Here.

The curtains fall on the lone woman sitting on the recliner, the wooden easy chair, and she is as compelling to look at as the rain drops on the paarijatham flower, and as glorious as the naachiyar in procession; she silently combs the wispy tufts of dust from off the hindu on the window ledge, and places the bridge of her spectacles on that nose that would put kili mooku maanga to shame. A jet black mane on the one side, visibly greyed by her wisdom in the front near the forehead, she breathes deep and smiles at the little child on the other side of the room , carelessly playing with some gadget, completely oblivious to the rain drops, the trickling noise of the water, the  beautiful ceiling of a hundred year house, with the rusty old ralli creaking as it slowly rotates,  and the incomparable divinity of a picture of krishna accepting fruit from an old woman.

There.

Amma, Is this where you grew up?
Let me look at that. Yes, it is...
what's this place like?

Its beautiful. Its a little town. 

So, you grew up there?
A little bit.

How long?

Fourteen years.

Why are you smiling?

Here.

Slowly, she caresses the folds of the pudavai, tugs at the ends of the most delicate silk, fawns at the beauty that she is on the mirror and completely satisfied, goes into the other room to find the keys to the huge wooden box with the kolu dolls. The smell of past overpowers her. She stares wide eyed at the maama maami bommai, the way she did when was six years old, when she was preparing for the navarathri with her sisters. She puts it back, silently shedding a tear.

There.

Everything is going to be different, she thinks. She climbs into the uncomfortable denim and reassures herself that everything is going to be alright. She steps out to face the bone chilling wrath of the colder climes, and wonders if anyone would have an andal procession here for the adi pooram. She walks past the milling crowd, to see the very many similar faces braving something for what, she wonders. What part of this madness was thrust on her, she silently asks herself. Then, she spots him. Life begins. New country. New people. New customs. The obligatory trip to a temple in a foreign land, with no soul, like the barren stretches of the mad winter. The socializing festivities with not a hint of the festive air. The numerous dinners on Indian food which has found newer perversions to its meaning. The two kids who are now citizens in a foreign land.  

Here.

The rain unleashes the few remaining drops of its fury on the beautiful kolam, and the little streams of the kolamaavu is swallowed by the open sewage. She walks past the door and her pudavai hooks onto the door. Just like the way her sister's paavadai once stuck to the same door. And they all laughed as her sister cried.

ayyo paavam, pudhu paavadai gaali. amma, kizhichita...
She walks into the koodam, as she spots her daughter and her husband.

Amma is nuts, she is not coming back. She has somehow found her stupid calling after this long.
That's alright, I am sure we can manage.
Don't be naive, the kids are really hard, and I need some help.
She is your mother, and I think you have to respect her decision.
Great. Let me just quit my job then.
That's not what I meant.
what is it about this stupid country that makes you all do stupid things?
Ask your amma.
Good, you stay in this stupid wonderland with her. I am going back, and I have a job. This is not even her country. She is a citizen back there. She does not belong here.
Ah, if only I could make you understand how much she belonged here...

She walks out, and looks at the people complaining about the country going to the dogs. She walks back inside, silently taking the coffee davara in hand, and rests herself in the easy chair in the verandah and smiles as the drops of water fall off the roof onto the thulasi maadam.

Have you met poonkuzhali?

கனவு கண்டதிலே ஒருநாள் கண்ணுக்குத் தோன்றாமல்,

இனம் விளங்கவில்லை- எவனோ என்னகந் தொட்டு விட்டான்

வினவக் கண்விழித்தேன்-சகியே!

மேனி மறைந்து விட்டான்

மனதில் மட்டிலுமே-

புதிதோர் மகிழ்ச்சி கண்டதடி!

Poonkuzhali is about twice the size of your adult hands. around the size of your leg. She fits comfortably in the hollow between the legs, and in the forehands. She has eyes the size of the entire universe and her eyelids bat to tell us what is day and night. She sleeps and everything subsides. All the words in the world are not enough to explain the sight of poonkuzhali sleeping. She winks at you and you notice that you were worried about something before, but not any more. Her eyes tell us that we are human. We fail, whilst she reigns supreme. She teaches us to let go, with those tiny giant eyes.

poonkuzhali likes the idli thattu, perungayam dabba and the assorted tupperware boxes more than the monkey that makes woohoo noises and those lego like plastic blocks. She runs around in complete disdain of the world around her crawling to the ends of the universe.The thalayaati bommai of a dancer shaking her head side to side makes poonkuzhali break into a fit of glee and excitement. She likes the nail jutting out of the cupboard, and is unmindful of the people around her worried about her safety. Clearly, they have lost their minds, as to how somene who has created everything could be hurt by something!

'பெண்ணே உணதழகைக் கண்டு மனம்

பித்தங் கொள்ளு'-தென்று நகைத்தான்-'அடி

கண்ணே எனதிருகண் மணியே- உன்னை

கட்டித் தழுவமணம் கொண்டேன்...!

When she cries, the whole world bleeds and cataclysm prevails. The world enters into a state of shock, and there is cosmic imbalance, and the forces of nature struggle to equilibriate this tragedy. When mere mortals are hurt, that is natural. When poonkuzhali is hurt, it is the cosmic deluge. As she gains composure, we see the kali-gauri transition in the world around us, from the brink of extinction to fertility. From misery, to prosperity. From evil, to good.

Poonkuzhali does not eat. It is neivedyam for the supreme mother. She basks in the radiant light of the arms that cares for her, and she slowly opens her mouth to accept our oblation and to bless us, to forgive us for all our sins, and to be the caring mother, at the hands of a doting mother. She makes us understand a futile cycle of life might not be as futile as it really looks. Maybe there is reason, but then every other philosophical viewpoint dissolves in her beautiful round eyes.

சாத்திரகாரரிடம் கேட்டு வந்திட்டேன்- அவர்

சாத்திரன் சொல்லியதை நினைகுரைப்பேன்

நேற்று முன்னாளில் வந்த உறவன்றடி-மிக

நெடும்பண்டைக் காலமுதற் சேர்ந்து வந்ததாம்...

She points at us and squeals and grunts. She nods her head and claps her hands and feet, and taps the chair in preparation for a cosmic dance, which makes sense only to her. She walks around on the heads of the billion asuras, the demons and wrestles with them in a mighty tug with her big tiny hands and legs. The demons, in the heads of the adults, feeding her expectations, hope and trying to tarnish her original pure self, how dare they? She reasserts, and slaps the hand that feeds.

I don't know for how long. Maybe until she begins to understand. When things start to make sense to her, that is when she will let go of her supreme form, and become another one of us, a cheap perverted form of a splendid and blissful original.

Until then, poonkuzhali is goddess, the kanchi kaamakshi with the sri chakram, the thaayar alamelu manga of tirupati, and the mahalakshmi in vaikuntam.

மோனத் திருக்கு தடி! இந்த வையகம்

மூழ்கித் துயிலினிலே

நானொருவன் மட்டிலும்-பிரிவென்பதோர்

நரகத் துழலுவதோ!

Poonkuzhali, is my marumagal.

ps:
#Strongly recommend reading kannan/kannamma paatu of bharathi. I almost cried.
#All little kids are equally divine; this post also applies to the other little ones.

(I wrote this one a long time back, hence the title)

Poonkuzhali. October, 2011.

I managed to sneak some time with my niece yesterday in between all the noisy mawkish and unbearably excited grandfathers, grandmothers, cousins, maamas, chithis, and the entire clan. I don't understand why old people start to babble incoherently much worse than the new borns in front of them- maybe they play a game with the newborns in who gets to say the most nonsensical words or make the most outrageously stupid noises that our cave dwelling ancestors would have been proud of. I am quite sure in the entire history of human race, no newborn ever won this game. The way the grand parents talk, even shastri or gavaskar would make more sense, and frankly, there have been times when I would have gladly taken up listening to their commentary as opposed to this gibberish. Why do they not acknowledge the baby as a human being and talk normally?

My sister raises her child at a standard temperature and pressure rating of 1 bar and 294 K with the sea level of the house properly maintained, and the angle of inclination of the sun's rays in such a way that most of the UV light bounces off of the house, with a sterilizer that turns any viruses into dust for a diameter of upto 10 microns, and beyond that, we are currently involved in building a miniature Large Hadron Collider to study the impact of high energy particles to kill viruses less than 10 microns. My god, parents who have just had babies are much more painful than the babies themselves. When I was young, I distinctly recall my sister's room which was a colossal mess, and that would have been an understatement. Now, she washes the room with dettol thrice every four minutes, and dips all the other people who live in the house in a solution of  Hydrochloric acid with a strong acidic pH. We have been quarantined in our own houses, and there is just no escape. Apparently, when the temperature of the food that is being blended is a little less than 29.845 C, the nutritional value is lost. We have temperature scales and sensors in our house that Lord Kelvin would have loved to get his hands on.

If there is more than one baby, the best time to be in the house is when all of them are asleep. The probability of more than one baby falling asleep is equal to the probability that I will solve the standard model in physics in under three hours. So, it is a good idea to keep off limits when there is more than one baby in the house. My own mother, the grandmother now, has completely abandoned the kitchen in favor of talking to her yet-to-start-talking little doll. How can you switch allegiance from the vendakka saambar to a toddler with such callousness? Travesty of justice, I tell you. The other day, she asked 'avanukku pasikkardha',and I answered that I was not really hungry. As it turns out, that avan was that little brat(my niece is referred to  affectionately as a 'he'), and not me. Fuming, I went into the kitchen and ate all by myself. So much for avan.

When you see a little baby crying, you can do three things:
#take chloroform, and faint.
#panic, fuss excessively, kick up a storm equivalent or greater than the noise created by the baby in the hope that it would scare the baby into silence. Fair warning, this never works.
#Genuflect infront of the gods in your poojai room, cry and beg for mercy asking for the divine astra that can put the baby to sleep.
When I see the baby crying, I go to the next room, lock the door, drink benadryl and count to a billion, by which time its over. Before it starts again.

Some common observations on the little one.
#She gets up, eats, cries, goes to sleep. How is that any different from the rest of us?
#She has to get her way, or she starts crying. If she cannot stand when she is trying, and she falls down, she begins to heave and cry. Again, how different are we?
#She becomes very restless when she doesn't have much to do, or when she is asked to do the same thing again and again. Again, the question begs repetition.
Looks like we are genetically hardwired to behave in a specific stereotypical way ever since we are born and start to understand the things we have to understand.

Life is supposed to be interesting with kids. I disagree. Life can be interesting even without them(I suppose a lot of couples are forcibly made to accept this fact). People who don't want to breed do not exactly hate kids. I love my niece; she is probably here by no fault of hers. I sincerely sympathize with new borns. The first time I see a little kid, I cannot stop but look disapprovingly at their parents. I am being told, someday, I will have kids too. If that should ever happen, please come to my house, bring a copy of this blog post just too, frame it using the thickest wooden frame and smack me hard on my head with it. 

#I call my niece poonkuzhali, hence the blog title.

All praises to the Maha Shakti.

Tell her she has the smile that rivals the smile of the majestic Andal in the sculptures. Tell her that her hair flows down her spine the way waves caress the shore. Tell her she has the ears of the snake, as she cleverly  spots the loose tile on the bathroom floor. Tell her that she sees the things that no man can see, and understand things that he cannot understand. Tell her only she can tell why her baby is crying. Tell her she smells of the mallipoo and turmeric and an entire kitchen in the morning. Tell her she breathes life into the plants, men and children in her life. Tell her she can stand up, be bold and smack the hand that slides maliciously on her delicate body, and break it into pieces. Tell her she is everything that she stands for, and she is everything that she believes in.Tell her she cannot lose heart. Tell her she is powerful and guileless. Tell her she is the goddess. 

The first signs of blossom on the plant is the first signs of prosperity in the heart. Nothing can come close to the emotional upheaval this strange thing can evoke. The sight of something blooming into glory is bliss. The sight of the bud and the water droplets slowly clinging on to the safe confines of its beauty is the sight of a child sleeping in the dark warmth of its mother's bosom. As the flower blooms, the heart longs for peace and permanence. The flower slowly fades away, withers, and falls. Like everything else, the crushed flower pains the heart, leaves a void. A void that permeates passivity, ambivalence, indifference, and ultimately educates-nescience, and Aananda.

The stick that makes us understand the random walk. As the old man walks down the stairs of the station, he very carefully positions the stick on what he thinks is the level plane. To him, that plane is not geometry; It could well be the universe, and it could well be the head of the numerous devils he would never have seen anywhere in his life. It could be his own devil, the djinn that haunts him all his life for not being able to see, or it could be the light that guides him safely. Slowly, the stick dips into the first step. Clack. It hits the floor. It sweeps an arc to see what is around it. Enough space to stand. He slowly lowers his leg. And places it upon the djinn's head, crushing his own insecurities. 

காடோ செடியோ கடற்புற மோகன மேமிகுந்த 
நாடோ நகரோ நாகர்நாடு வோநல மேமிகுந்த
வீடோ புறந்திண்ணை யோதாமி யேனுடல் வீழுமிடம்

நீடோய் கழுக்குன்றி லீசா வுயிர்த்துனை நின்பதமே...

Forests, plants, lands with seas, cities, countries, houses-this body falls somewhere here, but you are my only solace.

God bless.

Cheers.