Ammu

When I was young,

Ammu would cycle through paddy fields,

Come home and tell me stories

of farmers who see the Sun off

and rest.

Mustard oil, rice, onion and a green chilly -

Luxuriously on some days, a potato,

that is when I will know she was in mood

To tell stories.

I will walk up to her lap,

Alert so as to hear them all

and sleep off in the misty smell of her hair oil.

Magic was to find myself in my bed,

tucked in, the morning after.

Ammu would ask me to look

as big as the birds flying high

and migrate to places to bring in more stories.

Her eyes, wet and voice at times betraying,

she would tell me about neighbours

who did not flee but fly.

And so did I.

I came back with hundred stories.

Ammu would sit on the small stool on our earthly courtyard

with a paan in her mouth.

Her eyes will lit up, like the bird

who has just found a new country.

Her ears keen on hearing every word.

One night when it rained heavily

and our muddy courtyard gave away a bit of earth

and a bit of that earthly smell

to a seasonal monsoon,

I finished telling all my tales.

She slept in between, mysteriously smiling

through the corner of her lips.

But I knew

Ammu was flying, through

green paddy fields,

above the farmers' heads,

towards the Sun that was to set,

higher than the birds ever will.

Ammu had stories to tell herself.

.