Valli

Poetry by Sanjana Srikant, Artwork by Keerthana Jayakumar

We walked, noon to dusk, hand in hand, through a verdant world, sun-dappled and fragrant, Her calloused fingers held my tiny hand firmly until I tugged on her saree and asked to be carried. She protested at first, but always obliged, lifting me up on her hip, and walking us both down the road, back home.
I think she knew I needed to be held.I knew, even then, that those days were numbered. 

She walked me back from school, to the beach, to voice lessons, to friends' homes, She knew every inch of my world, knew every bend in the road that I dreaded, and every turn that brought me joy.

Even as I got older, she'd sit with me as I studied, napping on the cold floor, and clucked when I got distracted.

I think she knew I needed the company. I think I knew, even then, that I'd blink, and everything would change.

It brought me such joy to bring her tea and breakfast every morning, she liked everything generously sweetened, said she could smell if her tea wasn't sweet enough. To this day, I can taste the aroma of her tea in my mind's eye.

When I couldn't sleep, she'd spend hours regaling me with tales of heroes and wild creatures, of fantastical worlds, creating riots of color with her words, letting her imagination run amok. I think she knew I needed the comic relief, I think I knew, even then, that she needed a break from the ordinary.

When I left home for good, I wondered how to conjure up in front of me the walks and the laughter, the tea, and stories. I wondered how to keep her with me, to keep home with me. Every year as clouds descend over those memories that were once crystal clear, as time draws a veil over the visions that were once a reality, I tremble with fear, that I may lose everything. I think she's watching over me, rolling her eyes at my worry, telling me she’ll never leave me.

The paintings and the poem in this submission are intensely nostalgic, evocative of people and places left behind, of feelings and longing that only live in memory. The relationships portrayed in this submission are the embodiment of home, the pieces themselves are a tribute to the worlds that shape our identities, and our grounding beliefs. It is from two very different minds that these creations are brought to life,
and that is celebrated in how beautifully and vividly the poem and the paintings complement one another.

The first painting in this submission “Schoolgrounds” is the entrance to a school in the grounds of the Kalakshetra (place of the arts) Foundation. This institution was founded by Rukmini Devi Arundale to preserve Indian traditional arts, and is in fact, a temple to the arts themselves. The second painting “Bessie beach” is of a family in Besant Nagar beach, an old haunt of Jayakumar’s and Srikant’s, which is popular among youth and families.

The third painting “On the day the Lotus Bloomed” is inspired by a poem by Tagore from his song “Gitanjali”. Here is the first stanza: 

On the day the lotus bloomed
On the day the lotus bloomed
I knew nothing
My thoughts were elsewhere
Id prepared no tray for it
I remained oblivious
On the day the lotus bloomed

About Keerthana Jayakumar & Sanjana Srikant

Keerthana Jayakumar is an artist born and raised in Chennai, India. She began as a self-taught watercolour artist but is now an oil painter. She incorporates the movement and style of watercolours, bringing a characteristic depth and liveliness to her oil paintings. Her sources of inspiration are poetry and Indian classical music. Ragas (scales) in Indian classical music correspond to certain moods and times of day. Historical texts exist that delineate specific images to their own corresponding Raga, and while these moods and images have inspired generations of art, and artists, Jayakumar adopts a different approach by using more modern subjects, mostly derived from her lived experiences in Chennai and tying them in with the moods from these classical Ragas.

Sanjana Srikant is a writer, born and raised in Chennai as well. Her early years were spent roaming music halls and libraries and writing short stories and poems in the sunny courtyard of her childhood home. Srikant draws much of her inspiration from her hometown and its rich traditions and history, and also from the works of the romantic masters – Tennyson, Wordsworth, and Keats. Srikant is especially inspired by the profound transformative effect that literature can have, and its power to bring humanity
together with empathy.