I remember an evening when my feet kissed the damp soil
My long dark hair flowing down in glossy coils
The earth being passed on to summer from spring
Aroma of baby mangoes and the cuckoos’ calling
A garland of fresh white jasmines pinned to my hair
A trail of the scent followed me everywhere.
I carried a large book in my arms
It told me tales of uncountable charms;
In our garden I spent my evening
Reading about kingdoms and kings
Time stopped yet flew as ever.
Each moment I delightfully savoured.
I imagined myself trapped, like the princess
In the tower, the damsel in distress,
I could almost see my prince slay the beast
The story ended with our wedding feast.
I remember the evening when I closed my book of tales
And returned to my dingy room, untidy and stale
Maa and Baba raising their voices across the thin walls
Happily ever after, I knew, was false
Maa chided me for reading fairy tales
She said it was time for me to read something else
After all I was a girl growing up
And dreaming was indeed not enough.
I put away the book one day
To ground myself in reality.
Days and years and lives have passed
I wonder if I did grow up.
I say I don’t believe in fate
But deep inside I think I may
I’ll tell no one, but I think I’ll wait
For my saviour, my soulmate.
A long time back when I was a rather ruthless child,
I found a scared baby sparrow in our balcony.
I harboured anger against them, the little chirpy birds
They stole and ate every flower bud that our plants gave birth to.
This little piece of feathery enemy sat there like a blob of confusion
And I decided to have some fun with it.
I meant to scare it a little
Have my revenge
Then feed it some puffed rice using tweezers
Until it learnt to fly and join its mafia gang of the flower-eaters.
I am being candid when I say
There was absolute malice in my smile
When I approached the tiny trembling bird
And shouted “SHOO” at it.
I knew it would be scared shitless
But ha! Where would it go, flightless little blob of feathery meat?
As I looked at it, basking in its helpless hazard, I saw-
It gathered all the strength it could conjure;
In a motion that was a mixture of rolling, running and gliding,
It moved through the gaps in the banisters of the balcony railing
And fell down two storeys
Straight to its death.
The evil smile that I had, turned into a gape of horror
What had I done?
It has been years since I killed the bird,
Yet it returns to me every time I’m in a room full of strangers
My first instinct being
To roll-glide-run
And plunge to death.
Paper-thin lies and overcast eyes
I look away from you.
Back when I never thought I’d be here one day
I knew perfectly what I’d do
(In my mind I’d lived so many lives
But I didn’t really, did I?)
I could throw my arms and bawl
Act as if I’d lost it all
“How could you do this to me?”
I could curse you a thousand times.
Or I could be cool and quiet
Keep my self-respect and pride
Leave you in a moment, and say,
“I hope you are worth her pain.”
I could even keep a straight face.
Before we part our ways,
We might even promise to stay friends.
Your paper-thin lies and my overcast eyes
I look away from you.
I do nothing really, I’ve turned to stone
I am not surprised, I had always known.
How foolish of me to fancy
That I’ll be someone’s home.
Forgetting is silly
When you keep echoing
What’s-it-called what’s-his-name what-was-I-saying
In every conversation once twice thrice
But it’s all nice
Nobody minds it, really
You might forget who you met
(Maybe it was someone not that great)
Or the name of the person you’re talking to
And cover it up with a smile or two;
Forgetting is nonchalance
A disrespectful indifference, a lack of sense
When you fail to do what they asked of you
Simply because you didn’t remember to
An irresponsible fool
Who agrees to
Run errands, and evades doing them
It’s natural that you’re to blame;
Forgetting is confusion
A blurring of your youthful vision
When you can’t remember
The goals that centre
Your lousy little life-
What to live for, what to live by?
Jumbled up to-do lists and half-done work
Failing to pick up where you left off.
Forgetting is absolutely wretched
It may fill you with a blunt dread
When you can’t remember
What the hell is supposed to make you feel
Something. Nothing? Anything!-
To make you dance, to make you sing
There’ll be something that you can almost feel
But you might just forget what it is.
Forgetting, I say, is worse than loss.
Forget me not, forget me not.
“Who will be my home?” Everyone looks outside the window and asks. But I can’t remember what a home is, Is it my mind, my body, my family, my city, my country? I’ve been a stranger everywhere, Often enough to ask like a little child What is a home? Home is the person you love, they say, The person you return to after a day of rain and hailstorms, The arms you hide inside when the world comes out to swallow you whole. It’s not that I don’t know what a home is I can’t feel it. All I can understand with my massive joke of a brain Are stories. You and I, we’re stories, we’ve always been Some are more than that, they are dreams. Therefore I’ve stopped searching for a home (After years of walking along aimless alleys and lanes which lead nowhere) I’ll start stringing words and actions into tales Only hoping they’ll connect me to a story that I can call mine So the next time I put on sad, soothing music And look out of the window I’ll ask “Who will be my story?”
I don’t know what it is to be a daughter They say that blood runs thicker than water But why is it that I feel no ties? I look at my mother and I see it in her eyes The pure, unconditional love she bears I know ‘motherhood’ has been glorified for years Their sacrifices becoming not a choice but a consequence. Yet unmistakably I’ve seen love in her, hence Her love must make me a daughter? There have been days when I have thought her Love for me was misplaced, a mistake Because despite my desire to reciprocate I’ve let my heart be an impassive stone Despite her love, I have felt alone. My father does listen to what I have to say But smiles at my concerns, at the end of the day I’m not the older son whose advice holds sway And not until my brother had to move away Did I become my father’s right hand Despite a daughter, (almost) a dependable young ‘man’. I was twelve when one day I served him tea Without being asked to, and he Smiled sweetly and said “It’s great You’re finally learning how a daughter should behave.” What it is to be a daughter I don’t know yet I’m putting together pieces from the society’s set Of rules and do’s and don’ts I can find So that one day I can have my peace of mind.
There’s nothing new under the sun There’s nothing new about my pain, longing, love Nor in my desire to be unique. There’s nothing new in my poem, When I say I’ve been blue to have missed you Red to have kissed you Black to have forgotten you and myself I’m only rewording what I’ve said Maybe a hundred years ago, Even a thousand, who knows? The gnawing hunger in my mind To compose the poem to end all poems To create it all and consume it all- Is a spectacular piece of comic nonsense I laugh, louder and louder till my lungs bitterly burst And I’m finally empty again- A quill with no ink A blank word file A waste of time.
Nobody told me how to look up From the road filled with grey, Stretching and stretching into eternity And look into the world Into People. Sheer crowds of them Moving in a steady fast pace
I lock my eyes with a man and my heart leaps Not in joy, There are no butterflies in my stomach No love in my heart My heart leaps like I’d like to leap into an abyss. The glance of the man Lasts only for a fraction of a second He looks away And I start looking at myself What did he see? That fraction of a second costs me a lifetime Of mapping my body, my gestures, my posture Measuring what I am and what I should be Measuring to fit in But sticking out like a sore thumb.
Nobody told me how to look straight Into the mirror And not want to be someone else. I resist the urge to shatter it into pieces The glass is spotless and devoid of cracks I am not No one is.
I lock my eyes with myself I travel back in time to all the promises I had made Pointing fingers at the mirror Pep-talk for the self. The mirror stays at the same place Neither have I gone any further Only the years have gone by. The one standing on the other side calls me a liar and a cheat I admit defeat And put out the lights.
Nobody told me how to look down Into the screen And not compare myself to every standard set. Scrolling up and down Sighs of despair and unfulfillment Oh the disparity.
I lock my eyes with the girl on the screen With eyes as blue as the times when I’m feeling down Figure as enchanting as non-existence is to me Skin as smooth as the paper I accidentally cut my fingertip with Smile as bright as sun on a scorching summer day. Even while I fight the Euro-centric bias Perpetuated in our minds I wonder why some get to be so perfect And more importantly, Why some get to decide what’s perfect.
Nobody told me how to look inside Get out of my head And get over myself.
“How was your day?” . . In the mornings When my mother starts her day in the kitchen And my father looks for the newspaper All I want is an excuse.
An excuse to pause the day, even before it has begun.
“Halt!” I say to Mr.Time. Mr.Time wears a suit and a tie With glasses as thick as icecubes Perched on his rigid nose. He slaps me hard and shouts like a war general “Yes,Sir!” I come back to my senses.
The day goes on and on and on Like a thriller movie in slow motion, Devoid of background music. Deja vu Every moment a facsimile of some other one.
There’s a cadence to monotony If you have the ear for it. Sometimes I do, don’t you too?
Before long, I get lost In other worlds freshly manufactured Where facts don’t matter, Mr.Time is banned, And I am free.
But I’m no God, no Creator Almighty My thinly framed bubbles of thoughts Fade away like half-remembered memories Oh so quickly Poof! And I’m back again. Nothing makes sense yet, but at least I’m back to my senses.
Ringing voices vibrate in my ears Boys grinning with their mouths wide open Girls leaning onto each other Tearing up into giggles. The dusky sky and the dazzling streetlights Coexist with different ideals of beauty I keep my eyes open For every sight.
We call it a day. I make my peace with Mr.Time He smiles at me like a benevolent captor I smile back. . . “My day was great, how was yours?”
