Morning rituals

Most mornings I try and wake early so that I can get some writing done before the rest of the day grabs me in its coils of incessant demands. And there is a little ritual I have put together to give this hour or two a structure.

First, there is the watering of plants I have on a window sill. A strange assortment of indoor and outdoor plants including a wild creeper that seems to enjoy the view from my window. It is routinely speckled with the most delicate of white blossoms (I tried growing the creeper in Kerala, gave it a patch of ground, a tree to creep on but the plant refused to grow and eventually wilted and died. Then I light some form of incense. I have an incense platter to choose from: dhoop sticks from Tamilnadu, agarbathis from a bespoke variety, joss sticks from Tibet, perfumed candles….as scented smoke fills my study, I feel a serenity settle in on me.

And then I switch on the computer. Mail is secondary. I often simply go straight to my Facebook page. I am not interested in posting updates as much as checking what someone else may have posted. Again I seldom dwell on some of the most naked revelation: A cry for help disguised as poetry. A call for attention with a provocative stance. Instead I seek the posts that bring to me music, videos and articles that may have completely escaped me otherwise.

This morning has been a bumper crop of sorts: Simon & Garfunkel singing The Sound of Silence; Shahid Afridi ‘s press conference in Pakistan; Girija Devi and Shobha Gurtu singing bin piya nindiya na aawe; Annie Proulx at a literary evening. It is a medley of impressions. A handpicked range of stimulations for a mind that is eternally seeking. And as I write, in the background are these voices that sing, talk and declaim… poetry and points of view that may have nothing to do what I am writing about but nevertheless by the pure principle of serendipity make a palpable difference to how I perceive life.

— Anita Nair’s new novel is Lessons in Forgetting