chimes of a forgotten melody

Rains in Avatti always assume a spiritual veneration. If there is anything which leaves my grandmother in sincere dread, it has always been the rains. Monsoon approaches Avatti with formidable vengeance, as if to capture a land which always had been their inheritance but which they lost in the tumult of pride. I remember sitting in our courtyard and admiring the pictures clouds used to make in the monsoon sky - as if it were a desperate lover seducing his long lost beloved. Local beliefs hold that the Durga which guards over the village, residing reluctantly in a crumbling and archaic shrine, is lustful to the rains and would open her eyes and ears once she hears the rattle of rains beating her prosaic abode. As she wakes from deafness, the world shall pour their cumbersome woes, and the temple compound abounds with prayers and accolades for their powerful Water Durga! As the rains reclaim vast paddy fields, defeats and consumes every yellowish strain of grass, Avatti would explode...

Years before my father contacted dementia, and struggled to remember my mother's name, I remember his voice turning boastful every time he spoke of my mother. It was not any calculated flatter, but rather a deep reverence to a woman who resurrected a house which would otherwise have crumbled and eaten up by wilderness. My mother, the great Savithri Amma of Ramanthali, a Communist during the great Indian freedom struggle and an authoritarian during the post-Independence period; when she was left with three children and a husband with no particular source of income, was for me a living example of the many lives an Indian woman lives. Her many fables surrounded our village like some strange and persistent virtue, which made me and my siblings live a life which commanded love and respect. I was 10 years old when my father was diagnosed with dementia. At that time, my brother had finished his schooling, my sister began the same and I was caught in the middle. My father constantly c...