EVEN THE SUN NEEDS REST

My grandmother is my first muse. I wrote "my words, disguised" for her after my visit in 2018. That was the last time I saw my muse in action. I await the future with bated breath. Until then, I write:

Grief is the breath you've been holding in your chest.

When I first learned of my grandmothers' childhood, I realized the freedoms of mine; limited as they were to me, my boundaries seemed boundless to her. Where I had hours of playtime to myself, she was getting up early to get her brothers and father ready for the day. Where I had to spend time after school focusing on homework, she had to cook, clean, and serve dinner. Where I had remained a girl, she had to step into the role of the woman of the house following her mothers' death. Nevertheless, she revelled in my bound-ful land with me, reliving childhood games, sharing stories, and teaching me respectful love for the outdoors.

First, she taught me how to catch frogs in the rain. During the monsoon, hundreds of frogs would jump around the veranda at night, their moonlight sonatas hitting a crescendo as I ran after the scurrying amphibians, timing their jumps with my hands. Catching frogs was a lot easier than holding them. I learned how to apply just-enough pressure to hold them longer. I learned how to quietly approach a chirping frog. Above all, I learned how gentle and loving my grandmother was towards creatures of all shapes and sizes.

There were butterflies, grasshoppers, lizards, rats, and sometimes, even snakes in her yard. All insects and creatures were hunted and identified, some left alone, others chased out. Every inch of her garden was known to her, each blade of grass and plant maintained meticulously. I once mused to her that she must know all the insects that live on her plants. And in return, she placed a ladybug on my shoulder and said, "Meet Chameli." At all times of the day, in-between her wifely duties, she would be in the garden planting, plucking, or pampering. As she grew older, my brother and I would be sent out to collect her from working too long in the sun. "But I have this chunni on my head," she'd say, adjusting it forward and tucking the loose ends behind her ears. "It protects me from the sun. Come, you help and we'll go faster." I'd crouch next to her and follow her around as she wrapped up her daily chore.

Outside of her garden, she helped me befriend our neighbourhood dogs. She woke me up one morning and said she had something to show me. Hand in hand, we went downstairs, out the main gate of the colony, down the alley. "This is Rani," she introduced, placing a bowl of water and a rolled-up roti on the ground. There stood a pale-yellow dog with two pups underneath her body. Rani shivered and approached the bowl of water, lapping it up gratefully. Holding my hand tightly, my grandmother coached me how to calmly pet the dog, earning a couple licks on my arm. "We can't touch the babies because they are too new, and she doesn't know us. But you'll see two new baby dogs in the colony now!"

Grief is what melts in the arms of a loved one.

Grief is the jagged breath that ends in a wracked cry,
is collapsing in and ballooning out.

Grief is not so sharp to invite explosion.
Rather, grief is a pinprick relief,
is air being released slowly out of your lungs.

Grief is gathering the pain and tension
and exhaling it out.

Grief is constant.

In 2018, when I last saw my muse in action, I promised her that I would set her free. I would be in my own home. And only she would be invited in. And together, we would live. We would create and learn. Together, we would travel the world and see all the sights it had to offer us.

Today, the physical body of my muse is under medical observation. I cling to hope, to faith, to love, and above all, to the idea that muses may not die; that muses may live on through memory, through archive, and through the writing of self.

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