As she drives her four year old son To his UCMAS class She watches him idly play With his plastic abacus She recalls, how as a child She played with a wooden frame With rows of brightly coloured beads Not knowing the Chinese secret Of advanced math power hidden in them. Yet, she could total up the grocery bill in her mind She could budget the month to fit the salary She could put two and two together, And know, though it should turn out to be four, Life’s quirks make it twenty- two at times… Without having undergone special tuitions. As she watches her kids Eyes glued to the screen Jubilantly criminal in sport, Riding violent rides, Outsmarting the unknown rivals On their Play Station, She recalls her simple rustic childhood How on lazy days of summer break With her grandaunt as her opponent She waged battles in pallanguzhi By no means a mean task, Every move calculated Every manjaadi manipulated to end up In a premeditated slot, To be scooped out As the winner’s lot. As she packs her kids’ lunch box With deep fried samosas, pastries Ajinomoto rich noodles Sugar coated doughnuts, crimped potato wafers And waves off the still sleepyheads In their school bus She remembers those hurried mornings Of gulping down Plateful of left over rice Well mixed in thick curds With dainty salted mangos (Mm!…ambrosia, manna and nectar!) Before walking three kilometres To reach the school before the peon Rings the stentorian bell; Of opening the aluminium lunch box At one o’clock and Scooping out with fingers, Cold sambhar or rasam rice, Devouring the very last morsel And rushing to the row of taps To rinse the box Before elbows start jostling And water, splashing…. How times have changed She muses… Alien land…alien habits Alien taste…in food and clothing, Alien thinking, alien justifications, Alien kids? Maybe soon, she thinks… Why am I unable to adjust, she wonders Why do I cling to my past? Knowing full well that That past is past And it shall never be the same Ever again!
Dear Twinsmom, You are good at poetry too!! I wonder too how we managed school/college days when we would pack sambhar sadam/thayir sadam or idlies for lunch and eat cold. If somebody brought chapathis, it would be a treat for us. And how did we spend our summer holidays with our grandparents without the idiot box or computer games around? Playing pallanguzhi and Daayakattan all day with almost everybody in the Agrahaaram, and the evenings would be spent in run and catch or gilli dhandha or paadi where we would hop between the squares. The girls sometimes will be subject to "poo thechufying" their hair with jasmine flowers. Though it looked good, I would feel my hair roots screaming for relief. The evenings will be followed by AIR Trichy news and if it was my Hindi prof grandpa's home, Vividh Bharathi melody would follow occasionally, followed by "Vanna Chudar", some famous Delhi Ganesh drama. At work these days, if the chinese guy sticks his food in the MW before I do, I skip heating my food coz I am scared the odious smell will stick to my dear sambhar sadam. But still I cringe to eat the cold food, I just wish it were a little warmer. C'mon, we have to bear the sub-zero winters . But as you say, past is past and it shall never be the same ever again!! Again! enjoyed your poem, took me back to old times! Regards Vidya
Dear Twinsmom, You poetry brings out our school and college day memories. Summava sonnanga--Old is gold? I wonder what memories do our children have being in this materialistic world? Maybe their flashbacks are different from ours. If we relate anything like, we did this and that and why can't you do that, they answer like - if you did like that, is ok, why do you expect us to do the same? Sriniketan
dear viju, today when i opened indus, i find yengum viju mayam, flash backaa, taste of foodaa, mathematicaa, ippo biscuitaa, sollade sollade i am thinking which to register in my mind well, so many different types of topics all under one roof.. yeah ur grey matter is splitting with so many ideas, shall i serve u coffee please yenakkum konjam kosuru kodu onnoda idea of so many topics..... ya those days u brought back when we used to have a real tug of war with words when dad was studying in ammayappan with a kudumi to sport, he used to say we got to see the iddli only feast our eyes but were packed with 3 day old pazhaya sadam with oorgai, so i used to counter attack, then you should had been in ammayappan itself and put us in a gramandra school there why bother coming to bangalore and putting us in this convent then expecting we should carry pazhayadu...he would walk away ..muttering yellam kozhuppu, i wonder what it was then...now also it can only bring smile with those thoughts... my school was very near so a luxury of eating hot sambhar sadam and i cant do without salad, with nice sliced onions and tomato and red radish whatever available, and my mom kept insisting no onion not good for girls, it will increase their sexual urge, all these are a still boojyam idea in my age, i beleived it will not affect if u dont think abt it....what say u..sunkan
Hi Sakhi, I can well imagine that scene when your father said..."Ellaaam Kozhuppu"...my mom used to say that to us all... her words were 'KOzhuppu eduthadikkaradu!' We used to ask her how that is possible... As for my topics.. you know many are old stuff... Must start writing new stuff... I have some thunukku stories... Very very short ones... Should I publish them under Indian short stories.... or Articles and middles by Indian writers..."? What ARE 'middles' by the way?? Am confused by terminology! What is an FB i hear from many established writers? P. S. Kamalji is leaving IL, I believe...
Dear Vmur and Sriniketan, Yeah.... we all have these bouts of nostalgia... and may be in future our kids will have their versions of it. Am sure theirs will be sweet for them....the way ours is , for us! We just think that ours is sweeter...
dear viju, thats bad news that he is leaving, he is a great writer, thought we could have the comic anecdotes he is famous for, any way life is like that ..i always think "PAL DO PAL KA SHAYAR HOON , PAL DO PAL MERI KAHANI HAI, PAL DO PAL MERI MASTHI HAI, PAL DO PAL MERI JAWANI HAI, we stay where we feel at home and move for better homes if the present one has lost its charm...middles are articles published in the newspapers, or magazines...FB is FEED BACK nothing more, u continue where you are, but viju too many articles at the same time people may miss out, just space it out.i feel all are good and all members should have time to go through and give u a nice FB...SUNKAN
