One Drop Of Perfect Bliss
When Happiness Drops, Like Manna From Heaven
Sometimes I feel I could die today, I am so happy.
Everything that happens after, is an anticlimax.
A rhapsody.
A moon, my moon.
A piece of food.
A face. People. One silver droplet of rain on a colocasia leaf, like mercury. A persistent butterfly hovering over my head. Two cuckoos calling out to each other as dawn breaks over the teak trees in Kerala. Hanging golden candelabra of exquisite laburnum.
A precious memory, hoarded against a rainy day. Sunlight winking through breeze-ruffled branches. A tiny little bulbul out-singing raucous Bollywood ‘music’. An old Tamil song, one of the many that my mother loved, God rest her soul.
The fragrance of a Madhumalti bush, flowering now, and intoxicating.
I feel drunk, then, intoxicated. I could willingly leave the earth, then, because how can anything be more beautiful, I think.
And then, I read a story, see a handsome face, or a drop of a liquid on a ‘lipsticked’ lip, or drink tender coconut so full of sweetness, or I see a perfect Tiramisu,
and then I am transported again.
I remember a trip to Guruvayoor, Lord Krishna’s Temple, in Kerala. My parents were both working professionals. We were all in school, my brother, my sister, and I. There was no time for cooking. We had to take lunch with us: there were no hotels close by, as there are now. My father stirred in cold, home-made yoghurt, and hot sambar into just cooked rice. My mother ground coconut, mango, eye-wateringly spicy red chillies, and salt into a chutney on the grinding stone. I cut five banana leaves from our tree in the garden. These were lightly browned over a fire. On each of the leaves was placed a generous portion of rice, and small tight ball of chutney. The leaf was then folded in such a way that it would neither tear, nor leak any of its precious cargo. Each of these was wrapped up in a sheet of newspaper, for added protection.
Then, we ran to catch the trundling state transport bus that would take us to Guruvayoor. We reach the lodge we had booked at 3 pm, exhausted and famished. We wash our hands and sit down as my parents hand over the packets to the three of us, then sit down with their own.
Nothing, before, or since, has ever come anywhere close to the sense of perfect bliss I felt on that day. The brownish-pink Matta Rice had absorbed the tastes of the yoghurt and the sambar, and the chutney had consummated the marriage in delectable passion.
I could have died then, too. There is only so much ecstasy one can bear.
So.
I choose to collect these radiant gems of bliss, weave them into a necklace, and wear them in my heart, to keep me warm when my heart feels cold.
Do you?
ⓒ 2023 Suma Narayan. All Rights Reserved.
Shoutout to two of my favourite authors who find quiet contentment in nature: both their own nature, as well as Nature around them: Ilis Trudie Palmer, and James Beaufait.
This is Ilis ‘s third book: and I know it will be filled with peace, passion and poetry.
James ‘s stories are filled with the connection between man and Nature and how it is possible to live in happy and harmonious co existence.