English

 

 TIRISHANKU*

 

Carrying tamarind rice and potato curry

in toughened palm leaves

in the red-horned bullock cart,

the bells jingling as the dirt-path curved,

grandmother told her story

on the way to the mountain waterfall -

Born in Mithila's paddy fields

and flung to Ayodhya as Shiva's bow was strung -

and I did not know

that life next day

would be in another metropolis. 

 

As grandmother continued

that she had left for the forest

even as Mithila's green eggplants, turmeric-seasoned,

were cooking,

unable to fathom the blue wonder of the sea

while seated on a camel near the new city's skyscrapers,

we moved to another city,

a Nandiyarvattaiflowerpot in hand. 

 

I took leave of

her toe-rings

that I had played with endlessly

taking off and putting on,

and the lake-shore

with its outline of red earth

to extinguish the native woman's hearth.

the Cynthol talcum powder tin

that became my plaything

crashes and disintegrates

into the disrooted life's haze.

 

Carrying Ayodhya's coriander

and the home-smell of cooking rice

as the wild creepers kindled a fire,

she who crosses continents and times

met with her mother's voice in a haze. 

 

There,

she buried in earth, with memories.

Here,

she whirls in space, nowhere. 

 

* Tirishanku is a mythological character who is supposed to have been inhabited an inbetween space, neither in heaven, nor on earth. The poem is interspersed with the story of Sita from the Ramayana.

 

 

 

 

SKIN

 

 

From the photograph

upon the office table

bearing the nameplate of Meghan Wood,

golden strands

teasing blue eyes

touch my wheatish fingers

that had rested on the computer for long

as Meghan Wood's friend asked,

is she away just for today

or the entire week?

 

As I went to get coffee,

another question

from another who had not yet smiled -

is Meghan Wood unwell

or just on vacation?

Beneath the gilded inquiries,

the glistening truth:

Are you taking over her job?

I replied calmly,

I'm just doing her work for today.

The white icebergs slowly loosened.