Balsam Touch

Balsam Touch

2 mins
8.4K


The little kids gathered around the clay pot filled with burning coals. A torrential rain had washed the entire town. It was wet and cold and the pieces of burning charcoal in an earthen pot were the ultimate pleasure. What was also a pleasure was the coating of finger tips and the design on palms of paste of balsam blossoms that sprang abundantly during the rains.

Grandmother asked the domestic help to gather the flowers from the backyard. No one planted them and yet they appeared every year on the onset of the monsoons. Not only in the backyard but also on tiled roof tops. And it was a good way to keep children from venturing out in the rain.

Once their palms and fingers were covered they had little to do other than sit around grandmother and listen to her stories.

It was on one such day that the unthinkable happened.

My youngest cousin went ahead and coated the pet cat, Sumi with the balsam paste, then it was a chaos.

"I want her also to look red and beautiful," she demanded as she rolled her hands all over an unsuspecting Sumi as grandmother shrieked in horror.

For a minute no one knew what was happening. Sumi was about to lick the paste when grandmother rushed to her and soon she was being washed of all the coatings. I have never seen Sumi that scared. A rainy day and a bath on the top of it!

My cousins were all giggling as the youngest one got a few spankings from my aunt.

Then it was back to grandmother's stories. Only this time instead of my youngest cousin it was Sumi who was in my grandmother's lap, cuddled and warm. She was not complaining and purred slowly to punctuate my grandmother's narration.


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