Feed the birds...

Growing up all by myself on Herculean oil tankers and coal carriers meant that I often had to find escape routes into more palatable banalities that deserved a little girl mostly dressed in purple polka dresses and abnormally large hats. As I write this, reminiscing about events that rewind back to over a decade and a half, I still wear a purple jumper, purple tights and a purple scarf. A look at my fingernails suggest that it probably needs a manicure - but I can see the ugly remains of my once beauteous purple gloss polish. The colour of royalty they say. It is a notion that was deeply rooted in my psyche by a mother who wore purple on her wedding day.

Though not much was understood by my fickle mind back then, it comforted my juvenile thoughts to slip into chimeran states as often as possible. Somewhere between the Pacific and the Indian ocean, around the land of the Kookaburra, where the Occident and the Orient was trying to define its boundaries, on the shores of some Australian port-city, my father showed me the magic of Mary Poppins.

Feed the birds... Tuppence a bag...

As awestruck as I was by her bottomless bag, my skepticism prevented me from entering the realm that I my father was struggling so hard to push me into. He wanted me to indulge in those childish fantasies. To enjoy, to lose myself... But I questioned. I didn't believe Mary Poppins could do magic. I knew something was wrong. The only thing that really fascinated me about the movie was 'Super-cali-fragilistic-expiali-doscious'. I did really believe my father when he told me that it was the longest word in the English language. We repeated it together until I committed it to memory as he took his evening walk on the 'monkey island'. That was the highest level on the ship. The SOS lights were off. I always had a mad desire to convince someone to turn them on. Very rarely, on lonely oceans, when there weren't any other vessels visible on the radar, the captain would permit the SOS lights to be turned on. It would drive me wild with joy. This particular day, the wind was unleashing its full fury. I always thought that it would carry me away one day. I remembered to behave. I didn't want to become like Thumbelina. There was nothing but black sea as far as our eyes could search.

The dark visuals of the old woman feeding the birds would haunt me. At that age, surrealism meant just that I had to sit through it. It also meant that I was a part of it. It made me queasy. It made me shift on my seat. But I'd calmly sit through it. It was just another phase that I'd have to pass before hitting brighter areas. I knew the sequences by heart. I knew exactly what was going to happen next. I'd watch it everyday. I would wait for the dark scenes. I'd sit through it.

A spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down...

Last year when I finally bought the DVD, I still knew all the lines from memory. But every time I watch Julie Andrews sing croon 'Step in Time', I learn something new. How could I have missed it after all these years of watching the film at least a hundred times?

My mother, I believed had the most beautiful handwriting in the world. I distinctly remember her red cursive writing on the video casette label. It was all capitals. Red felt pen. It was as though Mary Poppins descended from the skies holding her parrot umbrella to write my video cassette label. It fit the fairy tale. It was a dark fairy tale according to me.