I forgive myself
For losing hope today
As a book contract
Was slipping away.
I’m grateful, though,
For this insight:
“I’ve lost a future
But am alright.”
I forgive myself
For getting mad
For not being there
Enough for Dad.
I’m grateful, though,
For this insight:
“We’ve lost the past,
But are alright.”
I forgive myself
For missing “what is”
Rushing through life,
Through “what ifs.”
I’m grateful, though,
For this insight:
“I lose some presents,
But am alright.”
Don’t be surprised.
I’m sitting in the dark
To welcome your shadow,
Your scream, your bark.
I’m not giving in, no,
This isn’t surrender.
I’m not an attacker,
I’m not a defender.
I sit here today
As an equal to you.
Years of impasse
Have proven it true.
Now I know you won’t
Leave me any time soon.
You’ll be here on earth
You’ll be there on moon.
I get it. I concede.
You’ve made your point:
From gene to gene
We’re thoroughly joined.
You need my attention?
You want me to see
Only you for the time
That you visit me?
Done. For the few days
That you’re here to stay,
I’ve cleared my schedule,
Shooed everyone away.
The whole of me is
With the whole of you.
But can we, at least,
Do something new?
If you quiet your drum,
And silence your voices,
I’ll take five minutes
To lay out our choices.
First, let us look
At our record so far.
Every time you strike
Every time you spar,
You trick me to my face,
Attack from behind me,
But the stronger you get
The stronger you find me.
One day, you beat me,
The next day, I you.
By the end of it all,
We’re both spent through.
And if all we are doing
Is keeping score
Why not play chess
And end our war?
You can beat me once,
Even beat me twice,
And I’ll pass my limits,
Grow doubly wise.
Then you can too
Get better at tricks.
Make a fool of me
With your tactics.
We can sit in darkness,
Just you and me.
Let our pieces spell
All the tragedy.
I knew you’d laugh
That you wouldn’t see,
How much you actually
Depend on me.
You can’t be by yourself
You live ’cause I do.
If I’m low on options,
It’ll affect you too.
It’s either this peace
Or I choose to die.
I’m doing my best here
So, you better try.
Take my hand.
Please, reel me in.
To push me to death
Is not your win.
When I’m gone,
You’ll be gone as well.
There is no heaven,
There is no hell
Where we can keep up
This contest of ours.
Only here and now
We have our powers.
Let’s get old together
Just you and me.
Let our friendship spell
A new comedy.
“Didn’t he sell it already?”
“Yeah. Last week only.”
“Yeah. Yeah. I saw it too.”
“Same, same. Like this only.”
They stood watching him park
His tempo-rickshaw with a calf.
A male calf, unwanted at birth.
A male calf sold to Slaughter Slum.
Not castrated for oxen farms,
Nor auctioned off to Shiva temples
Nor left to die on its own.
A male calf who rode in this tempo
Last week for its last adventure.
A male calf who has come back,
Perhaps, from the dead?
“Yeah. It moves not, see?”
“Is it paralysed or what?”
“No, no. Stuffed its skin.”
“Shiva, Shiva.”
“Yeah. A doll calf.”
“Shiva, Shiva.”
He saw them looking wide-eyed,
Calling out to Pashupatinath,
The Lord of beasts and husbandmen
The Lord who likes riding bulls,
Not dolls made for Shivratri.
He showed them his beteled teeth
And raising high the stuffed calf
Showed them the stitches beneath
From chin to tail, running smooth:
A clean work of precision.
Proud of his decision,
He put the calf down again
And brought Mother Cow over.
Mother Cow ran to her son.
Her prodigal son, her beloved son,
Who’d left her, angry with her,
In a modern vehicle
To a modern world,
Like so many sons
Of so many mothers
Waiting at home on this street.
She licked him and caressed him
And licked him and caressed him.
She took a vow to give this son
All the milk her udder could hold,
All the milk her husband could steal,
All the milk her motherhood
Could squeeze through her teats.
For weeks she filled her udder full.
For weeks she tried to cajole her son.
For weeks she let the husband steal.
Still, her son did not take to her.
He returned not her affection.
So cold and stiff to her loving touch.
He touched not her amrit-kumbh.
This son she carried in her womb
Had come back to punish her.
She pined and pined all this while.
He smiled and smiled, the husbandman.
He showed them all the buckets of milk
Oozing from his clever plan.
He laughed when they asked him then
Where he got this wonder done.
Who was the skilled magician?
How do they too find a one?
He laughed and kept moving on,
Laughed and tapped his temple twice.
“Go to your Temple, you ancient lot.
Shiva, Shiva, Haha, Shiva, Shiva, Ha.”
Mother Cow had no such mirth.
Mother Cow wanted back her son.
The son who didn’t talk to her.
The son who…
Her eyes lost their motherly shine.
Her bones lost their fulsome fat.
Her teats lost their ambrosia.
Her feet lost their will to stand.
Veteran vets came and went
Shaking heads from side to side.
Side to side her jaw just moved
Ruminating on a lost child
Found again to be lost again.
They saw his packs of medicine
Dumped in the street’s garbage heap,
Floating in the street’s open drains
And sticking to their cows’ feet.
They saw him offering buckets of betel,
Leaves that the Lord liked to chew,
The Lord of beasts and husbandmen
The Lord who likes riding bulls,
Not dolls made for trickery.
Peace marooned a poet
On an isle of calm.
Far were the waves now
Steady was his palm.
No sharks were chasing,
No sneering pirate crew,
No ragged rocks to dodge,
No hungry birds to shoo.
No pain to make words with,
No tumble in his soul,
He sat there, under stars,
Feeling truly whole.
He smiled for a second,
Watching his relief,
Then frowned for a minute,
Catching disbelief.
Wasn’t he for sure
Beyond salvation all?
How did this happen?
Who heard his call?
Is God really real?
Or is Fate at a trick?
Saved from the oceans
Just to make him sick?
He tore off his clothes,
Looked close at his skin.
No rash, no wound, no pus,
No swelling from within.
If he was saved from doom
For no apparent price,
Will the Devil come
With a plan to entice?
Will he have to pay
Something he held dear?
The more it seemed true,
The more grew his fear.
For forty nights and days,
He lived on high alert.
Will fish become poison,
His nose fill with dirt?
Will sands sink below
To bury him dead?
Or will a falling coconut
Split open his head?
Yet, nothing really happened,
Everything was quiet.
Still, our poet was certain
Something’s not alright.
He raged at the calm,
Couldn’t stand the serene.
Laughing wild in horror,
Dashed through the green.
For the rest of his time,
He stayed on this run,
Saw pus in ocean froth,
Blood in setting sun.
Every time he caught
The Devil in disguise,
Every time he wondered
What would be the price.
“Let me out, you … of a woman.
Let me out right now, I say.
So what if I was a little drunk?
What’s a man to do, anyway,
When he can’t feed his family?
Can’t even sleep around for cash.
Open up, you … … …
Let me out!”
She fed her kids some milky rice.
And fed her cat some watery milk.
And fed her Tulsi some starchy water.
And fed herself some ricey starch.
She didn’t say any words aloud.
But he saw them very clearly writ
Through the grille he shook so hard.
Through his eyes, bloody still.
…
He sat inside his prison grille.
She sat outside with coloured paste.
He drew his breaths of cursing whines.
She drew her signs of the Karthik month.
He talked a lot of parting legs.
She chalked a lot of lotus feet.
He kicked the grille once a while.
She dipped her chalk, calm and still.
He slept when his bluster slumped.
She wept when her doodle dried.
He snored and only snored some more.
She wore her Temple saree pressed,
Unlocked the grille, walked out the door
With Tulsi leaves and frightened kids.
…
“Let me in, you … of a man.
Let me in right now, I say.
Is this what a man’s to do?
When he is pissing money away?
Open up, you … … …
Let me in!”
He traced her doodle, curve by curve.
She watched his bloody fingers dance.
He dipped his palm in the opened cat.
She closed their eyes with her hands.
If wit could right any folly,
I’d set it on melancholy.
But since it can’t, I get to see
Them cohabit in irony.
My every clever turn of phrase,
Questions if my sadness weighs
As heavy as it seems to be
Between my lines of poetry.
“Fine salt. Clear salt.
Straight from the sea.
Fine salt. Clear salt.
Come, come, and see.”
On a flat cycle-cart he comes.
And behind him, sitting royally,
Rides his yellow tarpaulin,
Three-breasted as Meenakshi,
The temple deity he lives next to
But never joins palms before.
He has only one palm, you see.
Lost the other in a paper mill.
So, he bows to Jagannath, you see:
The un-armed and de-feeted God
Of unarmed and defeated people
Who still carry a handicap resolve,
Smoking in their big round eyes
As Handi-black as Jagannath’s,
A resolve to move on with life.
“How do you give it today?”
Grandma calls, sitting royally,
On her own plastic lion-throne,
Basking in winter morning glory,
As I sit at her feet pressing them.
“The same, the same, Ma,” he says.
“The same, the same, hunh,” she thinks.
“Should I give the same?” he asks.
“The same, the same, yeah,” she says.
I so laugh every time they do this.
They do this every time so I laugh.
And then he puts his solitary hand
Roughly inside the yellow blouse,
Digs his fingers deep in there
And pulls a handful out.
Dirty-white crystals all:
So out of shape when out of sea.
Not as fine, nor as clear
As they are when out of packs
Of “The Country’s Salt.” Iodised.
“Shall we drink the sea?” she asks.
“With a squeeze of lemon,” I say.
“And with a pothole big,” he adds.
“Then let it be made,” she says.
I bring out the three tumblers steel,
Along with the Handi of wintry water,
And a lemon, sliced in thirds along
“The Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn,”
Just as Mom had taught me once.
He opens his fist in front of me
Into the plate I hold out to him.
I, then, divide the heap into six,
“First by two, then each by three.”
Three for now, three for later.
For Mom, Dad, and Elder Brother
When they come back in the evening.
I pick and tumble three little heaps
Into the three tumblers steel,
Pour the water, squeeze the lemon,
And stir them all so “Fast-fast.
A pothole in the water, see?”
A pothole in our tumbler sea
I make, all happy, all noisy.
“The sea,” she says, smacking lips.
“The sea,” he says, smacking lips.
“The sea,” I say, smacking lips.
And as we laugh, the street laughs.
“The sea,” I claim lifting my Cup.
“The sea,” they all agree and smile.
And so I sing, like every morning:
“Fine salt. Clear salt.
Straight from the sea.
Fine salt. Clear salt.
Come, come, and see.”
You read my poem and ask,
“Is everything okay?
There’s anything I can do?
You just have to say.
Why don’t you call me?
You think I don’t care?
You know, right, for you
I’ll always be there?”
I know you mean well,
I know you want to help,
But do you have time
Even for yourself?
You think I don’t know
That you are no hermit?
‘Cause every time we talk
You seem to reaffirm it.
You tell me there’s always
Some deadline, some meeting
Suggesting how your leisure
Is short and fleeting.
You’re always buried neck-deep
In your own worries
So, how’ll you be present
To listen to my stories?
And even if you can,
Somehow if you try,
Would you have the patience
To listen to me cry
For hours and hours
Not knowing what to say?
Helpless not knowing
How to make it go away?
And say you can once,
And say you can twice,
But how long will it be
Before you realise
That this is periodic,
That it keeps coming back,
That you can’t be sure
When I’ll get the next attack?
So, when I tell you this,
You’ve just got to trust me:
I can’t let another
Disappointment crush me.
I’d rather be alone when
My voices beat their drum
It’s my trial to face,
Only mine to overcome.
No one sits under the tamarind tree.
Not since the red and off-white tapes
Replaced the red and yellow strings:
Those holy strings dipped in holy paste
Of vermilion and turmeric.
No one consecrated these tapes.
No incense burned, no cymbals clapped.
Just the hurried work of worried men
In khaki clothes and khaki caps,
Eager to put their backs to this street.
No one had called them here.
It’s the street’s business if tamarind trees
Sprouted a forty-year-old man.
The street’s business to pluck it down,
To make a furnace of makeshift wood,
To roast the tamanrind to ashes,
To can it for later use.
No one sits under the tree anymore.
They don’t touch their heads to its trunk
On their way to work and back.
They don’t climb it to pluck petticoats,
Eloped with the wind from balconies.
They don’t sweep its fallen leaves,
Not even on a Dashami.
No one looks at the tall, old lady.
The dark one Dad calls “President”,
The last one to raise her heavy voice,
The smart one to settle quarrels here.
No one gets up when she comes.
They turn their gossip well away
To rising prices and falling health.
They turn their gazes all around,
Looking for misplaced excuses.
They turn away, one by one,
Slowly, not all of them at once.
No one knows on which day now
She will use the axe she carries.
She had thrown him there
All nine years of him
Naked and tied up and crying
In the middle of the road,
In the middle of the day,
In scorching sun,
In scathing shame,
In sight of sittersby
In slits and windows
Throughout the street.
I had puked that day.
I was nine years too.
He had called me names,
Kept me out of games
And spit on me.
I’d written tortures for him
In the back of a book
In the back of a class,
In anger full,
In fancy rich,
In revenge dark.
But not like this.
I had not written this.
I could not have written this.
The sittersby watched on.
They did not puke.
They sat, complicit,
As he called out to them,
One by onlooking one,
After calling out to his mother.
They gave him the same response.
What stayed their hands and feet
That didn’t stay their eyes and ears?
Some leash of social propriety?
No one interferes with mothers
Disciplining children.
It’s not their place.
He learned to keep quiet
That day and every day since.
He speaks when spoken to.
Sometimes not even then.
The sittersby now say
He will return it. The same way.
What will they do that day?
When child disciplines mother?
His silence unsettles them.
They walk on dung-cakes.
They give him gifts,
Talk nicely to him,
Keep him in good humour.
And every other day
They swear the day is coming.
His madness is peaking.
A thirty year old with no cows,
No wife, no children, no friends.
They don’t get him. They can’t.
They just wait.
I don’t think he will do it.
He won’t throw his mother out.
She is his hostage, after all.
Sittersby sit by, be nice to him,
Because they fear the act.
The threat is stronger, far stronger
Than the execution of it.
If he does do it, to his mother,
In front of his house,
In front of their eyes,
In cold violence,
In cruel silence,
In caged vengeance,
Won’t the spell break?
Won’t they pounce on him
Like they pounced on those
Cow-beaters and wife-cheaters?
He reigns supreme now.
He keeps her at home.
He keeps her well fed.
He keeps her afraid.
For three hours of shame
All those years ago,
He inflicts the same
Without doing a thing.
The mother wailed often
Under the tamarind tree.
She wishes she were dead.
That he didn’t call the doctor
Every time she tried to end it.
“He’ll be free, when I’m free.
For twenty-one years,
For each passing day,
He has been stuck alone
Naked and tied up and crying.”
Minakhi Misra 