Magic seeds

The two huge Mahogany trees in front of my house has been shedding its leaves since the past couple of days . The entire pathway is strewn with red, yellow and brown leaves.The leafy carpet looks beautiful and as I tread on those it continues to rain leaves on me . I enjoy the sweeping chore these days ..I glide around with my garden broom in the mornings. My now short hair refuses to stay tied and my unkempt tresses and the broom combine to probably give me the look of some Harry Porter witch . The wind is in a mischievous mood . It blows away the leaves I have just managed to rake to a corner and the trees in a hilarious split shed some more leaves for me to gather. If I didn't clear it up the surroundings would soon make  my house  look like an uninhabited and neglected place.
As I sweep I discover a 'manjaadi kuru' beneath the pile of leaves and then find some more as I progress to the end of the plot where the huge manjadi tree stood. 'Manjadikuru' is called the circassean seed but my lexicon says it is the 'magical red seed ' from the good luck tree, and I preferred that, to its more complicated other name. These red seeds are like brownie points for me and discovering them gives me the thrill of a  toddler who he has just been gifted a new toy.

Nature has such precious moments to offer us and so often we fail to notice them. Having spend all my childhood in the concrete jungle of a metro city, I was deprived of these little joys then. So today I feel privileged walking in my own front yard and picking these little treasures. There is also behind the fence a few shrubs of crab's eye , what we call 'kunjikuru' in malayalam. I had earlier seen those only in the Guruvayur temple where it is placed in a round brass ware. Little kids are made to gather those and play with them for a while. The belief is that doing thus makes the kids more hyper and mischievous. Now which parent would not want their kids to be more active? They wouldn't mind even if it made the kids a little impish .

I wish I was a better writer or a good story teller. I could have weaved another myth related to these seeds, something for the next few generations to fancy and listen to with awe. At present the creativity in me is in want of stimulation but may be when I become a grandma I too will spin a tale of the Magic seeds.

 Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers,
 the music of the wind and the silence of the stars? 
Anyone who has loved has been touched by magic.
 It is such a simple and such an extraordinary part of the lives we live.

An enlightening afternoon

I spent this afternoon with Achan, sitting beside him, trying to smoothen his wrinkled hand, as if caressing and stretching the skin would make the wrinkles vanish altogether. I kept making vain attempts now and then to connect with Achan whose illness had made him so remote to us. He stared at the vacant wall and his expressions changed from time to time, Sometimes it seemed to me that there was a gentle smile playing on his lips, the mild reflection of the smile also seen in his eyes as if he had just seen and recognised someone familiar to him.Sometimes those very same eyes reflected fear ...fear of the unfamiliar stranger .The look of fear then changed to anger. He would start calling out to one of us and then ramble incoherently.
 Once again the same thought recurred to me. Why ? Why does all this have to happen to him ..why these hallucinations ?
Last evening two ladies from our neighbourhood had visited .Among the many things that we spoke about, we also happened to speak about their parents. The plight of their parents were more or less the same as my parents but these ladies being employed could not attend to their parents as they wished to, and had to leave them in the care of a maid or a home nurse for most of the day. Wasn't I fortunate then to be able to attend to my parents in their dotage?
The population of senior citizens is very much on the rise in our state and with the younger generation opting to move out either to pursue their education or in search of a job, the seniors are constrained to take care of
themselves. It's depressing to visit most of the homes in our vilage .Where at one time the houses used to be full of noisy kids of all ages, there are now only one or two aged members combating their ailments without complaining.
I now genuinely feel handicaps that are age related are a blessing. After a certain age your vision becomes weaker reminding you that you are no more getting young. A few more years later your joints begin to creak and ache reminding you to slow down and enjoy the remaining days of your life .Your hearing is no more sharp as it used to be so you can now be selective and strain to hear only what you want to hear. Nights get sleepless and in the dark you look back at the days gone by and feel thankful to God. Sleepless nights bring gratitude. The reflexes get slower and your movements being slow you give yourself more time to pause and appreciate things around you. All this makes easier for one to detach oneself from the world when it's time to leave for the new abode. One by one as each organ fails, the strings that hold you to the mortal world is snapped too... one by one .
Watching achan hallucinate now I think this is a blessing too. How else could he have stayed in bed if he didn't have his hallucinations to keep him occupied?  He travels to places he used to visit  and visualises people who are no more.... all from his bed where his illness has him confined. What would he have done otherwise? How would he have put up with this situation of being bed ridden for probably many more months or years ahead ?
  It is this one string that keeps him tied to us. So let me just be thankful to God that  he is in no pain or despair on this day. I now look forward to be in his company for many more days , to comunicate in silence, to hold his hand ...to just watch him breathe. 

 "One day spent with someone you love can change everything."
— Mitch Albom (For One More Day)