for Thamma, who taught me the value of daily rituals
#1: Gentle
I am the potion maker’s daughter, A collector of voices at dawn, I am an eye over an eyeglass, A patient ear pressed against lonely walls. I am your regular waiter A flower forgotten between a book Dry, without fragrance, And yet somehow beautiful.
I am the chorus of tiny plants That grace your sidewalks, A celebrator of lazy thoughts That walk in when you are lost. I am a country That’s rewriting her history for she knows The truth was misplaced By overfed thugs. I am a lover more brutal Than a Russian winter, A juggler of languages More voluptuous than Tarantino's tales.
I am the subway stops You don’t stop at, And all the women you’ve loved But left. I am the last rays of receding warmth The first bite of a hungry tongue, I am the words you miss between the lines And the lingering sigh of a desire long lost.
#2: Patterns
They said the magic was lost, They said the spirals on animal horns Didn't enrapture them anymore, They said the veins on a sycamore leaf No longer reminded them Of branches on their family tree.
They said I was old news That there were things more exciting Than yellow nectar combs Or spirally shells loners gather on shores, That there was stuff more enthralling Than dunes on deserts stretched out Like notes on a music sheet, They said the tricks up my sleeves Were as stale as yesterday's bread,
But what they failed to notice Was that even on something as slimy as mold I had painstakingly carved snowflakes for them, On something as dark as the night I had knit them constellations, On something as blue as the ocean There were hula hoops hidden For them to find, Even as I fold and swallow them whole, I will curl them up like a child Put to bed one last time.
#3: Distance
They walked. When the country shut its doors And everyone crawled into their homes, The homeless trudged In search of the nests They had abandoned On the lookout for food.
They walked a distance That none of us privileged ones Reading this right now Will ever walk Unless it is for a televised marathon (Which we will later watch Nestled in the warmth of our loved ones),
A distance that we would never dare Unless well fed And certain about happy consequences,
A distance that’s more arduous Than the mundanity we feel Locked up in our apartments With people we call family.
The distance they walked that day Was far greater than their helplessness, But nothing compared to how little we care.
#4: Unsolved
It puzzles me still How after a night of desperation, After a night of pain And longing and sheer frustration, I still wake up to the cooing of birds.
I hear the crisp biscuit of night Breaking into a cup of dawn, And nature coming alive without remorse.
I cannot wrap my head around The indifference of flowers Opening their mouths and letting out Their customary fragrant gasps.
I cannot understand how The wind tickles the curtains And flirts unabashedly, The neighborhood dogs throw each other off As though they are about to fight, But nuzzle instead, Their love dripping along their mouths.
Shouldn't the morning mourn the night before, I wonder, but it isn't the only betrayer, Even my hands reach out for my pen My heart starts pouring words into my head, And soon I feel this sense of delight Filling me up from inside Removing all traces of last night's sorrow.
#5: Home
When you search for home on Google, It tells you all about The homes of humans From the abode of the earliest tribes To the matchbox apartments of today.
Go pages into it, And there is nothing about The pendant nest of a golden weaver The spiral webs of a silky spider, Barns, burrows, shells and hives, Even the tropical rainforests Are left out.
No wonder then, why we think Homelessness and its terrors Only applies to us.
#6: Suddenly Suddenly he wounds a man, Throws a fist into his tin chest And crinkles the sun in his heart. In his madness, he cannot resist Grabbing the man by his sufferings, Dragging him through the meadows of his longings, And hurling him off the hills of his desires. Suddenly, the man finds himself Beyond the reach of his own voice, He is now an immigrant in the country of his dreams, A path forgotten in the desert of his yearnings.
Now every time the man speaks, the words aren’t his, The language of love has been stripped off his tongue, He smells of star dust rotting along the dark alleys Where sunshine doesn’t reach, Where once his innocence had lived.
#7: Advice
Every time life gives you A chance to be clever, Be kind instead.
#8: Lines
They say, toward the end of his life, The painter turned to tinier objects Still lifes of the gourds on his table, Blooming brushwork of the buttercups in his garden Things that gallery goers Wouldn't pay to watch. They say, toward the end of his life, The painter didn't give a damn About the gallery goers.
He learnt the language of the petals, The bitterness of the fruitskins, And the poverty of the bees That made them circle both. Toward the end of his life, The painter didn't want To paint from memory, He drew the ripe plums on his plate Before he devoured them, And then sketched the lines Around his mouth Now covered with the reddish-purple Of the plum.
What is it about the end That compels us to finally notice What is around us, Which finally ends the maddening search We spend most of our lives in. More importantly though, How do we know that we’re arriving at the end?
#9: Silence
Is silence The absence of presence, Or the presence of absence?
#10: Yesterday
I break into the home of my memories Each moment neatly arranged on racks, A bookcase overflowing with my firsts: The feeling of snow On my two-month-old hands, The sweet taste of mother's milk, The view of stars from Where baba spent his childhood, The sound of a cuckoo at dawn.
And filling up the spaces in between Are some lasts: The touch of your palm on my bare hip, The shape of my grandma's toes, The smell of shellfish before I got allergic, The black of the night when I left home.
And I wonder why all of this Looks exactly like where I live now, Only to realize, Yesterday is what I've been calling home.
#11: Comfort The language of comfort Does not sit well on my tongue, I am inept at speaking it, And even the words that I know, I mispronounce. The tone isn’t right as well It is shrill at times, And at others, it comes out as a plea, Both unlike the melody In which some sing its song. But I don’t give up, That’s one thing I admire about me, I let my body trust me enough To show me where it hurts, Pain doesn’t end, but suffering does, And my body is just waiting For me to learn the difference.
#12: Poetry Smelling all of the world’s flowers at once. Seeing all of the starsEach constellation as clear As they appear in textbooks. A dagger with a balmstick for a grasp. A pencil with a rubber end. The only wait that’s unfamiliar, But bearable. A 2am friend Who’s magically also available At 6, and then again at 10.
A country that’s compassionate Not only to her visitors, But also those who decide To stay back and call her home. All the turnips in your grandmother’s terrace garden. Your grandmother with all her flaws.
An earthquake that shakes you open. A tornado that spins you out Of the terrible world in your head. All the answers you’re looking for, If for once you were willing to listen instead.
#13: If
If you had to register to see the stars, how often would you have admired their mellow?
If the monsoons preceded spring, would you then believe that your being was blooming?
If you didn’t see the colours on your niece’s hands, how would you learn that a mess made is fun had?
If you didn’t constantly try to change who you are, would you then join the universe in its dance within your heart?
#14: Summer
Summer is here, and so is the discomfort. The days are longer than they need to be, The bugs are everywhere they shouldn't be, Everything is feeding on everything, Bees on flowers, Birds on worms, Strays on roadside treats, The mind on memories.
There is something excessive about summer, She is vulgar in her display of love, She is gaudy in her appreciation of herself. In every gesture she makes, She is a mess, and she revels in it.
Summer is everything a woman can be Once she stops worrying About the inconvenience She might be causing the world.
#15: Mother
Leaves things on the stove For way too long, Will one day burn The whole house down. Has peachskin, Bruised when touched Lemongrass breath, Pencil-drawn mouth.
Turns pages of a book As if handling Dreams of a tree, Makes pancakes As if shields Against an apocalypse.
Welcomes every petunia With a cheer And a glass of wine, Says life is worth living Even when your hairdresser Messes up your hairstyle.
#16: Green Between the blue of your thoughts And the yellow of your dreams Lies a colour of solace, A colour that spills over fields And floods valleys of calm, A colour that invites you With all the grief That weighs you down. It wraps you up In its gentle caress, And says, darling, Let yourself alone with me, And see how your being Softens with time.
#17: Window The mouth of a Venus Flytrap luring each family with its gorgeous colours and linings, waiting for their dreams and imaginations to sit on its jaws, offering up a peek or two seductive views of its belly as bait, the curtains its sensory hairs counting intently the movement of your desires, the blinds its petals, one moment, jail bars the next, if you make a mistake.
And you make the mistake.
#18: Normal Walking down the tram lines with her, our silhouettes touching on sand, she sings me a song which she says she sings for those she loves, while I smoke a cigarette and watch the cars drive past us in fury. I can hear raindrops form in the belly of clouds as her face turns into a question and her song fades into the background of sirens and horns proclaiming their urgency and hence importance. We walk to the edge of the park and sit beside a pond of water lilies blooming illuming the faces of lovers cuddling by our sides.
She tells me of lost loves and lives that she thinks she could've had. I tell her of my one life and how I never imagined I'd have what I have. She smiles for she sees I am just a branch cut off the vine still clinging to it, still calling it mine. The sun melts onto her skin as if in search of warmth itself, and I can feel life's flowers turn their faces towards her.
The song has somehow travelled from her lips to mine, and I wonder if that counts as a kiss.
#19: Blind Blind as Meera's devotion, as hope that refuses dejection, as language that tames instead of giving expression, as advice that looks past the mystery of human emotions, as faith that can be used to demand obedience and subjection, as a map that overlooks stories and revolutions, as a dogma that kills wonder in its inception, as a window on the tenth floor overlooking destitution, as an artist painting almond blossoms in the face of destruction.
#20: Fragrant
There’s a paper cutout of orchids on my kitchen wall. No one knows who put it up there, but it’s been there for so long now we don’t have the heart to take it down. The paper has been peeled by time to its last layer, its edges have absorbed fumes over the many years.
The turmeric stains and chilly spills too have added colour to these blue blooms. I hadn’t smelled an orchid until recently, but even now in my head the fragrance it carries belongs to my kitchen gallery of smells-
the pungent essence of heeng my grandma added to almost every dish, the cardamom that goes into our tea, the jeera floating in our jeera pani, the dhaniya in our dal, the limy aroma of curry leaves, the curiousness of methi seeds. An orchid to me then is a door to this gallery of smells that remind me of the food waiting for me to come back home.
#21: Surprise
In a hidden corner of the universe, there are surprises galore silence is a storyteller, heartbreak sings the sweetest songs, emptiness has gifts to offer, and loneliness doesn’t sting at all.
#22: Restless
You were alone and full of fear. Your head was light and your heart heavy, Your hands were cold and feet sweaty, But you did not stop.
You stumbled on the sleepy track Shelled with thoughts from lost eons, Your ears grew numb over the days With no song for them to rely on, But you did not stop.
Some called it madness While others stained your shirt, Some chased you down the road While many gathered around, But you did not stop.
When you refused help, they mocked you, And said you were too proud, When you smiled through it all They said you’d never known doubt, But you did not stop.
You knew what you had to do And what you had to do Was to be done alone, You kept walking come hail come storm, And found your way back home.
#23: April April was supposed to be Wind and wind chimes, flowers and sunsets, Walking a dear one down the aisle With love and hope, joy and kisses. It was supposed to be His soft lips and my trembling heart, Us stealing a little part Of something that’s not ours to keep. It was supposed to be about Exploring the shores of our trust, Seeing a new wonder with the closest ones, But here we are instead Cleaning corners and clearing cobwebs, Sweeping, wiping, cooking, breathing Being tender to parts we’ve neglected most, And this too is a lesson in trust May be not the one we expected, But the one we need to learn before all is lost.
#24: Pause
Every time Marshall and Lily fought, They would hit pause, And pretend nothing was wrong. They would resume the fight After they had proclaimed Their love for each other, After they had fed each other, After they had made love.
My ex who I watched the show with Thought this was ridiculous. He said they were escapists, That “real relationships” Don’t work that way, That there was a time for love, And a time for being brutal, And you couldn’t halfass either. It’s a shock then how he fell for an artist, Isn’t that what we do?
Art is our pause buttonWe hit it and turn our faces to beauty When things are crumbling, I mean, we were making music, for god’s sake When the Titanic was sinking! I don’t think it’s escapism, But a willingness to look beyond the real In order to hold, Even if for a fleeting moment, That which is true.
#25: Dream
A ruin dreams from memory, And so we have started plucking From the shrub of our lives Lived moments that we took for granted. We pick them now honouring their delicateness, Attentive to the mess we made the first time. We string them one by one Weaving a garland for something holy, Something bigger than our egos. This time, let us hope This wreath of our dreams Is not a noose for those With whom we share this temple of life.
#26: Emergency
Just 42 days, and we are already running out of words to say to each other.
#27: Recipe
Some say they can Take a bite of a dish unknown, Pause a while And then tell you exactly What went into making it, The secret recipe, they say, Is untied by their tongue Which then comes unfurling Revealing everything to them.
I have always found this To be very arrogant As if only ingredients Went into making something, Like it was all just a list of instructions On an IKEA manual, A how-to guide for dummies. Nothing is said about The one who grows the vegetables, The one who displays The best ones on the counter, The one who picks what‘s most luscious, The one who chops With craftsman-like precision. And what about the one who stirs With a magic wand, A part of their essence being absorbed, Their moods a seasoning to top it all.
While I have hated this, I must confess, I have made The same mistake, only worse, I have taken bites of people, Paused, And said, I have figured them out.
#28: Language Language sets the landscape, The story comes much later It builds a home In this setting of sounds, The brook, the birds, The neighbours asking each other About their plants, The gentle nudges of words, A sigh escaping the lips of drudgery, The horns, the factory songs The shrillness of progress Make it hard sometimes to hear This story of the place, But that's what language does, It moves on Steering itself out of a familiar story To set into motion The background of the next, To serve as a womb For something new to spin a tale.
#29: Map
When we look at a map Are we really looking at places, Or faces waiting for us on the other side?
#30: Goodbye I will tuck a forget-me-not Between the pages Of the book I’ll lend you, I will slip into your dreams Every now and then Like the sea Touching the toes of passersby, I will be a gentle caress, at times, The fleeting rays of the sun Through the windows in your study. At other times, I will be mischievous Like the cacophony of morning birds Fighting for your attention Drawing you away From your notebook for just a while. If nothing works, I will be incessant Sticking to your tongue Like the lines of a forgotten song.
In my goodbye, dear love, I will leave reasons behind For you to ask me to return.