It’s Thursday today. She used to need hibiscus flowers on Thursdays for her pujo. When younger, she would go to the park herself, looking through the shrubs for perfect flowers to pluck for her gods. A twisted ankle thanks to an unseen pothole ended the independent trips. Then it was up to us to fetch her flowers. As pollution and cars around the neighborhood park increased, I returned empty-handed on Thursday mornings, rushing to change into my school uniform. By the time I joined JNU, she had given up expecting fresh flowers, making do with a refrigerated garland of marigolds, bought the previous evening. Rushing to class through the campus wilderness, I would chance upon the red flowers, but it was too late to pluck them and take them home. By then her pujo would be done: her wet hair drying down her back as she read the paper and chewed her paan in the wintry noon sunshine, rising briefly to rescue the prasad placating her gods before the ants and lizards got to it.
It’s Thursday today. And exactly 2 years after I said my last goodbyes to her, I was greeted this morning by a nodding hibiscus flower on a balcony some floors below me. A living, breathing reminder of a love-and-tears memory.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
The Flower
6 comments:
Couldn't hold back the tears. Hugs, Anamika.
That was poignant Ana. Whereever she is now, she is smiling at you for keeping her memory alive.
:) thanks, you two.
Hugs :)) How we deal with our losses and griefs and how associations come back to haunt us unexpectedly. A tube of boroline made me cry for Ma yesterday.
Eve's Lungs: You are so right. And oh, Boroline. I bet your Ma and my Dida are bonding over it somewhere!
Lovely!
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