These days, I find myself looking at people. Really looking at them. Picking them out on the streets, noticing them as they drive around, riding their bikes or scooters- the scooter riding men especially fascinate me. They ride with a purpose. Like they have something to prove. There is a silent defiance in their stance on the scooters, they cut corners with a vengeance, their speed conveys their urgent mission to save the world. The politics of these performances bring out the philosopher in me as I unfailingly wonder at the sheer, astounding number of people in the world. I imagine each to be carrying their own brand of anxieties and neuroses as they navigate their ways around this Earth, hurtling towards the only certainty there is- that the sun will set and that there will be night. (Death is correct too…but it is an overused truth). The entire interim seems like a preparation for this inevitability. Is that what Life is all about? Waiting for the night?

The night has its own seductions. One night, I witnessed streetlamps turn my fellow passenger golden. And it is at night that strange hungers roam the land. People behave differently at night. As though the darkness is a cloak they can hide behind. As though the darkness is a curtain they can part and emerge from. And at night, the streets seem so innocent, you could weep for the way the road rollers ironed out their natural ebullience. The night has its own customers- because while light sustains life, night shelters desires- to read on balconies, have a cup of tea by the side of the road, to dress in the gender of your choice, to jaywalk, count stars, die just a little, sweat over tangibility. These and similar crimes.

At the core of it all, what are we and what do we see ourselves as? What are we waking up every day for? Or rather, what are the expectations with which we go to sleep? I sometimes imagine waking up in another dimension. Or timeline. Or as another person. So far, my world has been singularly devoid of such miracles. But it has made me curious as to what other people see, listen and understand. I often ask them what it is that they hear when they hear a totally unfamiliar language. Do they hear words or just noises escaping the throat? What takes shape in their minds when I ask them to imagine a chiaroscuro. Some told me it could be a type of dog. Many people told me it sounds like a fruit. I smile when I hear that because it takes me back a long time.

Nights, days, winds, water — words and worlds are what we make of them. This I learnt from the story of Avvaiyar, one of the greatest saint- poets of Tamizh. To talk about her influence and poetic might will require a treatise, but for now, for those who don’t know her, she is more of a concept than a person. Avvai means wise woman. And throughout Tamizh literary history, there have been many Avvaiyars. It is believed that she was once offered a rare fruit that granted a long life to the person who ate it. This was what the stories of my childhood told me, perhaps, in preparation of my eventually finding out that there have been many Avvaiyars at various periods. I would like to think that the fruit worked. Every now and then, a child needs a bit of magic in her life. It is said that in order to escape the trap of marriage, she had prayed hard and been granted the boon of old age. Avvaiyar is a personal favourite as she was part of the mythology of Murugan, one of the main deities of my native place. While he is known in other parts of the country as Skanda (the politics of which will require another treatise), in Tamil Nadu and its borders, he is called Murugan and his exploits with his brother Pillaiyar (Ganesha) are what children grow up listening to.

There are two stories that are especially popular about Murugan, and both involve fruit. Once sage Narada, that eternal churner of trouble, came to Mount Kailas, the abode of Lord Shiva, and offered him the fruit of knowledge. Interestingly, in many places it is depicted as a mango. When Shiva wanted to divide it among his sons, Narada advised against it. So Shiva summoned Pillaiyar and Murugan and told them that he who circumambulates the earth and returns first shall win the fruit. Murugan leapt on his peacock and set off while Pillaiyar declared that his parents were his entire world and went around them thrice. And predictably won the fruit. For reasons, read King Lear. This problem has been doing the rounds for eons now.

Anyway, Murugan returned to find the Gnanapazham awarded to his brother and left in a huff to the mountains. His distraught parents were said to go coax him by telling him that he was in fact the Gnanapazham through the words, “Pazham nee appa…Gnanapazham nee appa…” leading to the hills on which he stood being called Pazhani or Palani. (This is only one of the versions of why the Palani hills are thus named)

The second story has to do my musings on meaning, fruit and Avvaiyar. Legend has it that one day, Avvaiyar was resting beneath a Jamun tree and a young shepherd boy perched on a branch of the tree asked if she would like some Jamun fruits. She replied in the affirmative to which the boy asked if she would want Sutta Pazham or Sudatha Pazham (Hot fruits or Cold fruits). The arrogance of her knowledge caused her to regard the boy with contempt and she asked for hot fruits. The boy shook the branch and some fruits fell on the ground. Avvaiyar picked one up and blew the sand off of it. Just as she would have if the fruit were hot.  And the boy is said to have teased her asking “Paati, Sutta Pazham thaane?” (Grandmother, the fruits are hot, aren’t they?) Realising she had been taught a lesson in humility, Avvaiyar looks up to see Murugan in all his splendor. Guess he was the Gnanapazham after all.

Avvaiyar thus, learnt to look beyond the obvious, learnt that she was not too great or old to learn. She learnt that the world is after all a word and she saw the world in a fruit. The way Jyothi Ganesh sees all the Universe in her ragas. As lumbering elephants, as frisky deer, as Krishna, as a young girl, as Dharma, as Devi, as poetry and in an Idli.

In her debut collection of poems, aptly titled Samarpana: An Offering of Poems, Jyothi has brought in her formidable knowledge of Indian Carnatic music into play. She speaks a different language, the contours of her verses shaped by the pauses of a taala, the lines coiling themselves around the pivotal Shadjam or the infinite refractions of the Ganam, the ringing clarity of the Anthara Gandharam or the elevating notes of the Chathusruti Daivatam.

The poems are dedications to our primal sensibilities and seek to express the wonder at the magic of Creation and art. She makes us rasikas of her katcheri as she lends wings to the sails of her poems. She then changes tack midstream and lets the music speak in verse.