Blessed days of caprice

My blogger friend, Willowtree, wrote about her love for cloudy days. Of late, I too like cloudy days. It seems to me that the sky is at its most relaxed, in a blessed state called Caprice....A state where it can just be, without having to do anything for anyone's sake. No pressure to be bright and sunny; nor any pressure to pour down in torrents and nourish the earth, though of course it could do any of these things on the spur of the moment. A cloudy day is a day of complete freedom, for the sky to be anything it chooses to be.

These days, I am like that cloudy sky, at my most capricious....I'm spending my days alone, now that Kamala is on her summer trip with her dad. I feel no particular desire for company, nor do I feel any abhorrence of it. Just as long as people let me be whatever I happen to be at the moment - sad, happy or anything in between. I miss Kamala, but even that feeling is like a gentle breeze, that comes and goes. None of the intense pangs that I normally feel every summer.

There appears to be an overall numbing of the heart. I don't even feel confident enough to tell someone I will be there for them, or that I care. That I am their friend no matter what.....none of that comes from the heart, so the words dangle on my lips for a moment, and die a silent death.

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Today I watched a movie where a son remembers everything his mother did for him, after she passes away. One of the scenes is about the son in his younger years, holding a slate on his lap. His mother holds his fingers gently, and guides the chalk to write his name - Venu.

I remember many years ago, when I was about nine. Growing up in different states of India, I had not known how to write in Tamil, my mother tongue, though we spoke it at home. Appa had wanted to remedy this. So one day, he decided to teach it to me. He sat me down, wrote down the vowels, and had me practice over them. Guided my hands to write the Tamil alphabet, showing exactly where the letters loop, and where they cross over. By then I had graduated to pencil and paper, so those were my writing tools. We did this everyday for a while.

I had been a bit peeved at having my playtime cut short, but he had persisted. One must know how to read and write in one's mother tongue - its a shame otherwise, he had said. My natural curiosity to read everything I lay my hands on, took over from there. Once I could read the Tamil alphabet, I moved on to reading short sentences, then long ones. Finally I was as fluent as my parents were, in the written Tamil language.

I have thanked him silently, from the bottom of my heart, for those lessons. But for him, I would not have had the chance to be exposed to Tamil literary works, in later years. It opened up a whole new world for me.

In Tamil, we have a saying - ezhuththaRiviththavan iRaivan AvAn, meaning that the one who taught you the alphabet is (to be as revered as) God. But this is merely another facet of my life, where Appa left his presence.

Just come back home, he would say, every now and then. I will take care of you! I would retort that it is now my turn to take care of him - if only he will let me. And we would smile at each other.

When Appa was around, I could tell someone that I care, and mean it. I could tell them I love them, and mean that too.....As long as he was around, whether we talked frequently or not, I felt I could do anything.

Just as the sky, and the moon, reflect the Sun's light, my strength seems to have come from him. Now the sky is in a state of caprice. The Sun is around somewhere......but I have to look harder to find him.