Down a narrow, winding side street in an unknown section of Mumbai is the jasmine lady. Every morning she seems to emerge from the droplets of mist in the early dawn with her fresh garlands of milky white jasmine. The fragrance travels like a magical spell through the clusters of sari clad aunties, tirelessly bartering in the midday heat with vegetable and fruits vendors.
This street has become quite renowned for the sweet tempered old lady, settled like a lotus on a soft, white sheet. No one is sure where she lives or where she has come from, but she has been there for so many generations that her presence has been permanently etched into the painting of this famous street. A deep ocean blue sari flows forth like the ripples of a river, its velvet soft texture as soft as rose petals. Her eyes are like lucid pools of crystal water and her smile makes you feel like you’ve awoken from a hundred years of mystical dreams. She is known throughout simply as Sarawaswati.
Where do all her milky white garlands disappear to at the end of the day? For it seems that the layers of necklaces only increase in number, even as they’re sold one by one. When the rest of the city as fallen asleep under the spell of darkness, Sarawaswati calls upon the Devs and Devis. Festooned in her garlands, they flutter through the night, squeezing sweet drops of it fragrant juice on the children of the streets.
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