Purple

It’s always been purple for me. That seductive tight-rope walk between red and blue, the horizon where passion meets melancholy.

I was first aware of its power when they did a general house-swap at school. The smooth, pale purple, heart-shaped badge I wore treacherously changed color, inspite of my crossed fingers and silent prayers. Entering the realm of blue that drowned me in its cool depths, I longed for the comfort of my purple patch. My color had betrayed me. I never forgave it for that.

Yet, it beguiled. The purple frock, with its orange smock pimpled with tiny french-knotted purple roses. The heady combination of flaming orange and docile purple. I loved the feel of the soothing cotton on my bony frame. And later, I swirled proudly to the rustle of my new silk lehenga, feeling like a princess. A royal purple with a rich brocade border, weighing me down like a chocolate dessert.

During my solitary afternoons, it was the delicate purple of the flowers, scattered in the unrestrained wilderness of our garden, that kept me company. Mimosa Pudica – the shy plant that drooped at my touch - captured in our biology lessons, and in a piece I wrote for our school magazine.

The color of my childhood stayed young while I grew. I admired the impossibly tender red of fledgling mango leaves, the warmth of wide orange brush-strokes by a setting sun, the blinding white of snow, and the ultimate unshackling – the crisp blue sky of a winter day.

I spotted the final reconcilation in a pristine white sari, with lilac and blue flowers entwined. I possessed it with a passion that I needed to purge from my system, and then gave it up in a hermitic moment.

Reminders surfaced like flotsam: “Deep Purple” etched deep into a college desk; an ethereal salwar that reflected the twilight; a wedding sari with gold threads drawn like my memories; a tricycle that my daughter refused to pedal and move forward…

Earth-tones keep me rooted now, the reds and browns speaking to me with a maturity, but purple will always be my Peter Pan.

India Poems

Here are the results of my experiment with different poetic forms...

Signs that lil D is growing up

When kids grow up, they grow up all right. Overnight, they morph from helpless, indecipherable-sound-producing babies to authoritative, voluble toddlers. To say it’s amazing is an understatement.

Signs that my lil D is well and truly into her terrible/terrific twos:

1. She tells me “Mama, don’t get upset, OK”, when she knows she’s done something wrong, and I haven’t yet discovered it

2. She asks with a frown, “Why you acting like that?”, if we do something she’s not pleased with.

3. She treats her dad like her protégé and teaches him all her rhymes and games with great diligence

4. She insists on eating most propahly at the table; what’s more, she insists we follow her example

5. She behaved like a proper hostess with some guests, asking them to come in, sit down and have some apple juice (doubtless with the fond hope that she would also get some)

6. She behaved like a dutiful citizen, asking the saleslady at a shop where the dustbin was, and then disposing of her lollipop stick most appropriately, with no prompting from me!

7. The very first day at her pre-school, after washing her hands post-snack-time, she asked the maid there with a most puzzled look on her face: “Where is the towel?”

8. She’s grown strong enough to carry 4 small chairs at once – 2 in each hand! (Baby Xena, I wonder?)

9. July 28th was a red-letter day: she told me the magic words for the very first time - “I love you – I love you very much!”, accompanied by a big hug.


And the top sign is……


10. I exclaimed “Wow! You’re great!”, when she chose to eat more radish over potatoes at dinner today. She replied, perhaps unwittingly, but most appropriately: “I’m not great, I’m smart!”

Clean

Read my new poem, or rather, song, here.