Waiting for Santa and Santha
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| Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels |
When the kids were younger and that time of the year came around, they would scribble down a list of what they wanted, hand it dutifully to their mom, their direct conduit to Santa in Singapore, and wait with bated breath for the jolly fellow in red to bring them the goodies they had wished for.
A similar kind of waiting happened almost every other day when Santha, the vegetable seller would turn up at my ammumma's house in Trivandrum. It was a sight to behold and little me was always fascinated by the whole spectacle as the iron gates creaked open on their hinges and Santha sauntered in, hips swaying gently, a brown coir basket perched on her head atop a tightly rolled up bun of white thorth. Santhamma would heave her bosom and with a smart flick of her head and some help from ammumma lower her coir basket to the ground. One never knew what would be in the basket. It could be a bunch of plump red spinach, or a few green mangoes, the sap trickling down into translucent tear drops on the side, a few lissome, misty eyed drumsticks, some fiery green chillies that could whack the daylights out of you, and perhaps some green tomatoes in odd shapes and sizes.
Years later, after Santa had evaporated in the hot summers of teenage-hood, and Santha had stopped coming to ammumma's house, we had moved to supermarkets where there were no more coir baskets with green mysteries hidden in deep crevices to delight little children. Somewhere, somehow I missed the pleasure of waiting, of seeking the unknown as I mindlessly clicked on a few neat packets and bunches of vegetables online. When I reached checkout, the delivery date was set for a whole week later, and this from an online grocer who prides himself on same day delivery! The woes of corona times!
A week it has been. And there is still no sign of the vegetable truck. Finally, in the desert, I reclaimed all the excitement of my kids waiting for Santa, and the little girl waiting for Santha! I have even started dreaming about my vegetable basket. Fine, they don't deliver in coir baskets and they don't do a spectacle of lowering and hoisting the basket onto their heads; granted that it will be a brightly coloured blue cardboard box, delivered by a guy in a blue uniform, but it will hold in its depths green treasures, for me to go diving in for! Whatever havoc the tiny virus has wrecked, we are certainly rediscovering the joys of waiting...
A similar kind of waiting happened almost every other day when Santha, the vegetable seller would turn up at my ammumma's house in Trivandrum. It was a sight to behold and little me was always fascinated by the whole spectacle as the iron gates creaked open on their hinges and Santha sauntered in, hips swaying gently, a brown coir basket perched on her head atop a tightly rolled up bun of white thorth. Santhamma would heave her bosom and with a smart flick of her head and some help from ammumma lower her coir basket to the ground. One never knew what would be in the basket. It could be a bunch of plump red spinach, or a few green mangoes, the sap trickling down into translucent tear drops on the side, a few lissome, misty eyed drumsticks, some fiery green chillies that could whack the daylights out of you, and perhaps some green tomatoes in odd shapes and sizes.
Years later, after Santa had evaporated in the hot summers of teenage-hood, and Santha had stopped coming to ammumma's house, we had moved to supermarkets where there were no more coir baskets with green mysteries hidden in deep crevices to delight little children. Somewhere, somehow I missed the pleasure of waiting, of seeking the unknown as I mindlessly clicked on a few neat packets and bunches of vegetables online. When I reached checkout, the delivery date was set for a whole week later, and this from an online grocer who prides himself on same day delivery! The woes of corona times!
A week it has been. And there is still no sign of the vegetable truck. Finally, in the desert, I reclaimed all the excitement of my kids waiting for Santa, and the little girl waiting for Santha! I have even started dreaming about my vegetable basket. Fine, they don't deliver in coir baskets and they don't do a spectacle of lowering and hoisting the basket onto their heads; granted that it will be a brightly coloured blue cardboard box, delivered by a guy in a blue uniform, but it will hold in its depths green treasures, for me to go diving in for! Whatever havoc the tiny virus has wrecked, we are certainly rediscovering the joys of waiting...
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