Image credit: neha for kyobi.blog

neelima walked up to me, as quiet as a goat trodding on mountain grass. her anklets, though, were not as silent as her footsteps. they announced her arrival, unwittingly. Ching-ching, clanged the tiny, suspended silver bells. i heard them even before she arrived. Stooped over some bushes, i straightened up and turned around to look at her.

she stood with a shy smile and eyes brimming with sweetness. A black and grey sweater wrapped around her like the green, venous layer that encloses a golden berry. For the three nights that we stayed at the coffee plantation, neelima was never sighted without her sweater. A nightdress, underneath the sweater, in shades of brown, green, and maroon completed her ensemble.

i smiled in return.

neelima, who had refused to sit on a chair alongside our group of six, began moving confidently from plant to plant, explaining something in kannada, a language that is spoken south of where i had been raised. Not a syllable of what she said was familiar to my ears. Still i nodded attentive to her effusive speech, and neelima continued to explain, smiling all the while.

she plucked a few chillies, then turned my hand, and placed them in my palm. she pointed to each variety to ensure i admired the difference in colour and shape. ‘Thank you,’ i said. This time, she nodded and I stood smiling with a handful of chillies.

Back in goa, the chillies were kept on the parapet to dry and prepare the seeds for sowing. they were shared with friends who appreciated the diversity and took one of each to plant in their garden. While neelima had not left her native land in the hills of chikkamagaluru, the garden that she tended, through small seeds, had found a new home in our village, in the coastal state of goa.

PS: In this piece, the prior two pieces, and most that follow, i shall continue to refrain from using upper case/capital letters for nouns and pronouns, in a bid for equality.