Tales of Ipsa

Category: Nostalgia

  • The naptini

    The naptini

    Within a day or two of our homecoming she would be at the door, looking as she always did. Unchanging and constant, holiday after holiday. Grey-haired, tall and straight-backed, with a dark weather-beaten face, paan-stained teeth, and intelligent, shrewd eyes.

  • The agarbatti

    The agarbatti

    Scenes from my childhood.… I’m sitting cross-legged in my grandmother’s puja room. Her gods sit enthroned, their faces aglow in the light of the brass oil lamp. Chants mingle with the sound of the conch shell and the tinkle of the brass bell. Offerings of fresh fruit, sweets, coconuts, betel leaves, fresh flowers are laid…

  • A lost handkerchief

    A lost handkerchief

    Its spring cleaning time! I quite enjoy the process, for it is a time of joyous discoveries and emotional reunions! Long-lost sock-twins hug each other tightly; while runaway buttons return to the family fold. That’s when I discovered it – a crumpled square of fabric, tucked right at the back of a drawer! It was…

  • The Flower of Autumn

    The Flower of Autumn

    The days turn shorter. There is a cool mist in the early mornings. An Indian autumn is in the air. A rather untidy, nondescript tree in a corner of the garden tentatively puts forth a cluster of blooms – white stars on jaunty orange stalks. The sheuli. Others may know it as the parijat, the…