I was 4; I loved scribbling and making stick figures in?
notebooks. I could draw the sun and stars, daisies and apples?
too. My tools were pencils and paper, but thanks to you, I knew?
of the astonishing world of easels, oil paints, brushes and?
palettes. Never did I miss a chance to watch you as you worked?
for hours on a stretch, etching new realities on canvas, making?
bizarre shapes in outrageous colors, sometimes giant flowers?
too. I would stare at your brushwork to derive meaning out of?
it, my mind soaring in a million directions. Time has sped since,?
but all it takes is visits to museums to conjure memories of?
your art, colors rioting in my mind, the smell of turpentine?
flying in to drench my senses, a zillion unanswered questions?
cascading me towards exorbitant possibilities. In introducing?
me to art, you introduced me to myself.

Her Mango Stew

The kitchen window opened to a young mango tree; it would?
burst into yellow flowers in the spring. Come summer, the?
blooms would make way for glittering green mangoes. ?Every?
so often, I would pluck a couple and she would cook them into?
stew, the aroma of jaggery and roasted cumin infusing the?
enclaves of my childhood. Barely would she have pulled the?
sauce pan off the fire that the two of us would pour ourselves?
heaping bowlfuls of the stew, gulping it down ecstatically with?
toast, glazed mango slivers melting in our mouths, euphoria?
seeping our senses. Many years have flown since then, the?
house is lost, she is dead, her mango stew a perennial?
reminder of all things fleeting - summer, childhood, human bonds.

When Grandma called the Old Tailor In

When Grandma called the old tailor in, he took everyone’s?
measurements and got working in the verandah. Day after day?
after day for two weeks, he stitched clothes for the?
family, the clunking of the sewing machine slipping from the verandah to?
resonate through the house.

He was focused and diligent, seldom did he talk. When he did,
his words were clever. Succinctly, he’d offer insights on careers?
and marriages, family feuds and bonds, success and failure, life?
and death. I was in my teens, precarious and perceptive; I?
drank it all in - his wisecracks and anecdotes, old sayings and?
grim jokes.To this day, they sit lodged in my mind, springing?
from the blue to counsel, console, encourage and inspire.?
Grandma, did you ever know that when you called the old?
tailor in, a messiah walked in to aid me through life.

Oh for those Boy Bands

If I could revert to seventeen, I know exactly what I’d?
do - I’d take a gap year from school, travel back and forth in time,?
following boy bands around. From Beatles to One Direction,?
Rolling Stones to Eagles to Coldplay, I’d jump right into their?
space, mind and millennia, tap into their rhythm and energy,?
drink in those high notes, dance my way into the cosmos. And?
yes, I'd tell Niall Horan that he really is fantastical - singer,?
songwriter, hunk and that I’d wait forever for him to tweet me?
back because a tweet is a sliver of reality in the metaphysics of?
music where sounds shimmer like moonbeams?
and symphonies swirl in stardust, illusions rising, colliding,?
dispersing, melodies swaying past Jupiter and Neptune, boy?
bands sustaining through cycles of moon and dust, more real?
than quantum mechanics. Oh for those boy bands!

(Simrita Dhir is a California based academic and novelist. She is the author of the critically acclaimed novel “The Rainbow Acres”.)