Ponder

 

I didn't quiet process how much I love coffee. Or how taken for granted this beverage is for me. Kind of like how much I loved my aunt and how taken for granted her presence was in my life.

There was a magical time in my childhood - a honey tinted translucent trinket box - giving a peek at its contents. It was two tier, housing a collection of sparkly things. Mostly earrings and random bead necklaces. The bling lover was born then, looking at the box and what it held. Babattha owned it, like she owned me when she let me sort through her box and pick those sparkly dainty studs to wear. She was my subconscious fashion icon - the way she draped ethnic silks and modest cottons. Her two fabrics for life became mine as well and shaped my love for understated chic. Her love for sarees inspired mine in the process. 

The numerous 'Scholars English Grammar and composition ' books she sourced for me from her school supplier was a story of the legends. I somehow felt that this book was the only Bible every language student needed and wanted one for every kid I taught. She knew what I would ask for even before I did."Guess what? I sourced two more copies for you" she would exclaim in her enthusiastic voice, long after the books went out of publication.

Attha was petite and svelte. She was in my periphery since the day I could perceive the world around me and used to visit us so often, owing to the nature of her job and her husband's. As I grew up, she became my bestie. It helped that she taught high school English and used to animatedly talk about the Shakespeare drama she was teaching that year. We were very different on the surface. She was the poster child of extroversion. She had her phone buzzing like she worked in a call center and her friends list? Unending! She loved the outside and always found reasons to step out and explore the world - especially on shopping trips and periodically on travels.

She and I were very alike inwardly. She hooked me on to coffee and successfully  converted me to a caffeine junkie long after I had my first born. Our meetings were punctuated with copious amounts of filter coffee and endless conversations  about travel plans, handloom sarees and bygones memories of my childhood. I knew a lot about my baby and toddler years through her memories and accounts of me. 

Attha was known far and wide for one thing - her personality quirk to get things done on a war foot basis - she was borderline restless, buzzing around like a bee, always looking to wrap up the next thing on her to do list. She accelerated  almost everything she had to do. She couldn’t and wouldn’t sit still, not until the last few days of her miraculous existence.

Attha took my sister and me on our first real-time  vacation, to her illiidc  little town in a land far from home. She got me my first lipstick and a pair of ballet shoes and a royal blue middy skirt with a white mega sleeved top. My joy knew no bounds as I slipped into my cinderella shoes. She was always there for us and for her siblings. Her love for my dad is worth its own chapter in her biography. There were so many things I picked up from her - and I probably picked up her trait to love in my DNA that I am so proud to jointly share with her.

As I sit here and pour out my tribute, I realize how prominent her presence was in my life and how she had the unconditional motherly love for us. It is near impossible to think of one milestone in my life without her in the background.

She faded on a warfoot basis. Sprinting around getting things done till the day she took ill and visited a realtime hospital. Her exit was sudden, almost abrupt - like she was in a rush to get to the last item on her to do list. All that remains now is the timeline of our virtual conversations and the realization of how the smallest, most taken for granted of things in my daily life are strangely related to her. The cup of coffee I make in the morning, the teacher's copy of The Merchant of Venice she gave me with her scribbles in the margin, the silicone hot pack she got me for my menstrual cramps and a cupboard of eclectic sarees I grew a taste for, (thanks to her influence), the rhinestone stud earrings I collected over the years to recreate the magic trinket box of my childhood - every ****ing thing in my life seems to be a trace of her that she'd left behind.

I know I cannot take her shopping to get her the silk sarees I promised to get her, or have her over to attend my first born's graduation ceremony but she'll live on a lot more vibrantly and intensely in my memory and lifetime.

I don't take my coffee for granted anymore. The waft of its aroma wakes me up to the things that need celebration.

pic - From Pexeles, by David Bares.

Swan is the ride of Goddess Saraswathy, my aunt's namesake.