Based on a prompt!
Kovalam beach
Off ECR road
3.30 pm
A group of flies were swarming alongside cool July beeeze.
Salima, a young writer and a columnist for a local magazine was digging for some inspiration for her next write-up.
She was still laughing over a humorous poetry
that she came across…
“Once a man had a head full of lice
he thought he was very wise
trying to drive them away like the mice
of Pied piper……
when the fresh aroma of “thengai-maangai Sundal” tantalizingly invited her drooling taste buds.
“How much,” she asked the woman.
“ Fifteen rupees,” the woman packed one quickly in a paper-cone cup with a nonchalant countenance before even Salima asked for one.
Salima: “How long have you been making these? Tastes good.”
“I have been doing this for around 5 or 6 years. They sell mostly by 6 pm,” the woman replied.
Salima- “ I have seen you a couple of times here but this is the first time I am eating here. Last week I saw you arguing with a drunkard walking deliriously.”
The woman replied, her eyes reflecting
a mixture of sorrow and anticipation,
“He is my husband. He is a drunkard. He comes and picks petty quarrels with me always.
Doesn’t have a proper work. I make this Sundal and run my family. My children go to the nearby Government school.”
“What’s your name,” Salima questioned her.
“Bhuvana.”
Bhuvana seemed an example of quintessential elegance of economic independence of women to Salima.
“Bhuvana, I truly admire you. You are a great inspiration.”
Bhuvana smiled benignly and said “There are many like me here. You see that woman there. She sells bhajjis.”
Salima nodded.
Heading back home, Salima thought, “sands of reality on the beach.
“Great inspirations are sometimes humble!”
Footnotes: thengai-maangai Sundal- a dried yellow lentil salad with coconuts and raw mangoes.
Bhajjis- fried fritters from chickpea flour with a vegetable base.
Copyrights @Brindha Vinodh
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