Beyond the Green, into the Greys
Of Loved Ones
[Music] Beyond the green and into the greys, sharing my life with you, yours truly, hyphenated greys. [Music] I was hardly ten years old when I had to live with my grandparents for a whole year. I was in a tiny village in Kerala, somewhere in the central part of the state, and which had nothing spectacular to claim, like a scenic river or a lake or a beach or a mountain, or even a grand history. It was not like the villagers I read about in storybooks. It was not a township either. It was a village which was aspiring to grow into a small town, giving up on the simplicities of a village and embracing what it thought was the identity of a town. I lived in a big sprawling house with lots of trees around. There was a garden, not so well designed, since it had all kinds of flowers arranged in no particular order. My grandmother, who I called Amma, are mother, loved plants, and she would get seeds, saplings from her friends and relatives' houses. I always remember her in the garden, either planting or watering the plants, or instructing someone younger to be careful with the plants. She had flowering plants everywhere, masanta, hitranjya, fushu flowers, sunflowers, the locally available plants, jasmine of varied varieties, champuk, something she called rajamali and whatnot. She was also good at building a fruit orchard in the backyard. There were all kinds of fruit trees. Rose apples, gooseberry, mulberry, pomegranate, custard apple and several more. She was very proud of her fruit trees. Her house was a treasure trove with every other plant available according to the season. Dermeric, ginger, clove, pepper and almost every other herb that could be grown in her soil. Once, as a child, I told her how I loved sweet potatoes, which I had eaten at a friend's house. In another couple of months, we had a sweet potato wine in our backyard. I have no clue how she managed to gather so many different varieties of flowers and fruits. The one year I lived with her was magical. She made sure that I had the choicest food. My favorite snacks, stored in biscuit jars, jaggery and palm jaggery in plenty. I could demand new flavors and she made sure that she found them for me. Was I even aware of how lucky I was then? I don't think so. I think I took it for granted and let myself enjoy the food that was on the table. The evenings where I sat around her and a friend's listening to gossip, the world has it changed around me while I noted to sleep. Memories are so precious and sometimes the moment may not have been a special one, not memorable at the moment. You may not have realized that it was going to be a special memory then. But years later, the moment comes back to you as a very special memory. As a thought that brings a smile to your face every time you think about it. Sometimes, even in the darkest of hours, it becomes the ray of light brightening up your world. [Music]