Mehndi…

Had called one of the art kids, Sali (as we call her with love) to office cos I needed some help…and I casually mentioned how much I thought of the mehndi she had put on my palm when I’d made a surprise visit to her home during id…
I still remember her home…this little space…smaller than a cupboard…but just as crowded as one…and I still remember how I sat there…like a little queen I was treated…the stove was on…and there was a mustard glow all over the room and the number of colours and textures was almost infinite…there were bundles and bundles of brightly coloured clothes stacked up…the mat I sat on was a lovely hay brown…the colour of the floor…the colour of the metal sheets that made up her walls…and within it all, I felt this love and warmth that I cannot describe…that night, I realized that space is something in your heart…and she’d taken out this little cone of mehndi and squeezed out the last few drops on my hand, it flowing out into the most intricate pattern…and the love I felt…felt my heart squeeze by its tender hold on me…
So Sali walks into office this morning with a mehndi cone and I was delighted…it’s a working day and I’ve got stuff to do but hey, how could anyone resist that twinkle in her eyes as she lay the cone on my desk…
So after lunch, she sits real close and asks me what I want done on my hand…guess?...leaves I say…lots of them…and as she holds my hand gently and begins…I look at her bent head…and then close my eyes…I feel the cool of the mehndi on my palm and I feel the warmth of her affection…that’s what will give it is beautiful colour…and I can’t help but hug her later and thank her for the lovely gift…she took my loneliness away…she made me think of something other than me…
Mehndi…what magic it is…imagine how tough it must be to be mehndi…imagine how people put you on, only to take you off…imagine they go to extreme lengths to ensure you stay, just waiting for you to go and see what you leave behind…they scrape you out with a knife!...and you still give them what they expect…every time…all the time…
Imagine what you leave behind is more critical than what you gave while you were there… wow…its kinda like what you’d want your life to be like…no…no…don’t mean that people should wait for you to go and scrape you out with a knife…but that the mark you leave behind, and your fragrance, lingers and lingers and makes others happy….