Hairy fairy treat

“Let my hair down and enjoy life,” Sarayu muttered softly to herself.

“But, will I be allowed to let my hair down and enjoy life as it comes” A big question loomed before her.

Sarayu stopped for a while combing her lengthy dark hair. The dark, thick curls of hair floated down like a black jet of flash flood. Every week on a Friday morning, Sarayu dried her locks of hair in the morning sunlight. Her hands gently stroked down and relieved the knots on the hair. Hairy fairy treat

The warm morning sunlight bathed her hair with fondness and caressed her neck with love. Sarayu stood there relaxed as the walls hid her from the ogling eyes of strangers who admired her hair at the first instance. Her mother helped to take the utmost care to nourish her hair with homemade oil.

For preparing the oil, she dried fresh hibiscus flowers, fresh leaves of henna, fresh vetiver grass, and yellow karisalankanni keerai or greens. Then she broke them hoarsely in the grinding stone. She poured the coconut oil into a clean bottle and added a few spoons of the hoarsely ground powder. For more than fifteen days she kept the bottle in the sun till the color of the oil changed.

Sarayu applied only this homemade oil. For washing her hair, she used homemade shikakai powder that was ground into a smooth powder. Sometimes her mother soaked the fresh shikkakai pods overnight in the water and made a thick paste of it in the grinding stone. Taking the head bath with this shikkakai paste, helped her body to cool and her skin looked glowing after a nourishing head bath.

‘Do I look like Rapunzel?’ Sarayu questioned herself one day. Just like she was locked away in a castle, am I also hidden away from the world? She desperately wanted to break her chain of loneliness and come out. Yet, she could not do so, as she knew women in her family stayed inside and were always taken out by the male members of the family. Without anyone to escort, she could not think about going even to a nearby temple.

After graduation, she did not have the liberty to go out. When she went to college she had the breathing space and it was an escape from the four-walled prison named home. However, after college, her parents were not interested in sending her for any kind of job. Getting her married was the only thought they had in their mind. When it took more than two years to find a suitable alliance for her, Sarayu felt locked inside and hidden from the eyes of the world.

The high walls around her house separated her from the world. The barbed wire fence lined with trees protected their sprawling land from others. Once inside the house, she is shut from the entire world. Radio only connected her to the outside world.

Television had not yet come into her place of living. Reading the daily newspaper somehow helped her to know what was happening in the world. But she has to wait patiently for the morning 11 am ding dong from the clock at her neighbor’s house.

Then, Sarayu walked silently to her neighbor and requested politely her usual permission to read the English newspaper.

The touch of newspaper sent a spark through her. The fresh print smell of the paper was inviting and she quickly went through the newspaper glancing for any important news that caught her attention.

Sarayu quickly glanced through the employment section and looked for suitable employment opportunities. She could not find them often, but she kept on looking for more job opportunities. Apart from the newspaper, she listened to the radio starting from morning 5:45 am.

Even before the announcer switched on the mike to air the daily programs, she would switch on her radio. The program started with ‘Vande Mataram’, the national song of India. She always loved to listen to Vande Mataram in the morning as it evoked a sense of patriotism within her.

Next, she loved the voice of her favorite announcer who greeted ‘good morning’ in his manly voice. Sarayu even started to believe, that if she heard his greeting in the morning, the day would be good for her.

“Sarayu, what are doing? It is so foggy” her mother called her.

“Brushing my teeth ma,” Sarayu replied.

“Get inside. It is so chill outside, you may catch cold.” Sarayu’s mother called her again.

Sarayu loved bird-watching in the morning. But to her disappointment, she could watch only crows. She had read about hundreds of birds. Yet, she was lucky to watch more crows, some mynahs, pigeons, sparrows and drongo birds.

Sometimes during the afternoon when she sat under the pomegranate tree and scribbled her poems, she could watch tiny birds like the sun bird or then chittu that drank nectar from the pomegranate flowers. She could hear them, but could not spot them on the thick branches of the pomegranate tree. When the evening set in, Sarayu watched rows and rows of cranes flying toward their nests. It was a treat to watch them flying high up in the sky.

“I must be a bird. Then I can fly around the world and reach anywhere I wish.” Sarayu’s thoughts took her high up in the sky. She could not spot the hooting owls at night. They would fly across the dark curtain of night in a second.

Sometimes she saw the beady eyes of big bandicoots that ran stealthily along the compound wall. Her mother would yell at her to come inside as it was past 11 in the night. Still, Sarayu loved to linger in the dark and listen to the peculiar noises of the night.

In her heart, she imagined listening to the rustling sound of the silk dhoti in the dark. The slow steps reached her and she willingly let those strong hands lock her in a tight embrace. She inhaled with love the natural masculine aroma that tickled her love nerves to expect more.

‘Are these birds lucky to find their mates during the breeding season?’ Sarayu thought.

‘They need not ask permission from their parents to choose their mate.’ Sarayu’s thoughts went on wild. Sarayu admired pigeons and sparrows for they had lifetime partners. While other birds changed their partners every breeding season, most of the pigeons and sparrows lived with their selected partners throughout their lifetime.

Sarayu sat in the chair reading her book. There was not much of a sound around her as it was around 10 pm in the night. She did not want to disturb her parents and her siblings sleeping inside the house. Sarayu could hear the soft rustle of the moonjuru (shrew rat) and it moved swiftly squeaking its way. An unbearable stench crossed her nose as it ran under her chair. People never hit that mouse as it was considered the vahanam or vehicle of Lord Vinayaga, a Hindu god.

Sarayu knew that those rats were considered a treat by the snakes, so she lifted her legs and sat in a squatted position on the chair.

Another thirty minutes went away in reading. Sarayu suddenly felt something pulling her hair from behind. She took her long plaited hair and brought it to the front. The long plaited hair stayed on her left shoulder for a while, but it slowly went back again. Sarayu once again pulled it to the front. Sarayu closed her book and looked around her. No one was there. She could hear the soft rumble of the fan from her home. The window doors were open wide and she could see the dim light of the night lamp on the wall.

‘Come inside. It is too late.’ Her mother called her again. ‘If you are not coming inside now, I am going to lock the door.’

‘Coming, coming’ Sarayu jumped down from the chair and ran toward the stairs. She entered the house and closed the doors loudly.

‘Idiot, close the doors without making any noise.’ Sarayu ignored her mother and lay down on her bed. Sarayu panted heavily. She could hear her heart pounding loudly.

She could feel two invisible eyes constantly looking at her which disturbed her subconscious mind. Unknown excitement caught her. She had never felt so and could not tell why she felt like that. The same type of excitement she saw in her friend last week during the marriage. Sarayu teased her friend along with others.

The next day dawned as usual. Sarayu did not find anything special during the day and she desperately waited for the night to envelop the earth. Though at heart she wanted to stay back and see what happened, her reasoning skill pushed her inside the home.

More than ten days went by, and Sarayu avoided sitting alone in the dark.

Kalai Selvi Arivalagan

Growing up in an environment enriched with colours of nature adorned with sounds of machines, I enjoyed life with all challenges. Nature is always a great teacher that teaches empathy to live and let live others. Though I am now living in an urban environment, the lesson that nature taught me motivates and allows me to keep on writing. I will always remember the cool afternoons in the shades of trees that made me write more on love.