Apr 7, 2017 Free Verse, NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry
Sweet-Folk
©April 7th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
A rickshaw. Daughter and I.
Late afternoon in Pune.
Bags with boxes of sweets
Rich, swooning mango squares
Kaju katli triangles, pistachio rolls,
Laddus, and carrot-halvas, and pedhas.
Perched like tottering towers
Of Pisa in the rickshaw’s back-space.
Diesel-petrol exhaust fumes
Mingle with agarbatti swirling from
The rickshaw-wallah‘s incense-stand
Snaking through the jasmine-malas
Which my daughter and I hold
Like fragrant shields before our noses.
Children sell them on the street
At light-intersections here;
Little boys and girls darting
Like minnows among the
Slowly-flowing, sometimes-paused
Traffic, their faces appearing
At our rickshaw, and their
hands out-thrust, jasmine-laden,
Saying, “Want flowers?”
Schoolgirls and schoolboys, walking
Like shoals of bright fish
In colorful uniforms, heading home
From afternoon-school, neat and unfazed,
Laden with books on their backs,
Chatter like magpies, their plumage
Shining in the early-evening sun.
We reach home, pay the rickshaw,
Go upstairs, narrate our adventures
To mother, aunt, grandmother.
I say, “Oh, and I bought all these
Sweets for you, and for others.”
I turn to look for them.
They’re not there!
We forgot them!
Mortified, upset, I sit down,
Shrug on a philosophical attitude,
Like a sanyasi‘s mantle,
Try on a casual voice, and
Say, “Well, whoever finds them
Is welcome to them.
Let someone else enjoy it!”
My daughter consoles me;
She knows I hate losing things.
My mother, wisely, refrains
From telling me I should
Have been more careful.
I hope, hope, hope …
Then, the doorbell rings.
Opening the door, I see a gift:
A man standing there with our bags –
Our rickshaw-driver!
“I drove all the way home,
Then saw this, and drove back,”
He explains, handing them over.
Simple goodness shines
In his sweat-beaded face.
Our joy is manifold:
We thank him profusely.
I want to hug him,
But knowing it would
Embarrass him, I say,
“Stay, and have a cup of tea!”
He declines, but is grateful
When we hand him a cup of water.
As he leaves, I press
A box of pedhas into his hands.
“No, no,” he protests. We insist.
He is pleased. Accepts.
That night, visions are bright,
Swirling like fragrant jasmine
And heady agarbatti fumes.
The taste of milk-pedhas
And the sweetness of good-folk
Linger in dream-memory.
I savour it for a long time.
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This is my submission for Day 7 of NaPoWriMo 2017. The idea was to write a poem about something fortuitous, or a fortuitous poem, arising from linking events or objects.
I chose to write the former, about an actual fortuitous occurrence.
Tags: #Fortuitousness, #NaPoWriMo2017, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Serendipity, #Sweets in a rickshaw in India
Dec 24, 2014 Teaching and Learning
This is Serendipity / My Christmas Eve Story:
We’d done some Christmas shopping at a Tibetan store a couple of weeks ago (S and I), and then, we’d gone to another store, and then to Porter Square Bookstore. We bought a few books, and, as bad luck would have it, left our bags of stuff behind in the store.
AND we forgot ALL about it for the next two weeks. (How COULD I? you ask? It’s easy when you’re sleep-deprived and juddering from one thing to another.)
Then, yesterday, I went looking for the stuff all over the house, and S too, wondered about where they were, independently of me.
We didn’t find it.
Yesterday evening, when we were out to dinner, S said, “I think we left it at the bookstore.”
At first, I thought, “No, I do remember carrying it around.” Then, it struck me. I never carried it out of the bookstore.
So, not to be done in by our forgetfulness, we went there. And, JOY! They HAD one of the bags, which contained gifts for our family and friends — but, SADNESS! They didn’t have another bag of our stuff — which contained, among a few other things, a lovely Tibetan doll that S had prevailed upon me to get her as an un-surprise Christmas present.
We asked the people there to double-check, but they couldn’t find anything else of ours in the Lost and Found.
As we were leaving, we saw one of Warren’s old friends, who works there. We waved to him, and he waved back — you know, just en passant. I didn’t think to say much to him about this, since someone else had already checked the L&F. So, S and I returned to the car, semi-happy, semi-sad at finding some of our things, but not all of them.
S was very, very sad, though. She didn’t blame me for forgetting, being the kind soul that she is. All she said wistfully was, “Wish that doll were alive and could walk home to me.”
I tried to cheer her up, and said, “I KNOW that doll’s out there, waiting for you. I’m GOING to find her!”
So, on an off-chance that I could still get the doll back, I FB-messaged that friend we’d seen in passing, and he said he’d look for it today when he went in to work.
AND he called me this afternoon. YES! He found that doll! Serendipity! My husband went and picked it up. Santa does exist!
S is ecstatic.
Happiness is knowing your child is happy.
Sometimes, I think our bodies know that the things that are bound to us which are of importance are magnetically charged.
Okay, okay! Just being fanciful. Don’t toss things at me, all you logicians out there.
The important thing is that my little girl was reunited with her (discounted to $10.00) doll with the sweet face and traditional dress which had been in a TIbetan store, covered in dust, waiting for the right person to claim her, and once lost, the doll awaited her again, and was found again.
Sentimental?
Hell, yeah!
Merry and Happy, everyone! May you find peace and fulfillment and love in your lives, and may you have good health always!
Love,
Dreamer of Dreams
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Tags: #Serendipity, #Shopping, Christmas Eve Story, Doll, Little Girl, Reunited, Santa does exist