Dandelions

Synopsis

This book is a pallet of the life of Tara. Everything about the souls that have touched her life and the incidents that taught her life. Tara hails from a beautiful town in India. Despite being born into a middle-class family, she never let her dreams and goals take a back seat. This oily short-haired girl was a synonym for the word nerd, but we can proudly say that she never missed a chance to have fun with her friends.

As she glides across the phases of life, she goes through a rollercoaster of incidents and experiences that leaves her scarred forever. However, this doesn't stop the fiery hearted soul from achieving what she always dreamt of passionately. Tara's newfound passion for travel acts as the cure to her traumatic past. Every journey takes her to a new person, a stranger who would teach her lessons to cherish for a lifetime. Between being hesitant to say "Hi" to asking, "Do you want to have a glass of chai?" she finds the courage to live her life. The story paints a picture of a childhood that now seems a distant dream for many out there; A childhood that revolves around the memories of her grandmother, collecting "red lucky seeds", touching the touch me not and taking the cow to the field. Even when the city life and the busy streets consume Tara, she holds on to the essence of these memories that is etched to the bottom of her heart. Will she be able to find the true purpose of her life? This is an ordinary story about an extraordinary girl who finds beauty in enjoying the little things of life.

Chapter - December Mist

It was her favorite time of the year, and Tara was finally back home after being away for five long months. She was confident that her parents would have not taken the effort to put up the Christmas tree or for that matter even find where it was. She stood in the living room watching them struggling to give the same reply they have practicing for years; “We are too old to do all this. Children should be home to help us with this, now that you are back you can put it up.” Tara tried to hide the small smile which was growing on her face and just thought to herself that her parents would never change. She kept her bag down in the living room and rushed to see her favorite person, her grandmother. “Ammachi” the way Tara fondly calls her was sitting on chair made of cane with a wide smile. Tara’s face lit up like a bulb only to be turned off by the sudden question that Ammachi popped “Hello, what is your name?”. A drop of tear suddenly appeared at the corner of her eyes which she tried to hold back. Maybe five months was long enough for Alzheimer’s to play the role of the villain. She gave Ammachi a hug and went quickly towards her room. She hated it when other people saw her crying, and at this moment it was very important to rush to the room. She laid on her bed thinking of how different the month December was seven years ago.

Tara woke up from deep sleep when she heard her grandmother waking up. With a half-opened eye, she struggled to look at alarm clock. It was 4:00 AM. She wondered why Ammachi was up so early but did not think too much about it as she was being pulled back to deep sleep by the sleep goddesses. Two hours into sleep, fragrance of freshly baked cake crawls inside Tara’s nose. Her eyes opened suddenly, and she realized that it was 1st of December. She threw away her blanket and rushed to the kitchen towards Ammachi and exclaimed “The fragrance is so good!”. Ammachi gave her a sharp look and holding strong to her superstitions replied, “Do not say anything about the cake or fragrance until and unless it is taken out of the oven”.

Tara gave her usual expression which was symbolic of “I don’t care”. Suddenly she noticed that there were already two cakes taken out from the oven kept hidden behind a huge container. She slowly went towards the container and grabbed on to one tray of cake and ran before Ammachi opened her mouth to scold her. Tara opened the front door which led her to the verandah and courtyard. The sun was not up yet and there was mist all over. Her home was in front of a paddy field which turned into the abode of white gods and fairies during the month of December. On the other side of the paddy field was a small temple. Tara looked at her phone, the time was 6:15 AM. She heard the speakers being turned on from the other side of the field, and her favorite morning ritual just began. The temple started playing “Kowsalya Supraja Rama” from their old yet loud speaker. Christmas month, the mist, and listening to Kowsalaya Supraja Rama while munching on to the cake without brushing her teeth, probably one of Tara’s favorite memories.

“Tara did you sleep off?”, screamed her mother knocking on the door. She got up suddenly from her thoughts and rushed towards to the door to open it. When she opened her door, she saw her mother holding a container full of cake. Tara took a piece from the container and tasted it, while her mother stood there carefully observing her reaction. Due to the lack of proper reaction from Tara’s end, her mother asked,” how’s the cake?” Tara stopped chewing the cake inside her mouth and paused for a while and replied, “it is good but not even close to what Ammachi used to make.” Her mother clearly did not have any difference in opinion to that statement. The sad reality of life is that when you get older, the people you love also get older. We often realize this reality very late, that then you have nothing left but sweet memories to hold on to.