Terms of Seeing

E.V.Ramarkrishnan

On our way home from school

we often spent hours in that abandoned

orchard of mango, cashewnut

and tamarind trees, where each season

had its fruit, and each fruit tasted different.

There we raided the make-shift hideouts

of bootleggers, and broke their buried

mud pots. The crematorium in the corner

revealed an occasional vertebra.

Once we went further and discovered

a disused well, and peeped into its

vaporous depths: the water smelt like freshly

distilled alcohol. Through clotted branches

of close-knit shadows floated white

turtles with glazed, metallic shells.

Moving with a monastic grace, they looked

knowledgeable, like much-travelled witchcraft

doctors. If they cast a spell it was

unintentional. As we bent down, their

shaven heads rose and met a shaft of sudden

sunlight at an angle, tilting the sun

into the sea. Still the light lingered over the hill

like an intimate whisper of something

forbidden. By this time, the terms of seeing

were reset: the well was watching us now.

Its riveted gaze pierced us and even went

beyond us. In the dark cornea of the well

the white turtles moved like exposed optic nerves.

And as if a word was spoken, we stepped

back into the world of gravity, in silence.