Origins

Sri Venkateswara Temple, Tirupati India¹ - The heat and humidity so oppressive it wraps around you like a hot dripping wet towel, the moisture leaking into the threads of your clothes and sticking the chocking cloth to your gasping skin. The viscous scent of spices rents the air numbing the senses. Everywhere you look, colours so gaudy like a Polaroid of a psychedelic kaleidoscope taken with a fish-lense. A crowd of people wait in line. Whether it was to cast away their sins or a token of gratitude, this was the timeless tradition of “offering one’s hair” to Lord Vishnu.

A seventy year old farmer sits cross legged in front of the temple’s barber. His red-brown skin a privilege of his kinship with the soil and sun. The deep lines on his face and hands a statement that he’s forgotten more than you have learnt in your life. He sits still, serene in his surrender of his pride and vanity. Then he unfolds his frame and stands tall, slowly running his wizened, unyielding fingers and furrowed palms over his bald head. His thin brown lips stretch into a delicate smile that cracked his pleated face, as he feels the smooth sleekness of his new beginning.

Privilege, Ibiza - The heat and humidity so oppressive it wraps around you like a hot dripping wet towel, the moisture leaking into the threads of your clothes and sticking the silk to your pulsing hot skin. The viscous scent of frangipani rents the air numbing the senses. Everywhere you look colours so glittery like a split-second Polaroid of thousands of rainbow coloured sequins quivering. A crowd of people wait in line. Whether it was to cast away their worries or a token of gratitude, this was a timeless tradition of celebrating one’s birth.

A young woman stands in front of the mirror in the ladies room. Her angelic face a tranquil canvas, devoid of guile. Her eyes glimmer with excitement as if her dreams were telling here the secret wonders of turning seventeen. The white Swarovski crystals on the fake eyelashes catch the false light and sparkle for the attention of its owner. A present from her mother. A custom-piece from India specially designed and crafted from the highest quality hair. With deliberate dainty fingers, she slowly brushes over the fine texture of the seductive extensions. Her plump coral-pink lips stretch into the sweetest of smiles at her own new beginning…

¹ Sri Venkateswara Temple – The most visited temple in India with a history that dates back 1200 years.

² Privilege, Ibiza – As at 2008, the largest dance club in the world.

The Waning Light

The earthy musk of beginnings and endings. Deep, dark and green. Light filters through the top branches like shiny eyes glimmering from tree hollows. Eyes that seem to mock me. Hidden wonders unfold as the light ebbs and flows through the thick canopy creating new shadows in dark places. I tilt my face up letting the fading light and shadow dance across my hot moist skin. Bees hum in and out of hibiscus flowers feverish in their labor to get home with the day’s bounty before dusk. Or maybe is the buzzing from my fevered brain? I do not know.

I deeply inhale the musty scent and continue on at a faster pace. Twigs crackled underfoot, branches groaned and creaked. Lizards and beetles on tree bark scramble out of sight as I grab the eerily comforting strength of the trees. I steady myself and catch my breath.

The wind wailed between distorted trunks, carrying the sickly stink of wood rot and something else. Something that was neither human nor animal. I move faster still, ignoring the briars that caught at my uniform, the damp leaves that grimed my skin, the hostile screeches from animals, panting, barking and seeming to get ever closer.

I had to get out of here fast. As soon as the sun hits the ground and moon hits the sky this forest will not be a friendly place. That which is disturbingly beautiful in day is just plain disturbing during the night. Trees that seemed soothing and calming in light take on a sinister brooding appeal in darkness. Branches that swayed in the breeze seem to dance with an angry rage of night.

I know the night fog will bring a vision of cataracts to my eyes and every sound made back and forth will make me turn and twist this way and that until I am driven mad with the insanity of my own fears… I have to get out of here fast. Before the attendants at the clinic know that I have escaped.

Moon River Magic

I remember seeing my four year old baby brother curled up in bed in anguish as he tries hard to keep silent. He presses both his hands over his mouth and valiantly tries to stem the laughter threatening to escape. One that would most definitely get us both in trouble with our parents, who were in the living room watching Gilligan’s Island.

My brother Daniel is eight years younger than I and right up until I was 14, we shared the same room and we slept on an old pull out bed. Daniel chose to sleep on the top and I got the pull out. His logic for choosing the topside was so that, that way, if the monsters came, as they almost always inevitably did from under the bed, I would be the one to get eaten since I was the closest. And since I was bigger, they’d have their fill of me and leave my little brother alone.

Almost every night as we slept on our uneven platforms, I told him stories that I’d made up. Stories that spoke of fantastic voyages across violet rivers and pink oceans on the Moon. Stories of heroes who were enchanted teapots or clocks on some quest to save red ribbons. In the small darkened room with only the faint muffled sounds of Gilligan’s Island and the sliver of light seeping through from the living room – nothing was impossible for the mind’s eye. And without fail, almost every night my fantastic stories and the valiantly silly antics of my unlikely heroes made Daniel laugh. He’d laugh so hard that he would writhe in ecstatic agony and kick the covers violently begging me to stop.

Now it’s 22 years later and my brother’s with the BBC and I’m a Law professor. We’ve not spoken to each other in a long time. Sometimes when I lie in my bed fit for a queen, in my darkened room bathed in the silvery blue glow of the moonlight streaming in from the skylight above my bed, I remember seeing my baby brother curled up in bed in anguish as he tries hard to keep silent. And I press my blanket to stem the nostalgic tears that speak the question, “Where has the magic gone?”

The Sari

The sari is just a six feet length of fabric, a traditional garb worn by most Indian women. Some are embroidered with gold and silver threads, some are hand made with jewels and crystals and some are of a single tone, plain and simple. Some are used by women who tend the fields, some are kept as heirlooms, passed from mothers to daughters, and some lie forgotten in the back of drawers. As varied as women’s fancies and as colourful as Indian mythologies, the sari is a six foot length of fabric, a traditional garb worn by most Indian women.

I got married when I was 15 years old and my husband was 22. It was not uncommon in those days for women in Malaysia to marry young. I was a young rebellious teenager who prided myself on speaking my mind. The bane of my very traditional parents I almost refused the engagement, but something in me told me he was good man and I relented.

The first present my husband bought me was a sari. A sari that was the colour of red-earth and yellow and it reminded me of sunflowers. I had a wonderful life with my husband and we had eight beautiful children – four girls and four boys. Then when I was 35, my husband died.

The status of a widow in the Indian community meant that one had to give up partaking in celebrations and festivities of any kind. We could only wear white and had to spend the rest of our lives in silent mourning. As the husband passed, the light of our life is seen to have been snubbed, hence so to must the life of the widow who survives her husband.

The memory of my husband. He was a liberal man who believed in the education and empowerment of women. Against the advise of most of our relatives, he insisted that all our children both boys and girls went to school. I knew that to wear white and live life in the sidelines would go against the memory of my husband but I also knew that to rebel against the traditionalist would not stand me and my young ones in good stead within the community. So I followed the custom for three years. Three years I kept myself away from friends and festivities and wore the traditional white sari with no jewellery or adornment of any kind.

After the passing of the third anniversary of my husband’s death, I got myself some work as a part time typist in the small lawyer’s office down the road. At the same time I took my youngest children out of the local school and sent them to a convent school. I did not want them to be subject to any bad mouthing from the traditionalists in our community. Slowly as time passed I used the opportunity to wear pastel and then brighter coloured saris. Oh, people talked for a while as they always must. They seemed to suggest that my refusal to abide by the custom meant my refusal to mourn the memory of my husband.

But you see… my sari is the colour of sun flowers. A sunflower always keeps its petals to the sun. It stays true to the rays and moves with the warmth across the sky. I cannot help but be true to my husband’s memory and live as I have been empowered by them.

Subtle Palate

Pale and white like freshly fallen snow; undisturbed in its silent smoothness as if fallen where no one walks. Like a fluffy white pillow on a feather bed that beckons the weary of body and heart - its texture so soft and warm. A silent, soft, smoothness… that is alas, bland and flat to the taste. Yet, this featureless desert in taste belies a hidden strength. A strength so potent and powerful in its insipidness that it bursts through my memories as if to proclaim, “I am Plain Rice Porridge! Taste my roar!”

Almost at once a myriad of taste and colours flashes through my mind. The tangy metallic taste of ripe red tomatoes; the earthy fullness of potatoes boiled to a mush; the meaty, gamey taste of Bovril almost like the taste of the scrapings from the bottom of a roasting dish; the grainy saltiness of deep-fried anchovies that’s been ground up in a stone mortar.

Like watercolours of turmeric, saffron, soy sauce and black pepper all swirling in water, they dance in a joyous celebration of flavours and culture - each having its own distinction, yet blending beautifully together. A beauty made possible only because of the pale white stage that is the rice porridge.

Plain rice porridge mixed with mashed potatoes, tomatoes and anchovies. A food for the soul of the subtle palate of a two year old.