Whats in it that colors ME?

Some things in life don’t require tutoring. Just don’t need it!!Learning is steered by mere passion. Learning how to flaunt.Mehendi. Wave your hand, lift more things around, adjust your finger rings, slide your bangles many times and ah there my brother would ask,”Hey lovely colour! Its beautiful.” A moment of ecstasy it sure is! The efforts have paid off afterall!

Back in my mother’s place is the bushy Mehendi tree that stands for the last 15 years. When I go there even today, after the first round of catching up with people at home, I sling a plastic cover in my wrist and start the process of furiously plucking the leaves. They are tiny but even as you pluck our senses are stirred by the  aroma of mehendi that fills the air there around you. But wait are my senses right? Did I prick my finger now as I smelt the amazing leaves all at once. Life’s most beautiful things don’t come on a platter. Yes, the mehendi tree has thorns and very sharp ones at that.  It’s the tree’s natural adaptation to defend itself . My grandmom often prompted us to sing to the  tree but I have never tried it lest the neighbors think I am a lunatic or the tree simple listens and starts withering ! So perhaps my mehendi tree knows today and says ”Welcome back” or at least I like to believe so!

Every household there would most certainly have a mortar and pestle. The next job in the assembly line, in my making of the mehendi is the crushing. While I start my process, our household help shoves pieces of areca nuts and a small scoop of slaked lime to it. The tropical nuts when crushed secrete a red color liquid and the slaked lime cements the whole pulp well. While I sweat and puff in the process of grinding the pulp, my grandmom has to brag” You know when your dad was small I used to make our regular chutneys also on that. Your dad knew the difference between machine ground and mortar ground and he liked it made on that”. At this point, I am not sure whether she is bragging about her son’s gluttony or her muscle power in using the mortar. Either way, I smiled as that was the safest thing to do! Bragging seems to be a family trait!;)

Now the pulp sits resting, while I am catching up with my friends. An occasional peep gives me satisfaction that it’s all happening. The chemicals are mixing slowly.  Chemistry emerging! Patience has never been my cup of tea and so my mind keeps rushing back to the pulp that’s having its electrons moving between.. A sweltering hot day passes and as I sit out to feel the Madurai late evening breeze, I have mixed feelings. There’s something about this wait that brings to me the flavor of many things together. For one, like so many girls there is nostalgia tied with the act of mehendi from childhood. Something on the lines of why we like music. The abstract sounds may resemble the cadences of our mother’s voice that we remember from infancy.  Just plain patterns that you attribute to the psychology of happy things that was emerging. As we grew up.

And so after an early dinner the act of pasting it to my fingers happens with a whole load of family stories my mom has been waiting to tell me. Some of which is over head transmission and most of which comes with “Are u listening?” tag. Her way of making sure I have assimilated the NEWS while my eyes feast at the light orange color that the fingers have already assimilated.

As I wash my hands in the garden tap(strictly ordered as I will mess the white sinks at home!) next morning , the sun is shining brightly on my palm. The very deep red shines and I recall the umpteen times the old ladies at home say that the temperature of the body had a direct bearing on the shade of red that one got. The biological body temperature took the various components of the mehendi…something like paper chromatography I thought was what was emerging.

As all at home crowd to tell me its beautiful, I realize I have grown up in a lot of ways. From childlike wonder to bragging to physical beauty to thinking what’s emerging from this wonderful act of adorning mehendi today as I stand in the garden there thinking. In the final reckoning there may be no such thing as a truly emergent property, one that can be read off from its components. The color, the cooling , the joy, the happiness, the wonder  -It’s a quality we attribute merely to phenomena, the experience and the positive changes it brings within. Mixed in a single bag -ME. Let me leave the rest of what emerges to your free will!

I rush in to wear my glass bangles in my favorite shade of magenta. It sets off my deep red palm well. There is an undefined happiness in the air that lulls the soul by going through the act of adorning mehendi!Its worth all the plucking, grinding, waiting and thinking ! Try it people…today!