Tamarind rice issue #3

FICTION A late afternoon dream. I was in India. I felt foreign. I shouldn't because, in reality, I was more in touch with India than before. My only recollections of the dream are that, I am going with my mother to a friend’s wedding which is to be held in a small, old temple and wedding compound. I know that Meenakshi is also getting married sometime this month.

The afternoon reminded me of the lazy ones of my childhood. It was not hot, there was breeze and the late afternoon sun was golden. The temple complex itself seemed wise and ‘seen-it-all’.

We parked our car and walked towards the complex. I left most of my things in the car since I didn’t care much about lugging many lenses and other paraphernalia to a wedding that I was not particularly interested to shoot. It wasn’t because I wasn’t asked to. On many occasions, I shot as a wedding present or just to fine-tune my skills in capturing emotions without the pressure of a client and his money. I have frozen the most beautiful emotions in such circumstances. Armed with a telephoto lens, I might be prying on private moments. My intentions are far from that. I try to empathize. I relate to those emotions immediately and much later when I see those images in privacy on my computer.

I was feeling a mixture of sadness, apathy and post-siesta lethargy. A sweet tea would have helped then. We arrived early because mother knew my friend’s family and they wanted her there to make sure everything went alright during the last moments. We walked thought the courtyard where there was a well and a few ancient trees that witnessed thousands of weddings; the beginnings and continuations of family sagas. These trees swept a haphazard pattern of shadows on the ground when the sun shone through their branches and the wind swayed them. The entrance and passage was narrow and rough and it was clear that this section was built as an expansion to the main structure since the passage was unpaved like the courtyard. People were milling about busily. Since smaller weddings are held here one tends to see only close family and friends of the families-to-be-wedded. And they were all busy making preparations. Unlike larger ones where there is a catering team and reception team which left one to attend to the guests and socialize, the family weddings are abuzz with activity and only enough time to stop for a short gossip or to comment about someone’s twice worn kancheepuram sari.

As we walked through traffic that resembled a confusion of ants that just found a syrupy patch of spilt sweet tea, I caught sight of Meenakshi. It was an instant of joy and comfort. She wore a sequinned, pale pink sleeveless Punjabi suit. It was quite modern and not what one would expect her to wear.

She looked much younger and her skin glowed from the pre-wedding preparations. Her sudden appearance caught me by surprise and I said, “Hey, Meena! Mother! Look who is here!” Mother turned and gave a polite-butwary smile. I told her I knew she was getting married but I didn’t know it was today and right here.