Aalthara
In my hometown of Manassery, there exists something beyond beauty. Something that has touched the lives of every inhabitant for the past century with its presence. Children named it to their eccentric heart’s desires, with “Appamaram”, “Aalmaavu”, and our favourite… “Achu”, being the many names it harbored. Named or unnamed, hearty or heartbroken, people of all ages, castes, religions, and ways of life joined together at its base, where stories became memories and life became bearable. Perched upon a vast ground just outside the temple, bathed in the soothing sounds of the periodic bronze bells, our great Banyan tree watched over our little lives in merry. Aalmaram, Appamaram, or Achu, no matter what we called her, there was nothing but a wave of acceptance in response. Around her was a thick ring of stones where the old and young joined to share their stories, as if time was nothing but a granule of sand in this infinite universe. It was while I sat upon that “Aalthara” (The outer ring of a Banyan tree), when I saw her. Gouri.
I was eleven when my erratic brown eyes first fell upon her. Eleven years later still, it dances to her presence, her grace, and her teeth-wide smile.
“Hey, it’s your Gouri,” told Afiz to my ear, as if I hadn’t noticed her half an hour ago when she walked into the temple with a top coloured like the green of our cumin soda bottles (Jeeraka soda) and a skirt that coloured like the ripe cherry tomatoes which grew out in the red fields of Krishnagiri. Gouri wore something that she never took off. Her smile that out smiled a baby’s footprint. It was wide and soft, the dimples on her cheek moved over to accommodate her stretched lips. Her silky wheat skin gleamed in the rose-gold sunlight, making even the greenest pastures jealous of her royal hide. Her eyes, pitch black in colour, widening and shortening in diameter from afar, danced unlike mine. They moved gracefully, observing the beauty of nature that she was blessed to be a part of, observing the happy faces that her smiles created, observing me…
“Shut up, I know!” I told Afiz, hitting his obvious hand away and turning my head away from her, as if I didn’t know how she had already noticed my stare twenty seconds ago.
Leaving her mother at the temple’s step, Gouri walked towards me, her naked feet caressing the dew-dropped grassfield beneath the tree. Her black hair, wet still, refused to clutter to her beauty. To their reward, a bundle of fragrant jasmine perched upon the joint of her swirl. The banyan tree sang, the thick green leaves danced in her direction, even it couldn’t suffer the beauty of her sublimous smile. My feet stood up from the aalthara, till I fell to the ground where Gouri resided.
“Aju,” she called. My name had never sounded more beautiful. The jasmine of her hair, the jasmine in the wicker basket she carried, and the illustrious colour she carried on her soul, all amalgamated into a smell that shot up my nose, creating happy memories, calming the hardest nerves, birthing a newfound smile, caressing my hearty soul. “Do you have anything to say to me?” she asked. Her eyes peered into mine. There were lines of uniform shape distributed around her black iris. They shrunk and enlarged, in a much slower rhythm than my own.
“Um… what? Why? No, Gouri… nothing” I blabbered. I could hear Afiz slapping the temple of his head. I felt the Banyan tree look down on me in embarrassment. The ants, centipedes, and the stray cat “Manju” of our glorious aalthara all had the same stare that planted upon me. Yet Gouri smiled. She could already see what was inside of me.
“Then I’ll be going now. Good morning…” Her liquid voice soothed the tepid nerves within my ears. The scent of jasmine slowly retreated from me. Leaving behind a trace for me to embrace. Yet, before she turned a corner and vanished into inexistence, Gouri turned back, to the place where she froze me in time, to the aalthara under which we once talked for three hours in continuum. She smiled once more, and vanished… forever.
“Where did she go?” my son asked. His tiny hands played with a loose stone of our ancient aalthara.
“Some people…” I sat by his side, surrounding a wide arm around his tepid back. “Come into our lives, spread a smile… and vanish.” The lush green leaves above my head sang a familiar song as the winds came rushing in from the east. “Gouri… was one of them.” I looked around to the side of me. For the first time in my life, I was all alone under the tree. There were wet cracks and green moss growing in between the crumbling stones of the aalthara. There seemed to be the ghostly skeleton of a million laughs that once called this place home. The temple bell rang. The echoes danced through the air, vibrating the green earth along with it. As it penetrated my ear from afar, I was transported again, to the Manassery I remember, where…
“Aju, let’s go eat some porotta and beef!” Afiz said, licking the cracks of his lips and hiding the widening of his eyes. “Appuettan’s shop must be open by now.” No matter how hard of a day I was having, Afiz always had something to soothe my unsettled heart over. Gouri had vanished, to a land far away from our own. And my heart filled with regret… and her question crucified upon my mind’s temple. Suddenly, the green grass felt yellow. The liquid noises felt like glass. The birds refused to sing. And even “Achu” grieved for her irreplaceable loss. It was on that day, I first noticed it… The noises around the big green tree were decreasing, ever so slightly. It wasn’t the first time… it was certainly not the last.
Once, where it was Afiz, me, Rajan, Kavya, Shereef, and Simi, now only two remained. Once, our crowded noises filled with joy in Appuettan’s shop, drinking white lime juice in the summer, and hot plates of beef roast in the winter. Our mouths salivated upon the thought of it in days where none of us had money to spare. One by one, they left. To jobs, to their lives, to new friends, and others… they vanished. Suddenly, the rising fumes of Appuettan’s beef roast smelled a little less familiar. Once it coated the insides of our mouths with tender fatlings and flaky blessings, it began to remind us of long lost memories.
“No, Afiz… I’m not feeling it,” I replied. To this day I wonder… would we still be friends if I had replied differently?. As everyone left Manassery to find new opportunities in the game of life, the cracks began to appear in the ring of our glorious “Achu”. I looked at her, the grand green I once remembered it in. And asked for forgiveness in a voice only we could fathom in. I too had left Manassery. Leaving her alone, to dance with the skeletons of our memories.
“Dad!” called Adyay with his tiny legs accelerating in the greens. “Mom’s waiting!” I looked afar where my beautiful wife coloured in Kerala white and golden jewels smiled at our approach. Her hair danced to the wind in a tone I had long forgotten. Her hands, within my daughter’s, joyously swung upon the cold air, like mine once… a long time ago. She had fallen in love with my Manassery, with my aalthara, with my life before I met her. It made me wonder… When did I fall out of love with it?
“Aju?” a voice called from behind. It had the same raspy touch as one I remembered from a long time ago. The noise of coconut shells being rubbed on rough granite. It was part of the voices that once radiated through the belly of our beloved aalthara. Now crumbling, unfamiliar, old, like the voice that fell flat upon my ears. I turned back to find him standing there… dressed in an executive pants and formal shirt, with jade earbuds cleansing the inside of his ears, and glasses that I had no idea he needed, Afiz stood with the same expression I left him with. “It is you!” he cried and ran to me like a charging bull to a matador. Before I could react, he speared me to the ground and pinned me while cursing five generations before me. The laughs… it was exactly the same.
“Hey, romantic couple! Do you have some room for us too?” asked a few more voices as they revealed themselves from behind the aalthara. Simi, Rajan, Shereef, and Kavya all looked at the two of us laying upon the once lush grassroots.
I stood up, forgetting to brush off the green blades stuck to my dhoti. The invisible wind picked up, and “Achu” sang in happiness for the first time in years. “How?…” I asked, barely able to breathe through my silken eyes.
“Your wife… is one hell of a woman,” Afiz said as she joined my side. Her joyous face holding the hands of my children walked up to me with a sense of pride which I made sure to praise. The winds caressed her supple cheeks, kissing her deeply in my place. Thanking her in notes that only the two of us ever understood. The temple bells resonated in the air, creating waves of memories through the wintry winds.
Soon, we were transported through time. Kavya wasn’t pregnant with her child anymore. Rajan had all his hair to gloat. Simi had less curved lines upon her face, and Shereef, well he never really changed. Together, we sat under the broken rings of memories, slowly placing one stone upon the other to heal our wounds. Minutes later, it felt like we had never separated. As Afiz cracked jokes as he usually did, and the others made a face of disapproving annoyance which he adored. Someone asked my wife about her utter regret in marrying a stupid man like me. Which sent roars of laughter one after the other, while I saw in her eyes nothing but warm love, tepid in colour. The withering leaves of our tree began to fall one after the other. Maybe it could not bear but shed tears too. Maybe it was crying the tears I had held inside for so long. I felt the noises that once coloured our aalthara in grace. Of the stories that once great grandparents told to their little ones. Of the love-stories that succeeded, like Shereef and Kavya, and the ones that didn’t. Eventually reminding us that… even if life doesn’t work out the way we supposed it to be, it works out the way it was supposed to be. And in the end, we will have memories to laugh, cry, and cherish about through the process.
“Hey guys!” Afiz called in tumultuous joy. We all knew what was coming afterwards. To which we said in unison… “Let’s go have some porotta and beef from Appuettan’s shop!”
As we leaped one after the other from the aalthara that had once again saved our lives. I heard the temple bell ring out loud. My head turned, as if someone had called me from a memory I had lost far too long ago. Through the temple gates ran a small child. She wore a bottle green top and a cherry tomato skirt. Her tiny footsteps covered in snowy dew drops, and the path she ran through revived into a floral garden. The blue butterflies rejoiced in the air of life she radiated. The coos of songbirds seemed to be in ecstasy as she perfumed their air. The girl with jasmine pinned to her tiny hair ran to her mother, whose back was turned to me. She had hair as royal as a lion’s mane, and her saree was dancing with a grace that I had forgotten to a past life I loved. Suddenly, my beard and curly hair vanished. I grew shorter and my dhoti became trousers. The tree of life showed me a sight… reliving a memory, and once again our aalthara was filled with familiar voices and graceful sonatas. That maiden transformed into a young girl, her back still turned to me, her soul still far away from me. As if it was asking me to call… as if it was asking me… “Do you have anything to say?” I remembered a time where my voice stumbled. It came forward in time. Who was that woman? Who was that child? I still ponder… yet my throat itched to call out a name… a name I had last called under this very tree years ago. Her name… “Go…”
“Dad!” Adyay called, still crisply holding the palm of his mother’s hand. “Come… let’s go. I want to go to Appuettan’s shop!” He had heard stories of that small shop with stained windows his entire life. I smiled. He smiled back. Turning back to the temple, once again… it was empty. Once again that familiar grace turned a corner I could not see. Once again, she vanished. Yet, my heart didn’t feel any less empty. It didn’t feel as if it had lost something again. It didn’t feel as if my aalthara had punished my young heart again. I smiled a smile that only it knew. And turned back to our beloved “Achu”. “Some memories… They’re meant to remain as memories” It voiced.
“Come on!” Adyay tugged on my hand. “Let’s go!” The others voiced their opinions too. The bulk being that I would be abandoned, and that beef roast is more valuable in their lives than me. Can I blame them? I would do the same. With another laughter, never the final, I bid her adieu… for being a part of our small lives… for being our medium of laughter… for being her… for being there. Our “Achu” waved back… She too was smiling.
