Photographer : Harikrishnan

Instagram : Dreaming Digital

I can never claim that I had a perfect childhood. I've always missed Amma. I feel I haven’t got her enough back then. She was always engaged with  everyone else. Functioning for  people who have never  showed  me anything close to affection,  people who haven't held me close. Suffocated among them, I would wait for my vacations to run away to my Ammuma. Somehow, her presence didn’t let me miss Amma so much.

But I couldn’t handle coming back here, again. I would roll on this floor, crying. All I wanted was to leave the place. I liked neither the soil nor it's smell. I was on my own.

I remember those summers very distinctly. During the mango season, our hands could  easily pluck mangoes from the window itself. And I remember the monsoon even more vividly . As cliche as it sounds, the hopeless romantic in Acha absolutely used to cherish his Hero Honda motorcycle and monsoons. As I now recall , the guy never missed an opportunity to ride it into the rain. When he usually come back from the office with Amma , there would be this very puzzling yet peculiar smile on their face.

At nights, I see Amma sitting near the window, looking outside. The heavy rain overpowering the music that comes out of her walkman. The most I had her was then, when she would call me by her side to keep the walkman on my ears, letting me in on her music.

Amma ordinarily spent most of her time in the kitchen. I've felt her absence whenever I am there. The kitchen felt dark and was as gloom and  catastrophic as my childhood. The same darkness succumbed lot of my emotions. Growing up, I lost most of these. 

SO, I PAINTED IT WHITE.