Image: Women in saris, with strings of jasmine in their hair, confer seriously near the steps of a church. Behind them, a grey-haired man leans back to carefully photograph smiling guests. A bright blue tourist bus, perhaps intended for the bride’s aunts and cousins, is parked incongruously near the hedge and old stone masonry.
Have you ever seen a mango in a fantasy book? A coconut? Or at least a measly green chili? I certainly haven’t.
Someone ought to do something about that.
And why is it that when I reach for an Indian fantasy, I find yet another retelling I can’t relate to, what Vani Kaushal calls the METOO model (Mythological Epics Told Over and Over)?
Are there no other authentic Indian stories to tell?
I want to write about Indian culture and experience as I know it—people having baths with plastic mugs and buckets of cold water, people brushing their teeth on semi-urban terraces, narrow houses squeezed together (painted in mint green and pink), gates with iron flowers, house numbers engraved in marble (or just painted on a yellow circle), removing your shoes at the door and wearing indoor slippers, initials engraved on old silver vessels, pots of water with attached taps, tiny yellow leaves on the ground, insects falling off trees and onto your clothes, half-knowing the myths and mythologies of your classmates and neighbours (wait, he’s the blind one whose sons started the war right? Or was that someone else?), muddy side streets, roads with pot-holes in them, crowded market places, buying wholesale because it’s cheaper, red-light beggars and peddlers of cheap plastic toys and wipers, stopping on the side of the road to buy yellow and green bananas or freshly cut coconuts, walking to church in December in Chennai and you’re sweating under your silk clothes, not knowing your grandparents’ friends in their strange congregation, balconies as public-private places, struggling to communicate with street vendors in broken hindi, brown, rotted teeth, sacred trees in the middle of the road, chief guests lighting lamps to inaugurate the event, school uniforms and tiffin, playground games and imported watches, getting the maid to buy vegetables/grain for your house, getting paneer or mutton cut the size you want, summer drinks and seasonal fruit, pakodas and samosas in the winter, popcorn and ground nuts in paper bags made of newspaper (only in the right season), chilis in everything, chocolate that melts too quickly in your pocket, early morning in rainy season, puddles after a storm, old-fashioned people carrying umbrellas to spite the sun, public taps to fill water (except, god, don’t drink from there!), some homes having wells in the backyard, private coconut trees and hiring coconut tree climbers to harvest your big, green coconuts, prawns with potato fry and rice, eating with your hands, eating on banana leaves, decorating the house with white rangoli and flowers and earthen oil lamps and rose petals floating in large bowls of water, buying vegetables in the light of a bright electric light, a maze of a vegetable market that mysteriously leads to a fish and poultry market, English-medium schools, telling bed-time stories, buying books for children, annual fairs, cotton candy (pink, tempting, rarely purchased), birds sitting on the railroad track, flying off before the rumble of the distant train gives way to the aggressive, dirty engine, pigeons in the high-ceiling buildings where they ought not be, pigeons making nests in your window sill, putting your head through the grills to peek at the ugliest baby pigeons, giving stray cows a wide berth, crows congregating around a puddle, leaving out water for parrots, dozens of little sparrows in a bush in the park, old people laughing somewhere in the distance, walking to the bus-stop, everyone talking about a new movie, or the morning in school after a thrilling match, only you didn’t watch the match, and random playing cards in the middle of the pavement, presumably left by drunks, and gated communities, and the guards standing up when you pass, and ayyahs for little children taking them to the park, and children playing a game and stopping to negotiate the rules, mother stealing handfuls of kadi patta and picking up fallen jamuns, setting curd, making paneer at home, getting slippers repaired by the cobbler, rats eating a hole into your backpack to get at the biscuits, chai in tiny glass tumblers, washing dishes in a larger tub of water, a little backroom where the floor is less refined, more concrete, souvenirs sold outside every monument, people wanting to take pictures of you and sell you the prints, getting hot water and lemon to ‘wash’ your hands after a meal, too strong smells from the bathroom fresheners, maids eating separately in the kitchen (why?), offering sweets when something good happens in your family, certain foods that are cooked around certain festivals, times of year where people paint their house, people in cities celebrating harvest festivals, temples that are grimy and well-worn under all the paint and decorations, giving gifts to the pastor every time you meet them, teenagers taking pictures behind church, and giving old furniture to the household help who will further sell them for a little extra cash, fishing for change to pay for a public toilet, keeping a bowl of coins for beggars who call from the gate, paying someone to wash the car, painted political advertisements, white walls plastered with posters despite the sign ‘No Posters Please’, and lines of autowalas sleeping in their vehicles, and people accosting you as you exit the station, and coin-operated weight machines (for some reason) manned by an old woman who is perpetually asleep, and flies everywhere, and young and wild children, their feet white with city dust, and coloured drinks and crushed ice, and yet again people are painting the railings on the street.
I want to put these things in a fantasy novel. They make more sense to me than Draupadi ever could.
Image: From family photos, photographer unknown.
Your piece reminds me of exploring Kolkata, the narrow lanes, crowded places, rustic smell of old houses, piping hot jhal muri or bengali style shingaras accompanied with the classic adda. I loved reading about the tiny things, coz what really matters is the little things I guess. To the question of Indian works, you are right people often end up glorifying or romanticising the scenario than finding the aesthetics in reality. This reminds me of Jhumpa Lahiri's Namesake or Lowland, she describes Kolkata just the way it is, neither does she glorify poverty on streets nor does she reduce the experience to some fantasy world stuff. This makes her work feel real and relatable. Your work felt the same real, unfiltered, beautiful and relatable. I can't help but appreciate the intellectual honesty in your work. Keep going girl, whatever it is staying true to yourself is going to bring your readers close to you....
This is so beautiful!! I love all of these descriptions and it really gives me a sense of the things you hold dear!