by M.Mohankumar
Nothing like what that little girl* saw, falling through
the rabbit hole, and later, stepping through the looking glass,
but a wonderland nevertheless – for the child that I was,
gazing upon it with wide-open, incredulous eyes.
The house stood beside the village square, abutting
the main road; right across, the spreading banyan tree,
the walled-in temple and the tank, then the paddy fields
stretching away against the backdrop of the blue hills.
Every morning I woke up to hear the mingled sounds
of bird-calls and rustling leaves and temple bells.
Trees, flowers, birds, butterflies flitting in the sun –
everything looked beautiful, strangely fascinating.
And every day was a day of discovery and delight.
There was music in the rain falling on the roof-top
and dripping from the eaves, exhilaration in walking
along the slushy road to school, palm-leaf umbrella
held aslant against the pouring rain. Fairies and goblins
stalked in the night – straight out of Grandmother’s tales.
I was a little afraid, though there was (as she told us)
the great ancestor, patriarch of the family, to protect us,
the renowned mantrawadi,** still worshiped in the village,
the one who brought the idol of Goddess Meenakshi,
from Madurai and installed it in the ancestral house,
and vanished dramatically into thin air. Festivals came,
one after another, the most colourful of them, Vishu vela,***
in April, the whole village agog, the parade culminating
in the village square, the fanfare and the panache,
the nightlong celebrations ending with pyrotechnics.
Into this world death came, late one night, crashing;
and I knew grief for the first time – the searing grief
of losing a sibling. And I saw my wonderland fade
away, for ever, like an insubstantial pageant.
*Alice in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking Glass’
**mantravadi- a practitioner of magic
***vishu vela– a community celebration consisting of a parade of caparisoned elephants, musical ensemble, men dressed as puranic characters, borne on moving platforms etc., peculiar to Palakkad District in Kerala State.
