual-respect to honour each other’s need. There are days Padma makes time to make food for her sick husband amidst her precious work as a fellow in IIAS Shimla. There are times when Raghuraman helped her with dinner, made her tea after she had a tired day and was sensitive enough to warn her against Namakkal, Chengalpattu and Thittakudi who awaited a dinner invitation for home-food unmindful of Padma’s hectic schedule. Raghuraman becomes a prototype of an empowered man, evolved to be sensitive enough to respect and be emotionally available for an empowered woman as his wife unlike Arun in ‘VRS’. It has to be noted that Kannan's stories are not only exclusively rich with the female experience but also present men capable of respecting and reaching out to women with sensitivity such as Ragurahman in ‘Kitchen Fire’ and the well-dressed man in ‘As Dapper as They come’

The success of Guilt Trip… could be if every reader can take time to check on people, irrespective of the gender, who serve them food every day with a simple note of affection, “Did you eat?” It can be the man and woman in the kitchen, a family member or friend who waits on you to serve, a road-side dabbawalla, a hotel server or anyone, that would be an enhancement of the human spirit with an act of kindness and affirmation. Food represents the culture of a place and is also the emotion of a household.

Stories on women’s roles in ‘Addigai’, the girls’ adventures in ‘Guilt Trip’, woma(e)n’s day out in ‘Annapurna Bhavan’ are interesting reads on a woman’s mindscape. ‘Adiggai’ speaks about the zero tolerance for women who are seriously devoted to careers of their own or women who pursued higher studies. The conflict among the submitted self and the evolved is strongly reflected in ‘Adiggai’.

…And other Stories

Kannan’s collection also has a menu of other stories that surprises the reader with the soul’s journey and transience in ‘The Open Gate’ and ‘Floating Free’, aching for an apple and discovering the native flavour of ‘Guava’ in ‘’A’ for Apple’ and the love and value of the geriatric population in ‘Janaki turns a Blind Eye’

‘The Open Gate' has an ethereal essence, deep and gripping other-worldly insight. When the soul is ready to leave, nothing can stop it. The best is to prepare the way for it to comfortably leave the body of pain. The soul never dies, it only leaves… is the crux of the opening story of this collection. One can visualize the soul's passage to the next dimension through the gates as Mr. Subramanium wanted it to be open for a seamless journey.  As a show-but-don’t-tell narrator, Kannan states the voice of the soul. The song and gate are signs of getting ready. The song is a symbol of celebration of a life lived, and the gate is a symbol of transition to the next dimension. The soul lives, gets ready to live in another time space. The spiritual transcendence prompted by the comforting humming bird in ‘Floating Free’ is another instance of the transience of life.

Geriatric themes, abound in many of Kannan’s writings. She many a time touches upon the fear and loneliness of the old and sends a strong reminder to embrace the aged with love. Janaki is portrayed as an endearing one who has the power to stand with goodwill towards the young bride in 'Janaki turns a blind eye'. Hope permeates the story that otherwise captures with wry humour the plans to plunder the newly wed. ‘The Colour Green’ and ‘Ladies Watch’ unveils instances of insensitivity and thoughtlessness of the grown-up children towards their aging parents.

In Lakshmi Kanan’s collection the simple is no ordinary, but envelops layers of meanings which open up the varied roles of typecasts, stereotypes, prototypes with varies perspectives, ideas and customs. A recommended read to journey into our very own homes and identities where we struggle to be and become the best version, we are capable of.

 

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Setu, February 2024

Lakshmi Kannan in Dialogue with Jayanthi Manoj

Lakshmi Kannan

Dr. Lakshmi Kannan aces as a writer par-excellence not only with food tropes, kitchen mindscapes and food politics but for the minute unspoken power-politics that determines the happiness of newly-weds, elderly wisdom and timelessness of the soul’s journey. An interview with the author brought in more meaning to the written word.

 

Jayanthi Manoj’s (JM) talks to Lakshmi Kannan (LK) about a range of issues in this interview for Setu.

JM: What has been your motivation and inspiration to pen Guilt Trip and other short stories?

LK: Each story was inspired by a theme, a mood, or an ‘experience’ (either my own or someone else’s) that impacted on me. So, I can’t pin it down to any one inspiration that is central to this collection, like I can do for a novel.

   Guilt Trip is a mix of stories. Some of them take up serious and urgent issues, especially the two Long Stories that address the greed of in-laws who plan to swindle a new bride out of her jewellery, silver ware and wedding clothes while the other shows an intelligent woman with a profession of her own who makes some sensible moves to protect her money and ‘space’ from a manipulative, alcoholic husband. I wrote some stories to capture what seemed to be mystical moments that couldn’t quite be explained away and others to record fleeting moments of joy, the ephemeral beauty of life and of people. I also wrote many stories for sheer fun and laughter.

   Collecting them for a book felt adventurous, much like life is, outside the covers of a book. These stories were published over a period of time.

Jayanthi Manoj

JM: I'm really curious to know if there are any autobiographical elements in this collection.

LK: Yes, there are. Still, I would like to qualify the term ‘autobiographical’ in order to clarify the suggestion that is implicit in the very word. By ‘autobiographical’ is it implied that some stories may be based on my personal experience? If yes, then what about the empathy of the author who can at times identify herself completely with the protagonist (s) and internalise an experience in such a way that it comes through as her own? I would like to share an amusing response I got for my historical novel The Glass Bead Curtain (2020, 2016) that is set in the background of British rule in Madras Presidency. Some readers asked me if it is ‘autobiographical’, forgetting for a moment that even my mother wasn’t born around that time! It was a period when my grandparents were themselves very young. But I felt gratified in a way that one of my protagonists was so convincing that she came across as me!

   Secondly, an experience that I have delineated in my fiction may not necessarily have happened to be, but could have happened to someone very close, either within the family or the close circle of friends and colleagues. No fiction can claim to be totally impersonal, just as mere autobiography may not make it as ‘fiction’ unless it goes through a creative process.  

 

JM: The stories are seemingly simple, but they unfold many layers for the reader to explore and reflect. What has been your most rewarding moment of writing Guilt Trip?

LK: This question takes me back to your first question regarding the inspiration behind writing these stories. There were many rewarding moments whenever a particular story was received with empathy and a spirit that was somewhat in sync with mine, in that story. The next rewarding moment came when I put them together for Niyogi’s edit team. Sri Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee, who advises Niyogi Books on commissioning and editorial matters was wonderfully inclusive in his spirit. He welcomed all the stories within this collection even if a few of them looked “different” from what I usually write. In addition, he offered his valuable critical insights wherever it was needed. My editor Anwesha Panda was a most sensitive and sincere person to work with. I enjoyed some of her cover mails in which she would comment on the story, of how something made her laugh, or think again. With these two people, I re-lived the same adventurous feeling I had when I wrote the stories. 

 

JM: Reading Guilt trip, I could trace that you deal with a lot of geriatric themes and you ace them well...And I really like all the grandmas in your stories for their natural selves. According to you, what is the role of the elders, elderly people in Indian homes?

LK: I’m known for my stories about elderly people. My Tamil original “Savvyasachi Chadukkam” (“Savvyasachi Square” in English translation in Nandanvan) got me the Ilakkiya Chintanai award for the best short story. The Hindi translation titled “Savvyasachi ka Chauraha” was narrated for the YouTube by Kathanati Suman Keshari, a renowned poet and a theatre person.

  My elderly protagonists got a very positive response from  my previous collections as well - such as Genesis: Select Stories (Orient BlackSwan, 2014), Nandanvan and Other Stories (OBS, 2011) and India Gate (OBS, 1993). The elderly protagonists got a new lease of life when published in  Hindi translations titled Aakash hi Aakash (Penguin, Delhi, 2007), Laya Baddh (Jnanpith, Delhi, 2007) and Partein (Vaani Prakashan, Delhi, 1996). 

   Elderly people in India and all over the world are having a very difficult time compounded by their health issues. There is an increased awareness in social media about the importance of mental health and “wellness” that can help the elderly in a major way. Since you asked me about their ‘role’ in Indian homes, I think they should shed the old, obsolete image of people who passively expect the family “to look after them.” They should step with the times that marks a change in the climate now. Elderly ones who are proactive, who pursue their own interests, read books and share in Book Clubs, who regularly exercise, go for walks, see movies with friends and family, travel in safe groups are the one who are happy and healthy. Happiness should be an active goal for everybody. With the current widespread awareness about the importance of mental health, people realise how it significantly improves their physical health.

   I have volunteered to work for HelpAge India and Agewell Foundation with seminars that included psychologists, sociologists and doctors as Speakers. I met many amazing elderlies who continue to be active and who help others find a purpose in their lives. The mantra is to be happy!
 

JM: The ladle and the pen, how can a woman handle both without being radical, but in a balanced manner. Is it idealistic or is it possible?

LK: There is absolutely no conflict between the two because a woman is naturally gifted with culinary skills, plus she has this warm wish to cook something nice for her family and friends. I know of many super-busy women with demanding jobs who use cooking as a stress-buster. They bake a wonderful, yummy cake for their families and do it so happily. A woman can wield both the ladle and her pen very well because she has an innate capacity for time management, given the fact that she multi-tasks most of the time. It is only when family and social pressures close in on her with cruel, unreasonable demands that she senses a friction. Isn’t it like ‘showing a woman her place’? It is so retrograde. Yet, sadly we do see this happening in some homes.  

 

JM: You deal snobbery with humor. What cure do you tend to find for snobbish behaviour in your stories?

LK: Snobbery of any kind provokes the most satirical instincts in me. I find it so laughable. I don’t think there can be any cure for this, so long as people blithely continue to be snobbish, not realizing how ridiculous it makes them look.

 

JM: Also, I would like to know if Sheila in Dregs is anywhere close to Lakshmi Kannan, the writer in residence? How much of this is real? 

LK: Totally! You’re absolutely right in your guess. All that I have depicted in the story actually happened to me with this Tamil group when I was a writer in residence with a comfortable, furnished flat of my own, complete with a nice kitchen. No exaggeration! You can say Sheila in Dregs is me.

 

JM: Women in household, women in reading, where are we?

LK: In both the household and in reading, we are in the right ‘space’. We’re batting fine, just fine.

 

JM: I'm compelled to ask you this. Who are you as a Tamil writer in English from Delhi. What has been your identity?

LK: I tremendously enjoy living in a cosmopolitan city like Delhi, just as I enjoyed growing up in Bangalore as a small school girl. You get to meet people from so many other cultures and background that it is a refreshing, learning experience. It helps me expand my mental horizons.

   Where my identity as a Tamil writer is concerned, much of this cosmopolitan milieu can be found in my fiction in Tamil. I am no different from other writers in Delhi who write it their own regional languages. All of us find a neutral platform when we interact with each other in English, or in Hindi. It is only the Hindi fraternity that can feel they are ‘on their own turf’ because they live on the Hindi belt. Things are easy for them.

 

   It has been a great pleasure responding to your questions. They were so thoughtfully put together that it made me re-assess many things for myself, all over again.

   A big thanks, Jayanthi!

***

 

Dr. Jayanthi Manoj M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., with SLET

Dean of International Affairs Associate Professor of English, Holy Cross College (Autonomous) Tiruchirappalli, India email: jayanthimanoj2000@yahoo.com/ drmaryjaynthi.m@gmail.com

Dr. Jayanthi Manoj is a widely anthologized Indian English Poet in National and International Journals and anthologies. She is presently an Associate Professor of English and Dean of International Affairs from Holy Cross College, Tiruchirappalli, Tamilnadu, India. Dr. Jayanthi has a joyful teaching-career of 19 years and loves to work for first-generation learners and regionally backward students. She is also a leadership trainer, teacher-mentor, content creator of communication training modules and public speaker. As a Researcher she has guided 6 Ph.D. candidates. She has made significant contributions in responsibilities held as the former Vice-Principal, Dean of Students, Fine Arts Coordinator and Editor of the Magazine of her college. Dr. Jayanthi has published 2 books- A critical non-fiction Mordecai Richler: Texts and Contexts: A New- Historicist Approach by Author Press, Delhi, 2022 and an anthology of poems titled Sketches: From the pages of my diary, Reliance Publishing House Delhi, 2008. She has also written and directed original concept-based scripts and performances titled Thedal, Karunai, Kaviyam, Anbin Mozhigal, Thaimyin Sangamam and Yathumaagi Nindrai Nee. She has a youtube channel – Voices and Whispers to share content on Communication, select literary topics, conversations with psychologist and poets and readings on poetry.

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Setu, February 2024

Poetry: Jayanthi Manoj

Jayanthi Manoj

Ecosphere

Borderless,

The mind is an ecosphere

of words and silence.

 

A quantum of the self,

A photon of thought.

 

A hydrosphere of vaporizing feelings

Steaming with rewound hurts

or hazy happy smiles.

A sublimation of intuition.

 

Sometimes a fractal of creation and growth

Other seasons, a valley of the lost

Meandering the terrains of shadows.

 

The mind, a tectonic plate

Shifting, realigning, restoring

With the heat of the moment to pass and process

Beneath the crust of the face

And façade of the self.

 

The mind

forever expands and shrinks

In its space

The one it generates and vacates.

***

 

 

Words Matter

 

What you say to the mind, matters

It festers or heals

What it is or it was

Meant to be.

***

 

I am.   I am more than the spaces I hold,  More than the family that I am centered in, More than the work that I pinned to, More than the dishes I make and do not, More than the labels I hold and detest, More than the power I release and withhold, More than the failures I face and bounce forward with, More than what you can see and what I am willing to let you see, More than what I am for and grey out to be.    I am the endless sky, limitless air, boundless water, unbounded fire, the immense earth.  ***     Voices and Whispers   I am still searching for my voice and many a time I hear it.    Sometimes subtle, other times deep Many a time in others’ voices and here and now I've felt the loss of it too.    Now and then it's spontaneous like running water At time a live wire like fiery humour Fewer moments I'm compelled to mimic the best,  Potpourri and make it a trail of dry nuts.   But whenever it whispers in that deep stillness,  when the words drum the clipped strings of the soul within -is the voice born.   Noisy first and then finds rest in a poem.  ***

Jayanthi Manoj is a widely anthologized Indian English Poet. She has an anthology of poems titled 'Sketches: From the pages of my diary'. She is an Assistant Professor of English, teacher-mentor, life-skills trainer and Vice Principal, from Holy Cross College, Tiruchirappalli, Tamilnadu, India. She loves colours, words, silence and speaks the voices of whispers. She has a youtube channel ‘Voices and Whispers’.

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Setu, April 2021 :: Icebergs in the Mind: Memory, Dream and Desire

Jayanthi Manoj: Poetry (Voices Within 2021)

Jayanthi Manoj is an Indian English Poet, articulate and deeply intuitive. She is the Vice-Principal, Assistant Professor of English, teacher-mentor and life-skills trainer from Holy Cross College, Tiruchirappalli, Tamilnadu, India. She reads poems at literary festivals and conducts Creative Writing workshops. She loves colours, words, silence and speaks the voices of whispers. She has a youtube channel ‘Voices and Whispers’. She has an anthology of poems to her credit and has her individual poems published in National and International Journals and anthologies, the recent ones include 'Select Indian Poets' (Bangalore 2017) and 'Hibiscus-poems that heal and empower' (Kolkata 2020).

 

One *Teppakulam afternoon

Right in from the *Rockfort temple towards the *Main guard gate
Once a citadel of the war-sagacious Nayaks and other troops
Is now the forte of the city’s bazaars and hagglers.

Elbowing the crowd one walks past the wispy whiff of *chandan
Gathered in small plates for sacred rituals to reach atop.
Fragrance of threaded jasmines wet with freshness wisp past nostrils.

Caterwauling children dragged along with market bags
Of heavy purchases from *aadi-sale from Cauvery-long clothing stores
While the river-bed waits for dams to open streaks of water to quench the arid lands.

Horns vying for spaces screech incessantly
Drown the belches of road-side eateries and Hakkim’s *Biryani.

Simple girls mimic fashion stars with their latest street-walk buys
Some dab a little more of powder which sweats like a pan-cake
A few extra coat their lips with aloe-vera balms and eyes with *kajal.

College boys and girls unmindful of the raucous crowd
Saunter coolly with buoyant looks and laughter
A few triumphantly giggle over their bunked classes
A handful slip into Higginbothams for a quiet rummage of books and letters.

The thirsty eyes, wait in crowded files, watching the glass tumblers-
half-filled with crushed ice, quickly dripping with honey-coloured *nannari sarbath, punched with a squeezed lemon in a jiffy.

Glasses stirred and gulped down, endless like the perennial queue.
Another horde await to grab cups of sugarcane juice
with a dash of ginger to quench the sweltering sun.

Come, breathe in the city’s scents,
Sojourn and feel the pulsating tempo of the town
amidst clamouring crowd and tessellated bazaars
And drink its flavours and goodness, just once, in one’s time.


A note on Glossary used in the poem

*Teppakulam - It is a locality near the centre of the Indian city of Tiruchirappalli. Roughly translated from Tamil it means ‘Temple Tank’
*Rockfort temple - Tiruchirappalli Rockfort is a historic fortification and temple complex built on an ancient rock. It is the most prominent landmark of the city
*Main Guard Gate - It is one of the main entrances for the fort complex
*Chandan - Sandalwood powder
*Vibhuti - Sacred ash
*Biriyani - Flavoured mixed rice made with Indian spices, meat, vegetables or eggs
*Kajal - A black powder used in South Asia as a cosmetic around the eyes
*Nannari Sarbath - One of the refreshing summer drink made from nannari. It is a wonder herb from nature which cools the body heat

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Go on...

 

Some days can be arid, scorched and cracked, it's passable-
Plod on.

It could be miles of nothingness, drudgery as baggage, it's traversable-
Move on.

It could be endless expanse of emptiness, torrid days, tired nights, it isn’t impassable-
Hang in there.

It may be this, that or whatever...

Just focus on the rhythm of one foot forward, the next and the next...
Walk on...
Till you outgrow the parched grounds and step on to greener covers of your aligned terrain.
Where owls watch you by night and larks sing by day.
Where wisps of gentler breeze mix with those rain drops of courage that never fear heights nor depths
That is where you learn to go and let go,
Go on as seasons cannot always be just dry.

 

Uncooked lines

Like an unused ladle hanging on the kitchen hook, 
She was caught in the monotony within the shelved walls of her kitchen. 
Like a new-born lamb lost on a grimy junction
She stood muddled between the dividing lanes of chores and creation. 

Sheepishly she writes her new story between grocery lists and monthly bills
A misfit in the kitchen, preoccupied with her storylines,

she steams the onions and fries the rice.

Feverishly she tries out of the quintillion possibilities 
to make the right *sambar
like solving a Rubik cube with a guide, 
while still fascinatingly preoccupied with her redeemed MAYA,

her literate heroine's first day out for work…

The cooker whines, she opens to see steamed onions and rummages for the missing rice. 
Unattended the grains splutter and grow fussy on the pan
readied for sautéing onions

Quizzically she stands over with vacant eyes, 
watching the translucent onions, caramelized rice, puzzling sambhar, 
while the school bell rings for MAYA, in her mind.

The stove sears for attention while her story runs into many lines.

*Sambar- A lentil-based vegetable stew cooked with pigeon pea and tamarind broth. An everyday popular in South Indian cuisine

 

Motifs and Rhizome

She embraces her scars
‌Heals herself through tough love.

‌She draws the lines of her circle,
‌Voices, whispers, tears and laughs from within.

‌When disparaged she has the courage to laugh it aloud as a joke
‌And can run her fingers through the fine threads of failure
‌To learn the patterns of life.
‌Seamlessly she sews her triumphant motifs
‌With perseverance, grace and poise.

‌When squashed, tramped and walked over
Deep beneath, she routes down
With her frail threads, she roots further
Grows into a rhizome
Ingrained, grows up into a rootstock
An empowered provenance
Shoots up as the finer self.

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Life, Cognition and Creativity 2021 :: Setu, January 2021