The summer is here & the flowers are blooming

The summer is here. The trees on the streets are bursting with flowers that love the sunshine a tad bit too much. Bright yellows, oranges, pinks, purples, fiery oranges, subtle whites, magentas - the colors of the flowers that I now see in almost every corner of the green neighborhood that I live in. The neem trees are boasting with their tiny white flowers too. The cuckoos start their calls early in the morning. A perfect “cuck-oo” signifying that it’s summer. The sun rises much earlier bathing the entire city in it’s warm light that quickly turns harsh as early as 8 am itself. The mangoes are here in all their glorious varieties for us to savor and relish the whole of summer. I see Banganapallis, sendhuras, Imampasands, alphonsas & javaadhus neatly stacked in the aisles of the fruit shop near my home. Right outside this shop, in a small corner, there is a sugarcane juice kiosk. This one has a touch of modernity to it compared to our good old sugarcane juices that are sold on the road side. Here, the sugarcanes are refrigerated. There is a neat menu too. The menu gives you options of what all you want added to your sugarcane juice. From lemon to ginger to lemon-ginger to mint, you have choices to choose from. Everyone who shops at the fruit shop stops here as well. The strangers standing beside each other drinking their sugarcane juice have an unspoken understanding of how brutal Madras summers can be. There are also tender coconuts and ice apples being sold on carts in many places around the city. Madras thrives even on summers only because of the collective efforts of it’s residents to beat the heat somehow. We still don’t know who wins every time - the city or it’s people. I would say, a bit of both. Since Madras is the only place I have lived in all my life, the heat and humidity of the summers don’t bother me much. The mangoes, the flowers, the birds, the ice apples, the tender coconuts all gave me nothing but immense joy.

After I lost my dad, even change of seasons have come with a profound state of sadness. They evoke so many memories within me. Memories that are so beautiful yet so painful. Memories that signify that it was all in the past and that I will not have anymore in the future. The biggest thing I have learnt in grief is being able to hold two contradictory thoughts at the same time. The push and pull, the give and take, they all exist at the same time and a huge part of navigating a loss has been in learning to manage these opposing thoughts without dismissing either of them. I had a father who went big on all small gestures. Growing up, he would meticulously stock up mangoes for Amma and me during the summers. He took pride in having the ability to pick up the perfectly ripened ones. He would also make Amma and me mango milkshake on Sundays. After our Sunday baths, my dad and I would go to the ice cream parlor near our home to buy vanilla ice cream for the milkshake. We would rush back home after buying the ice cream to prevent it from going shapeless, surrendering itself to the heat of our city. He would then make mango milkshake and refrigerate it. After the three of us ate a sumptuous Sunday meal (Amma usually made onion sambar and potato curry), the milkshake would be taken out of the fridge for us to devour. This would rightfully be followed by an afternoon siesta. It was not just the mangoes. He would also buy ice apples and tender coconuts for us. Anyone who has had ice apples, will also know what a hassle it is to peel this tropical fruit. Many adults refrain from buying this fruit just to save themselves from the laborious task of peeling them. My dad patiently peeled ice apples for Amma and me. Patience is love. He was the kind of man who took a lot of happiness in feeding us and summers were no different. Even last summer, I had the privilege of having ice apples that were peeled by him. I didn’t know while having them that just in a few months from then he would be completely and forever taken away from my life. Death has a cruel finality to it. I will never stop being baffled by it. The simplest truth that I can’t see him for the rest of my life is a thing that I will forever be coming to terms with.

My father never complained about the summers or the heat waves. He instead looked forward to the bounty that summers brought along with them and created memories for Amma and me with those small summer offerings. He would look at the flowering neem trees and loudly proclaim “Nature never fails to give us her gifts on time”. This summer I don’t have him to sit and talk about all the childhood summers that he made special for me with his mango milkshakes. I can’t sit and laugh with him about how hurriedly we dashed back home every time after that ice cream purchase. This was still from a time when ice cream parlors hadn’t figured out the concept of putting dry ice along with the ice creams to keep them from melting. Death not just robs you of a future with your person but it also firmly shuts many memorable doors of the past. What happens to these memories when the very person who created them seems to have become one with the wind? They all now lie safely within two broken hearts - mine and Amma’s. This summer I don’t have a parent’s house to go to and sit like a queen who is being fed peeled ice apples. This summer I don’t have him grandly announcing the beauty of neem flowers. This summer, the bounty has arrived on time as always, but I know my father never will. This is the thing with people who do many small things for you - they are intrinsically woven into the everyday aspects of your life. When you lose them, it is no wonder that the grief that comes along fills every part of our lives too.

Madras summer this time feels much less vibrant, even with all the vivid colors all around me.

Madras summer feels lackluster because you aren’t around to proclaim it’s beauty. I am painfully aware that it is the first of many summers for me without you. I just wish I was given more time to have told you that my summer bounty was never the flowers or the ice apples or the mangoes or the ice creams, it was and will always be YOU.