Sun Pockets and Spring

Words by Babli Yadav

Magazine | Issue 03

When you have lived in a place long enough, you know the walls that catch morning sun at 7 am. The door tries its best to keep it all out —until you have fully opened your eyes—at the side, around the jamb, a vertical dash, vying for your attention. A sliver of bright light, a bidder of goodbye to the night. And then the wind invites itself, lands on the leaves of the Yellow Trumpet tree outside your room. Their dance screening on your bedroom wall; a morning song, is it?

The cats are up, so is the 8-year-old, and there is no chance you can sleep longer. A cup of tea, morning news on the side; the beige sofa turns into a scratch pad for feline nails. They love corners—the cats—just like me. The living room corner has a bookshelf and a philodendron. Sun on Philo at 9.30 am is a sight to behold. Like a lover in caressing, soft but present.

In the metropolis that is Bangalore in South India, the east facing house that I live in has been home for 8 years now. Everything speaks to me when the sun lands upon it. The stainless-steel railing in the balcony, exterior walls of the neighbour’s west facing house, the vitrified tiles under my sofa, the walking shadows on the ceiling.

During winters, the neighbour frequents the house often. No, she doesn’t come up or say hello or send homemade winter foods, but sweetly enough places her coconut oil bottle in front of the house. And then strolls around the strip where the sun stands stiff. If I could pack sun in a box and offer it to her each winter, I would. “Put a chair and sit for a while,” I told her once. But she wouldn’t. In cities, unlike villages, people are cautious of where they seat themselves. An open roadside cafe is fine, an open roadside home is not.

Sitting is a commitment that not many want to make anymore. When I was a child and spent summer vacations in my grandparent’s village in North India, I seldom noticed how sitting was akin to resting. It was so common; it happened everywhere that one rarely paid attention to it.

In the bathing area, a little after the sun was warmly out, we sat on a big red-oxide tile and bathed. In the kitchen, aunts sat, chopped, and cooked. Only in the morning and evening. There was no concept of cooking in full blown sun. Everybody sat while eating. There were no dining tables or chairs. If visitors came home, seldom anyone just stood and left. They were always asked to be seated. Either in the ‘daalaan’ (corridor) where sun was traceable only from far. Or around the ‘chabootra’ (concrete platform) under the Neem tree’s shade. The posture they sat in said much about their commitment to the purpose of visiting. A squat meant a quick chat, placing the bottom on the ground revealed otherwise.

In the city, there is so much standing… while cooking, eating, bathing, chatting with friends. A non-committal act of sorts? You do things. You do them, quick. So that you can get to the next thing. Rush over rest.

A pink bougainvillaea is currently in full bloom on my balcony. A symbol of resilience. It had almost died when it was brought home a few years ago. Thankfully, I have a thing for not immediately burying dead things. I let them be. Let them choose if they want to remain lifeless or try to come back to form. I just made sure that the roots were allowed their fair share of soil, hydrated it once a while, told the sun to not be harsh, be kind and partial if need be. The Sun and I, we have that kind of understanding. Last year, the bougainvillaea finally resurrected. And now, every time I see its newborn orange petals, I feel I did good.

As I write this, they are smiling, the leaves, the blooms, the sun, the wind; their little reflective hideout under the corner sofa chair around noon.

There is a faraway place where my heart goes from time to time; no wall shadows, no tiny pockets of sun, no under the sofa reflections. But giant white mountains… covered by a sheet of orange-bright morning sun. Sadly enough, neither the orange, nor the white fall within my country’s borders. In fact, way opposite.

I found Ifra Khaliq on Instagram four years ago. Her posts soaked in morning sun, full moon nights, collected stones from the riverside, willow blooms, handmade thuja cone hangings made me feel I was home. The home that some of us carry within. Where exactly was home for her, I didn’t know for certain. A few of her posts mentioned Baltistan. Of course I googled it, but apart from being a noun on a 3D map, it meant nothing more. But a part of me knows it is far, out of bounds. A place I may long to visit but may not be able to step foot on in this lifetime.

Have you heard of Kindred spirits? I did, for the first time, a few months ago. Ifra introduced me to the phrase. People who think like you do, feel similar feelings, share common belief grounds, see things the way you do. Sometimes the timelines of our experiences have been near parallel. No explanation. That’s the beauty of the ordinary, of everyday wonders. There are no explanations.

Last year I found Ifra was building her new home. A sustainable home with locally sourced material overlooking the Balti Mountain range. I felt so happy for her, although I barely knew her life outside her social media profile. I would have liked to visit her home and catch the 7 am sun landing on her bedroom wall. The 10.30 am sun playing shadow and seek in her front yard. In one of her posts, she had mentioned how she’d like to grow several trees around her home.

Does Pongamia Pinnata grow that high up in the mountains? Where I live, it is growing fresh new leaves right now, after shedding everything old away. Soon, it shall be in bloom, very little pink and yellow flowers that will lay on the roads like a soft carpet. Pongamia is called ‘Honge’ here in Bangalore. Its loosely hanging tender branches bend low in Spring, as if to kiss the ground, reminding of earth’s tender hugs and humility. Nature’s very own parasol. Once, a very long time ago, every bit of Honge, from the bark to the leaves to the seeds to the flowers were used in solidarity with its kind existence. Now, the municipality workers turn up weekly to sweep all of it and put it to waste. Unlike garden parasols that everybody wants to sit under on a hot afternoon, no human stops-by to say hello to the Honge.

I had a feeling my kindred spirit would have liked to witness the dance of the Honge in my neighbourhood. Instead of simply exchanging pictures, I sent her this essay for reading. She smiled! That’s what she wrote back. And how she may have spotted Honge lookalike in Karachi. And that she’d like to see Honge from my eyes. I gave her the North Indian name for it, Karanj, in case it helps. And she told me how a place she lived briefly in Balochistan was named Kanraj. Just a different placement of the ‘n’. Later, she sent me her pictures of the lookalike tree from Karachi from the year 2021. And there they were, Honge flowers staring at me from a far-far away distance assuring how limitless love for nature can be. When she took those pictures, she had no idea what the tree was called. She told me she’d remember them as Karanj from now on.

Babli Yadav is a freelance writer based in Bangalore, India. She finds herself effortlessly drawn to nature, its strangeness and slowness, poetry, and essays. Her motto these years is strictly feelings over facts. Her personal essays have found home in On Eating, The Chakkar, The Blood Project, features in Mint Lounge, Deccan Herald, The Federal, and Press Insider. Her first short fiction - A Song of Silence - was out in Caesurae MANA Issue, July 2023.