As a child and even in days older, my mornings would be shrouded in the slight mumble of my grandmother reading verses from her prayer book and the fragrance of incense that covered the room like a shroud. I don't remember clearly if I looked at her through the covers of my bed or was the room really distilled by the fragrant light or was it the quick strokes of sunlight that the drapes allowed to sneak in; like juveniles bribing the doorkeeper at a film screening that made the room appear that way.
Then, of course, the sight of burning incense sticks and her voice colliding with each other to become one. The melody of her voice and the wafting of fine grey smoke, she paused to catch her breath. The fragrance emerging just like her voice would. Step for step. Like a dancer. Sometimes out of sync, like curtains against the wind.
(Caught this in the holidays this December while she talked to my sister, similar settings)
Slumber would come easy. My eyes would fight it, selfish to feed on the mood that soaked every bit of the room.
Under the covers of my bed and the imaginative world that I had managed to create, I lay in the sublime bliss of the ragas she sang and the grey fragrant warmth she drenched the room in. Smiling, just like a juvenile who had sneaked in more than his share of fun on a days end (when the day had only begun).
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