Sweet memories
by Caryi Nugara
Lilani watched yet another dreary winter day. A cold wind whipped up
snow crystals in the air. Living in Georgia, she could never forget the
estate in which she spent a happy childhood. She loved the serenity in
her father’s vast coconut plantation.
 She recalled the emotional experience of reaching puberty when her
mother concealed her in the room commanding her not to go out. After a
period of seven days, early in the morning the dhoby woman covered her
in a white bed sheet and gave her a bath with water within a wooden tub
in which jasmines floated gracefully. Then she worshipped her parents
who presented her with some gold jewellery.
She liked the pink, organdie dress, the ribbons on her plaits and
those delicate gold strap slippers. After that came a change when she
had to live within a social framework. She sat behind the latticed outer
veranda learning to sew and embroider. She took a fancy to the silken
thread but the repetitive operations of preparing day-to-day meals put
her into moods of distraction.
Earthenware
She brought back to memory her father’s paddy fields with golden
grain-laden stalks swaying in the breeze. She relished rice and curries
cooked in fire-blackened earthenware chattels and creamy curd and honey
confection.
She loved to walk around the estate of tall coconut palms, fruit
trees and patch-quilted grass adorned with little buds swimming in small
pools of refreshing dew. It was Lilani’s world all wrapped in sunshine
and nature’s loveliness.
One morning she wandered into the spice-grove and was surrounded with
its aromatic intrinsic entity.
People called on her mother. The respected ‘native’ doctor, a Moor
pedlar selling textile, thread, needles and enticing trinkets came
monthly. The monk wrapped in his yellow robe and religious contemplation
trudged down from his old, deteriorating temple set on a hillock.
He received reverence and mother placed some cooked food in his
begging bowl. A bedraggled woman carrying her baby came from her wattle
and daub hut on the outskirts of the estate. In spite of mother’s
aristocracy she reached out to that woe begone woman and sent her back,
a pillow-case bulging with foodstuff.
The crafty, shrewd, enthusiastic ‘match maker’ in his peculiar black
coat and white sarong and umbrella also came.
He chose a betel leaf from the tall, brass tray while his eyes
furtively fell on Lilani sitting on the doorstep threading glass beads.
His suggestion made mother say, “but isn’t it too soon for her?’
Monthly trips in the undulating ‘buggy cart’ took them in its own
dreamy fashion to those simple town-shops.
She found amusement in the travelling puppet shows and watched
religious ceremonies of the paddy sowing and later the harvesting
periods. Nevertheless the wailing, eerie, supernatural chanting from
incantations of the devil-dancing event in the faraway village terrified
her.
Celebrations
Preparations and the hustle and bustle of the New Year festival
out-shone other activities.
In the breezy month of May came the enchanting enactment of Vesak
celebrations involving Lilani to make intricate crepe-paper lanterns
that wavered in frilled opulence against the moon-lit night. Childhood
impressions made tears flow down her cheeks as she peered out through
the window-panes of her house in the USA.
Mark’s hands touched her gently and drawing her closer he pointed out
to some patterned snowflakes falling and Lilani realised that she was
now a part of Mark’s world. |
