CHANGE OF GUARD

Her absence acutely felt when the festivities start and when they end.

Step by step instructions on what to get 

for puja samagri...flowers, sweets, favourite incense.

Insisted we carefully select Lakshmi and Ganesh idols.

No chips, no running of colours into each other. Advised should have well defined flawless features.

And perchance if found any defects,

with her hands would repair damage.

Come Diwali, bathed and dressed made all the arrangements, in great details.

God and Goddess placed on platform raised, covered with coloured cloth gold braided,

Swastika embedded.

All we did was perform the rituals while she sat

behind lips moving in prayers, ringing the 'ghanti' with her right hand

keeping to tune of aarti songs sung in praise.

A woman of steel, didn't allow personal tragedies

any sorrow on her face reflect

Conscious our lives it would affect.

Continued with the business of living, As o

Advertisement

ur bodies bend with age, feel the loss of

our pillar of strength, gone eleven years,

leaving us bereftconstant 

source of mental sustenance

Moved gracefully adapted to the change, yet holding on to values never waived

Every festival her image floats before the Temple in the wall recess

A Goddess in human form she represented

Last evening sound of the ghanti ringing by non other than her barely three year old great grandson,

brought back memories, which rushed like a burst dam, 

wishing she was there to witness the

new 'ghanti' in-charge, replaced

Was she watching with amusement 

on her face, 

change of guard that has taken place, 

since she left?

Those hands are missed daily in every activity

but feel them raised over our heads.

'Ghanti' brass prayer bell

'samagri' commodities

'aarti' devotional songs