Here's to...
When nothing makes sense, when all that reaches the ear is the buzz of political jabberwocky or the static of AI voices sounding unnaturally confident, a walk through the village of Chinna Mudaliyar Chawadi in our neighborhood always feels calmingly surreal. Children laughing down the road, women huddled up over a conversation, a stew of rice and lentils cooking in charred pots placed over wood-fire outside homes. ...aroma of sputtering spices, a hint of tamarind escaping into the dusky air. Effortlessly do flashes of scenes slip in alongside a collage of memories buried under a dusty layer of time: Here's to cranes furrowing aerial trails and to irises gorging on blue to shadows skipping on pebbles and to violets shaking off the fall'n snow and here's to the naked pigtailed boy with anklets and kohled eyes, tittering twiddling a twig, womenfolk gossip and gurgle; here's to the crow diving into the setting sun, catching the gold, the silence and the s...