An Alchemy of the Ordinary

CHAPTER I: Red Oil Tomatoes

18 Aug. ‘24

11:20 pm

Dear Diary,

Coming back home to Kerala felt like slipping into the lyrics of a song I once knew by heart – familiar notes of comfort interwoven with unexpected harmonies. The house holds its changes—both subtle and striking. And today, life felt like a patchwork quilt, each square of ordinary moments spent here hand-sewn with silent verses of belonging. Tender stanzas of routine bound together like an embrace. 

As always during the monsoon, I woke to the soft creak of the teak kitchen door, groaning as it absorbed the dampness from last night’s rain. 

Serious murmurs in Malayalam rippled softly through the air. With each step toward the kitchen, my parents’ muted conversation from somewhere in the house grew clearer. Specks of dust swirled in the morning light, parting as if to make way for me.

If a brass coffee filter could speak, what secrets would it spill? On a glass shelf in our kitchen sat the filter, new and untouched, sighing and rolling its eyes at my kaapi being made in a regular saucepan. There was a silent protest hovering in the atmosphere. Yet, the warm, dark caramel tones of the simple black brew made with love calmed its ire and found peace in the mundane air of this morning ritual.

I carried my coffee with me, its curling fragrance waking the house like balmy incense.

As I stepped outside, I noticed a butterfly couple dipped in pale lemon yellow, dancing in the morning light. In my mind, they moved to the tune of ‘First Love’, a scene straight out of Nivin Pauly’s Premam.

As I entered Amma’s room, I found another reminder of the ephemerals — A sage green almirah. It stood in the corner as a quiet museum for Amma’s cotton sarees. A sentinel for some bright as shooting stars and others smeared with fleeting time.

Washed. 

Ironed. 

Folded. 

She worships them like art. 

You can find a saree in every colour - Red, black, purple, green. I run my fingers through them as if turning the pages of a beloved novel, reading stories woven into every selvedge. I was 10 years old again, long hair plaited on both sides, my clumsy hands fumbling with the pleats.

Often, I’d find mullapoo (jasmine) or chembakam (champaca) florets hidden between the folds and the quiet corners. Flowers, all dried up and brown. But the innocent scent of the ordinary lingers.

The world sweeps by like a tide to its shore, dandelions bidding farewell to their ray flowers as the wind carries them away—whispered signal of an upcoming rain.

Guided by their silent breath and a thousand memories, I drifted through the rooms, my steps leading me to a forgotten drawer. The hinges let out a soft cry as I unlocked this sanctuary of keepsakes. 

A journal inked with naïve teenage daydreams, smudged. 

A key to a best friend’s hostel room. 

A bus ticket thin and worn from the winds of a final journey. 

A handwritten note brimming with unspoken words.

The rain began to pour just as I closed the drawer, greeting me like a friend. The scent of the soil, drenched by the first rain crept in, coiling through the air.

… Eenamaayi Nammil... Melle… Mayaanadhi … 

Mangosteen leaves and purple dendrobiums hummed and slow-danced to Shahabaaz Aman’s euphony. The raindrops drummed as if in a trance. All of it unfolded in a void left by the fallen sapota tree from last season’s downpour — a souvenir of decay. 

Soon after, across the hallway, I found my father, chuckling, holding up a painting I made when I was seven. “Drawn by our Michelangelo”, he said. I let out a loud laugh. A house, a tree, a flower in a pot, two clouds, and the Sun, all sized the same. Perfectly mismatched in scale, yet a riot of colours so harmonious. A long-gone freedom paraded unapologetically in the strokes, unburdened by rules. A fragment of another world preserved for today. 

Much like the weathered hardbound copy of The God of Small Things resting on the side table, the one I once snuck from his shelf, stamped with an old address surprisingly unfazed by time:

Eros Book Centre, Churchgate, Mumbai-20.

Time came to a pause.

The years in between held still by the painting and the book, like a clock whose hands were stopped, caught in the joy of a childhood innocence and the dampened old pages. As I stood there looking at the painting in detail, I couldn’t help but wonder if I would have the courage to create something like this now — with off-scale shapes and headstrong colour lines bleeding through the paper. Could I ever again dare to say, “This is enough”?

Amma once bought me a pack of oil pastels. The ruby red from the lot was my favourite. I drew a tomato with it. And before I could stop, I had filled an entire book with the same drawing. It was a time when instinct alone guided me, without needing a nudge from Courage.

I drew the tomato, over and over, just to see the way the red oils floated over the textured ivory paper. It excited me. 

Roughly lining the silhouette of a tomato with a thin stem and filling it with ruby red and sap green was as extraordinary as painting a fruit basket. At 9, I didn’t think of them any differently. It didn’t need to be bigger or better. Why do we ever start thinking that it should?

It’s easy, isn’t it, to get lost in a maze of what’s next or what’s already gone? But what if, just for a moment or two, we let ourselves stay here, and take in what’s right in front of us? What if the tomatoes are enough? What if this minute, without any embellishment, is enough?

I returned the painting to its keeper and walked away. 

Maybe it is time to pick up the pastels again.

Written by Lakshmi Kalyani