Gourds’ own country…
![Gourds’ own country…](https://gaatha.com/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://gaatha.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Gourds’-own-country….jpg&nocache=1)
“Every year vines grow taller & fatter…they cling to every support on their way, suck nutrition from moist soil, sky & sunlight…And Flower! Plentitudously masculine, for the pain of bearing fruits is great…& it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
The towering vinelike egos are clipped at the nip
Then they shoot sideways and are born females heavy hipped
It’s time for spring gala….
Heart-whole this bug goes around singing love notes oooo la la….
Men are no priests but they shrive and women shiver
The petals close and their heavy bottoms quiver
Flower becomes a fruit and grows bigger
First green then they begin to color
Yellow, orange, brown, spotted… some wild, some sober
Fellow beings are invited to sing and dance together
They make merry and pluck our children
Leaving the umbilical chord bleeding for ever
The gala is no less than an illusion
It’s a spring in odd time and without any reason
They often miss the center of this musical ringing
For their deaf ears can only hear their own singing
Calliopean! Calliopean! Calliopean!
Let them go… if weather stays clement we shall be again offspringing… ”
Gourd fairy turned to the classroom of wide eyed gourd children as she finished telling them the story of Gourd Gala….While the entire farm looked amused hearing the bright prospectus of their future… Tara… sitting quietly in a corner did not look very pleased… Her head was shrooming with questions…. “What if I don’t want to attend this party and want to know instead… what happens to everything outside of the Gourd city…”
Pale she looked…. a frail child…. barely fed and questions she was raising were too heavy for her own bearing…
“Sparkling windows of magic twinkle in time…. if you manage to peep through once as they shine…. you are freed for ever…. from the cycles of hard and soft, day and night, good and bad… and you shine for ever in eternity… A shining star you become…. Tara!”
“How do I peep in then?”
The fairy with a vulpine smile turned away….
“O child… O child… O sweet child o’mine
You have to LIGHT UP! and shed your carry on
The mud of old, the air of new
And the tiny viny tendrils you cling to
Carry only the essence of you
And see how fast you move
Innocent flowers like you have leapt miles on the golden map of boundaries
Rendering the lines dull every-time they crossed these
Only essence! Only essence! Only essence!
The Gourds traveled the Americans, the Europeans and now the Indians
Mixing leads to a delightful variety
Pumpkins, bottle… bitter gourds and the exotic Zucchini
For what is in micro is in the macro
Take these and SHIVOO on the flying shoe… ”
To quench her curiosity she left the Gourd city… Her stop over was the fellow being’s workshop…. where she saw her fat bubbly kins stacked over the shed and some in works… Highly manipulated… some beautified, some filled with fire, some purely functional and some objects of desire…. She heard him say “These are new and it takes me a while to fathom their unique hue. They often carry the essence of what it is that they would like to become and so I work to shape them…. but being an aginner, I prefer the alternate plan…. It gives my designs an edge over the other and helps me sell better”….
Ornately punctured, stunningly truncated, denotively etched with forms and symbols…. they all stood for something…. something of his own… and he protected them as his belongings…
He toiled, sweated, burnt himself before he burnt a mark on them. After nine months of waiting… two months of drying, washing, skinning and shining …. then working on them with his drills and knives…. Tools of a smith!…. etching on them his marks…. he calls them his own….. Some he hangs from the ceiling of his room… And at night… they appear… the sparkling windows of magic…. all at once…. in all forms….
The workshop becomes a luciferous galaxy of stars….
And some were just kept intact and left to dry…. the seeds inside, he said… rattle and put his children to sleep…
She flies higher as she ponders over her recent discoveries…. “Though happy to see her kins meeting their desired destiny …. neither the Gourd Gala nor the fellow being’s workshop…. but to make a new family, I want to fly to another country…. ”
Free from the lines of good and bad… As she LIT UP! and shed her carry-ons… The fairy’s voice echoed in the canyon….
“ELATE!!!…. Pufff your orange selves up…. Your Gourd Gowns in the fresh air…. It’s spring without spring…. Again!… Spring of the internal blooms…. And I’ll freeze you…. Right There!…. in the moment of your happiest selves…. Capture in eternity…. your best elation…. for it’s only happiness that should echo…. only spring that I want to see….”
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Tell us what you think!
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Information by : Shivani Parmar, Ibtisam Zareen, Hartagna Pandya, Disha Agarwal, Deepika Verma
swasti
BEAUTIFUL… sheer poetry
love the gentle tender illustrations.
:)……
keep on doing this lovely work…
Prashant Mudgal
I found about Thumba craft in CSE magazine’s supplement Gobar times through a stunning photograph and it gravitated me. Not much info is available on the same on internet but I was able to find a few articles here and there. Thanks for consolidating the information.