JyothsnaphanijaThis old palm leaf tells us children some stories of her time to put us to sleep
About how she discovered her childhood in watching
Her mother making paper sweets,
home filled every day with sharp sun light on the mother’s eager hands, the sheets she makes with
rice starch, so skilled in her hands in folding the paper thin confectionary into historical longing.
She pauses and tells us about the sand spin top, as children they made with match stick at the
centre, echo of the sound in today’s history,
spin top’s full circle, in her yesterday happened like curiosity.
Even skilled women should start with broom stick pins, before learning making of garlands of
slippery flowers she says.
A tired palm leaf she is, remembers woman from nearby village, coconut shell in hands, for the
gooseberry pickle,
Walking like veining constellation.
“give me that gooseberry pickle you made yesterday for my morning sick daughter-in-law”
The woman’s voice is clear as the night adjusts itself for stillness of white paper sky.
What else she tells I don’t remember
About mango jellies, a coconut leaf she was, big enough for making a doll.
About her, who invented the very thought that sweets can be made with leftover starch,
a word for a layer thinner than paper, thinner even than a shining cloth, river like consistency.
She leaves us at the bank of the river,
We watch paper sweets in our hands, on sand, in dreams, in her mother’s longings.
Notes: paper sweets are made in a village called Atreyapuram in Andhra Pradesh, India, which
involves a strenuous process of turning rice starch and jaggery into paper like sweets.
