1993-1997
Biologists say I lived within her briefly –
as all maternal grandchildren do.
Yet unlike other grandmothers,
she never carried me on her waist.
Or held my tiny palm in hers.
But I do remember sleeping beside her
And, she told the Aesop’s tales,
Not many, just two, perhaps three.
Dark-lit room, more so in the monsoon.
Late-1990s Kerala without electricity.
Emerald mango branches and coconut fronds
towered over the tiled pitched roof.
Hospital records tucked into window lattices.
Odor of half-air-dried cotton clothes.
Of petrichor wafting from outside.
Of breath, sweat, and toilet pan.
The long red tape recorder-cum radio,
which wafted Classical Indian music inside.
Ragas melted into that not-so-cosy afternoon.
Both calmly drifted off to vivid siesta dreams.
1998
The bright, spacious top-floor patient room.
Summer sunlight flooded through the window,
as though the vault of the cobalt sky had opened.
I can still catch the room’s scent from 1998.
Of floor cleaners, fresh bedsheets, and arid air
Of my new green teddy, whose eye I operated on later.
——
She perched in a perfect corner of our backyard,
Where lilac gliricidia sheds blossoms in bunches.
Wild jasmine spread a soft fragrance.
Swarms of fireflies flashed at midnight.
A cone of light fell on her every evening,
Schools of midges circled the cone of light.
Thin echoes of Pied-bush chats’ conversations.
Hum of neighborhood children’s classical music lessons
1999
I inherited her handwritten letters from 1989.
An Indian brass pocket bell, her grandfather gifted,
Gold jewelry made for my mom.
A set of multicolored bindi powders.
Pairs of soft cotton mundu.
Tiny jar with shining decorative stones.
Eggshell-white chiffon saree, red bordered.
And, the red radio and her idea of classical music.
1999-present
Her sense of music lingered in me –
years folded into decades.
26 years later, at my concerts,
I search for her among people,
All I seek is a cone of light.
A cone of light.
Acknowledgments
None.
Author contributions
T.R. is the sole author of this article.
Funding
None.
Competing interests
None.
Ethical approval
Not required (Consent from my mother is attached).
Open access
