tales for dreamers: an orange offering

The path to the God residing in the highest abode is strewn with golden leaves. Yellow, orange, and golden, and every hue in between.

To him, it appears as a carpet of marigolds. A beloved summer flower of India. An auspicious flower to adorn temples and wedding halls with.

The sight of it pleases him no end. It is a little reminder of the land he once thrived in before his most ardent devotee carried him in her heart across several seas and the continents that divide them, as a constant reminder of the land she too had once grown up in.

In this new world, where the ground is white and the trees are leafless and the air is cold for most of the year, where spring is a brief interlude but her newborn leaves are a throbbing green, where the summer sun is harsh, annoyed at being given so little time to play, the worshipper and her God miss their old home and its vibrant colours.

So every year, they pine for autumn and the burst of colours she brings with her. The reds and yellows and every shade in between. Even the sky is bluer in autumn than at any other time of the year.

But it is the indescribable orange they wait for.

The orange of juicy, ripe mangos.

Of marigolds.

Of golden brocade threaded in intricate designs on the borders of brightly coloured saarees.

Of golden jewellery glinting on brown skin in the sunlight.