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She stands at the door watching his delight that elates her immensely. She finally walks in the room and after careful observation chooses a mango.
It was 2.30 AM and he was woken up from his deep sleep by a smell. A smell so strong to wake him up and inspect. With half sleepy eyes, he puts on his slippers and opens the door of the bedroom gently so as not to disturb his wife. He walks into the living room and takes the smell in with a deep breath in the dark.
He is 12 years old. He lies on a hammock made of an old sari tied to the two pillars under an arch. On his right is a verandah with black and white flooring placed diagonally and the pistachio green walls adorned by old Tanjore paintings and brown windows. On his left is a courtyard bordered with trees of all kinds. He is wearing little brown shorts with tiny sailboats on it and his t-shirt is tied around his head. The afternoon is passing by gently as he lies on the hammock. He makes binoculars out of his little hands and follows a brown lizard on the wall across. He swings the hammock gently towards himself. And the afternoon just passes by.
Just then an old lady comes and stands towering over his hammock. She is wearing an aubergine purple sari with tiny yellow circles on it and a border along with a green blouse whose colour merges with the walls behind. Very unlike his own mother, who always wore matching blouses with her saris. She has kohl around her eyes, probably the same one which she made that morning while lighting the lamp. Although towering him physically, her eyes are soft and her smile is full of glee.
He sits up on his hammock at once and asks her, “Is it time, Grandma?” Holding the same glee in her smile she nods in a yes. He gets off his hammock and she wraps her arm around his shoulders and they walk towards the room at the end of the verandah. She takes out the keys tied at the end of her pallu and unlocks the door. Warm sunlight enters the room before them. He steps into the room and looks around. He is in a castle of mangoes. He walks around the room, gently touching each mango like a treasure. She stands at the door watching his delight that elates her immensely. She finally walks in the room and after careful observation chooses a mango. She gently presses it between her fingers and softens it and hands it to him. He bites the stub off and sucks on the delicious juices of his first mango of the season. Although his eyes are shut to capture the taste of the mango, he knows that he is being watched with love by the woman in front of him.
He opens his eyes in his living room. His house, on that moon less night, smelled of that afternoon, of his grandmother, of mangoes.
Image source – Riki Risnandar on pexels
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Being a writer, Nivedita Louis recognises the struggles of a first-time woman writer and helps many articulate their voice with development, content edits as a publisher.
“I usually write during night”, says author Nivedita Louis during our conversation. Chuckling she continues,” It’s easier then to focus solely on writing. Nivedita Louis is a writer, with varied interests and one of the founders of Her Stories, a feminist publishing house, based in Chennai.
In a candid conversation she shared her journey from small-town Tamil Nadu to becoming a history buff, an award-winning author and now a publisher.
Nivedita was born and raised in a small town in Tamil Nadu. It was for schooling that she first arrived in Chennai. Then known as Madras, she recalls being awed by the city. Her love-story with the city, its people and thus began which continues till date. She credits her perseverance and passion to make a difference to her days as a vocational student among the elite sections of Madras.
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