PREETI PARIKH, 12 P.M
The Migrant’s Origin Song I come from cantonments, jongas and jeeps, one-ton and three-ton trucks hauling military engineering equipment— I come from bridge construction sites, the mile-wide Brahmaputra river flooding, army helicopters summoned for rescue operations— I come from the words forces and civilians— I come from small hill stations and capital cities rchitecture by British colonials— I come from joint families and ancestral homes long razed and replaced by millennial buildings— I come from misri, panjiri, nutty wheat flour roasted on iron skillets— I come from pine trees, morning bugle calls, blanket and bedding in hold-alls, trunks, hole-in ground toilets— I come from 8x10 hostel rooms, immersion rods warming bathwater in buckets, laundry drying on clotheslines, benches on stepped terraces— I come from power outages, inverters, petromax lamps— I come from backyards with jackfruit trees, rows of bathua, carrot, cauliflower, pepper plantings— I come from home kitchens with makeshift temples and neem leaves steeping in saucepans— I come from the northern plains of the Ganga, from the waters of Teesta, Chenab, Tawi, Jhelum, Yamuna, Sabarmati— I come from desert sands billowing into turbaned heads and veiled eyes— I come from sleeper cars in narrow gauge trains, water in matkis, and chai in kulhads on platforms— I come from childhood collections of coins and erasers, first-day postal covers, books amassed and circulated amongst school friends, a precise one-to-one bartering— I come from the family motto: Help others, and God will take good care of your life— I come from questioning God, questioning life— I come from curfews, communal riots, immolations— I come from an undivided Indian subcontinent— I come from partition; I come from separation.
46
