The summer is at its peak
households turn busy.
The womenfolk list
their buys.
It reads, Mangoes 100 .
eggplants 10 kilo,
broadbeans 10 kilos,
onion 10 kilo. sundaikai 1 kilo.
Kitchens become the hub of activity.
Cutting, steaming, sauteing, filing the
cooked in palmyra baskets, transfeering
to the courtyard,
“Olai pais” are laid in the area
open to the sky, the steamed eggplants
are spread in seamless order,
other vegetables follow suite.
Mangoes are ripped off their skins
cut with precision, smeared
with salt, kept overnight. Enter
the company of others, next day
Finely chopped onions mixed
with ground“tur dal”,
red chilly, coriander leaves, cast as
small balls occupy the central stage.
What an aura of colour!
yellow, red, green, delighted
I watch them dry
in the bright sunlight.
Meenas Poems 