My Anchors—Obsessions That Changed With Me

I have often wondered if obsessions change as we age — or simply reveal their true hierarchy… and our truest self.

There was a time when silk sarees had me under their spell. Not the modern ones that dazzle under showroom lights — but the old, traditional ones, heavy with history and woven in quiet dignity.

I love the sarees of M.S. Subbulakshmi. Sometimes I doubt if I was first drawn to her sarees and then accidentally stumbled upon her Carnatic music. The Kanjeevarams she wore, with their timeless temple-border grace, spoke to me long before I understood ragas.

Then, after a few years, I noticed a quiet inclination towards antiques. Anything antique — a glass, a spoon, a lamp, a painting, a piece of furniture — exerts a strong magnetic pull on me, especially if it is made of brass or wood.

The latest addition to my antique collection is the most precious one I have met yet, and I know it will remain the most treasured. For my last birthday, an eighty-year-old Veena came to me for a lifelong, live-in bond, quite unexpectedly.

Some things in life are just like that. They happen when we aren’t even looking for them, and then quietly become our soul’s most cherished presences — without written bonds.

I should confess — I’ve developed a habit of naming still things. To me, they hold memory, breath, and a presence that feels, at times, almost more than human. So they deserve names. Stillness is not the same as inanimate — I should know.

Who knows — perhaps they wonder why we carry names.

I named this antique Veena Vasundhara (Sanskrit for “Bearer of wealth and prosperity,” also “Mother Earth”). She is the eldest in my home now—bearing a unique, ancient elegance that beautifully complements the Veena, which has been living with me these past 22 years.

In her eighty years, someone may have lit a lamp before Goddess Saraswati and practiced Varnams at dawn. Does she miss them? Maybe… but one day, she’ll miss me — I feel it. She’s probably upset I’m not as fluent in her language as those who lovingly held her before me — though I pretend I am!

Through all of this, there was another presence — quieter than silk, older than any antique I would ever own. My earliest memory with books begins with a Malayalam classic — Aithihyamala, a compilation of ancient legends about Kerala. Assuming my memory is still intact.

Then there was 1001 Ravukal — Arabian Nights in Malayalam, the stories that taught me stories could be endless.

And then Oru deshathinte kadha — a kind of autobiography, detailing some 60 years of history in a fictional village, ending in a whisper: “forgive me for intruding… consider me as a non-native person.” I felt it in my bones.

As I grew, the stories that touched me were Balyakalasakhi (a childhood friendship that quietly becomes love — and breaks your heart), Mathilukal (a love story lived entirely through a prison wall), and Agnisakshi (a marriage, and the slow fire burning beneath its silence). There are many others, but somehow these names surface first as I write this.

These are not love stories with happy endings. They are stories that linger — long after you’ve left your teenage years, and even late into midlife. Those stories haven’t changed, but I have. And yet they stay with me still…

While my peers fought over Mills & Boon, I was elsewhere!

As the years passed, I found myself increasingly drawn to historical fiction and autobiography. I’m becoming nosy across centuries. Or am I digging for archaeological evidence of human survival? Or simply trying to trace what held those who walked before me steady? I don’t know.

My rapport with books goes far beyond books themselves.

Sometimes it is with the cover that first sparked my attention.

Sometimes the smell of paper, old or new.

Sometimes the characters inside them.

Sometimes a sentence that feels written just for me.

Sometimes the blurb.

Sometimes the author.

Sometimes the person who gifted me the book. (Ninety-nine percent of my books are gifted to me by me!)

I buy books deliberately — I choose them, I court them. I don’t share them for more than a day.

Some books on my shelves carry Papa’s name on their first page. He had the most beautiful handwriting I have ever seen. I treasure those books differently; I believe Papa still lives inside those pages. Now I write my name next to his in pencil — to be near him, the only possible place where we can be together for the time being: on their first page.

Time shifts roles. I am giving away my sarees to my daughter and daughter-in-law, echoing Papa’s book gifts to me. It surprised me how easily my hands let them go. The obsession that once felt permanent has softened — like silk itself.

Though antiques loosen their grip, books hold my pulse — my anchors. When the waters grow rough, anchors matter.

Looking back, I see that each obsession phase was never a separate season. They overlapped and intertwined — each one changing me in its own way. Every obsession, in its weaning and leaning, becomes a bridge between who I was and who I continue to become.

I know — after my days, my children may auction them. I hope not all. I cannot tell them not to. They will have their own anchors.

P.S. This post is for all my anchors — in silk, in brass, in wood, in paper, and in people. You know who you are.