Dawn

I miss Indian mornings. Mornings back home were a time of peace, quiet and of a drowsy wakefulness that a good night’s sleep brings. Strains of suprabhatam, coffee, agarbattis. The milkman, newspapers and brilliant golden sunlight.

Pandigai mornings were busy. Amma running about in a madisaaru, the kitchen bursting with the aroma of a million dishes, relatives pouring in at the crack of dawn. New clothes, ritual baths, holy fires, gods, vanquished demons and sweets. With no television to add to the ambient noise, every sound had its presence, form the ubiquitous bird calls to the mani adchings in the kitchen.

Mornings in America however are nothing like that. First of all there is none of that brilliant golden sunlight, the sun dazzles in summer, with the brightness of noon, and makes you long for it in winter. Mornings in USA mean sleepless nights, hangovers, dunkin donuts, black coffee (thin enough to make you swear off it) . There is none of the sanctity that the Indian dawn brings. Morning arrives here, like a natural successor to nighttime. Dawn is rational, solely attributed to the earth’s evolution. Mornings in India are spiritual and more than just cold logic, or planets rolling about. Like a reset button, they erase out yesterday. Dawn creeps in so quietly, dark blue then red, climaxing at gold, paving the way to daylight. And chaos.