colourless. brown.

To us, she was always brown grandma,
Shorn of hair, clothed from head to toe,
In a shade of colourless brown that was meant to merge
Her presence and submerge her being,
Within the background of the bustling household.

Brown grandma wore no jewels,
Save a garland of dried seeds
that would seep into her being,
the ideals of renouncement from
all the deliciousness the world had to offer.

She was meant to be –
Never seen, never heard,
But her presence hovered around the house
Like the stale, forgotten smell of the doors,
The ceilings and the floors.

We never thought of her as young,
To us, she had always remained this way –
Brown, shaven and devoid of any beauty
That surrounded our mothers and aunts -
brilliant shades of red and yellow
that anointed their heads and faces,
the delicate fragrances of jasmines and pink flowers,
that wove themselves in their hair,
the taste of betel leaves that
dyed their tongues red, already ripe
with gossip of their neighbourhood.
And the sound of their matrimony
That left tinkles on the ground as they walked, bare feet.

We never thought anything at all of brown grandma,
Until one day, we saw her lying dead.
It was then that they said,
That she died young.
Barely forty-two.

When we began to see the dreams
she must have had,
It was too late.
Too young.
Too late.


after a story i heard on the possible genesis of a traditional brahmin widow - it traces back to a few centuries, when a young child widow - the daughter of the king's priest - became the king's obsession. when he asked to see her that night, the priest escorted her in a covered palanquin. when she stepped out, the king was shocked at seeing a form devoid of beauty - hair shorn, giant rudraksha beads on her neck and a dull brown garb.

brought memories of a brown grandma (a distant relative).