My friend Braja Sorenson, lives in Mayapur , West Bengal, amidst lush greens, smells of the river, call of the boatmen, temple bells, blowing on conch shells, and the fragrance of green raw mangoes (kairees) wafting in through her window.
She got her pickles started in early May , and put up a delicious posting, which I happened to see just now. Salting, sunning, spicing and a final oil .
I guess it is the right time to taste a pickle just about to get set for its year long sojourn on Braja's shelves..... (now showing from L to R : an age old pickle, the recent pickle, the second recent pickle) .
The young ones,
so green,
desperate to grow up,
and now
delighted to skip
into the gardener's basket,
a coming of age in Mayapur
heralded
by hot weather,
evening breezes
and humidity soaring
in applause.
Sitting with the
salty ones,
in the Sun,
behind a muslin purdah,
generating so much
juicy gossip,
and now being grown up ,
absorbing it all.
a few puffs and wrinkles,
a slight softening of attitudes,
and the need
for bringing in
some cinnamon,clove
and spice
in your life.
The dowager ones
on the shelf watch it all,
as the kairees fall
over one another
enamoured
of their new Italian Jar Domicile.
"I hope they learn
how to age well
in body as well as in mind."
says a dowager;
"It isn't about
being green and frisky,
and fooling with the
chillies day after day.
It is all about
meditating
in a jar,
in fellowship
with the others,
Vipassana for a year,
and then
offering yourself
happily
to the lady
who has just started
on her curd-rice....."
Suranga, you are a kavi; you have a way with words that under your influence take flight in a sky and leave a trail of poetry where once there was only space...
ReplyDeleteI really love Mayapur. Each year I visit the Radha Madhav ISKCON temple there.
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