Minakhi Misra

He says he comes from Germany
To study urban monkey tribes,
And how they mark territory
Migrating up the coastal lines.

He flatters both our parents’ work:
His Physics, her Zoology.
Appreciates their influence
On research grant authorities.

He flashes shiny tools and gears,
With sponsorships from big-big names.
And flicking through some photographs,
Recounts adventures in our state.

He asks if we have spotted them:
His monkeys with the collar tags.
Why can’t he track their GPS,
We ask, if they have collar tags.

He shifts a little here and there
And draws a lengthy jargon loop.
Our mother blinks and asks him straight,
“So, biped monkeys hazed a newb?”

Gorilla German shrinks to Chimp.
The Alpha gives Omega shrugs.
And flicking falling strands of hair,
Recounts a mugging at a pub.

If sleep arrives, it stays the night.
No more I’m woken by my dreams.
If sleep arrives at all, that is.
No more my mother hears my screams.

The breathing forms, the prayer beads,
The air conditioner, newly bought –
They all invite my sleep at night,
But nothing’s like your tablets, Doc.

They zombie me. They fatten me.
They make me lose my games of chess.
They make me make excuses, but
They bring my sleep like nothing else.

Of course, I flushed them long ago.
Addictions I have quite galore.
That doesn’t stop me missing them.
I miss so much and so much more.

Some nights I toss a coin and know
No sleep will come, no thoughts will go.
These nights, I sit and stare at stars
And watch the dew drop slowly grow.

“You smell of booze and something wrong.”
“The something wrong is ganja, Mom.”
“I thought you touched only the cake.”
“I touch them all. Just don’t partake.”
“You passive drink? That makes you stink?”
“If spilled on you for saying no.”
“And why exactly do you go?”
“Because I’ve lived a sheltered life.”
“And now you crave the other side?”
“I’m simply callusing my mind.”
“And what exactly do you find?”
“How weak I am. How much I fear.”
“You find this in the stink of beer?”

“I find this when I’m shoved around.
I find this when they laugh at me.
I find this when they call me names.
I find this when they spit at me.”

“My God! You could be anywhere.
You never have to see these men.
This town is getting to your head.
Should we just go to Mumbai, then?”

“I’m not afraid of what they do.
My weakness isn’t helplessness.
These men are stuck here. I am not.
They want to scare, but they cannot.
These men are weak. They drink to puff.
They know I’m made of sterner stuff.
I’m weak because I lose my calm,
Forget myself, and get alarmed,
Despite my knowing they can’t hurt.
Before I know I start to blurt
The things I know will pinch them deep.
I’ve made a grown man almost weep.
I fear the weapon of my tongue.
No, not because I may get stung.
I’ve lashed it out on blameless friends,
Who challenged me from innocence,
Who stood up when I was at fault,
Whose words I labeled as assault.
I go because I’m insecure.
I get so easily provoked.
I go to learn to calm my rage.
As calm as if I’ve really smoked.”

“May not have smoked, but you are drunk.
You like it when you lash your tongue.
You bully those who cannot speak
As well as you, and call them weak?
They drink, they smoke, get on their way.
That’s more than what you’ve done today.
Accept that there are things beyond
Your power to control. Respond,
Instead, by simply going back
To where you’d left your chosen track.
Its challenges are tough enough
To prove you’re made of sterner stuff.
You think it will not drive you mad?
Remember all the scares you’ve had?
You’re hiding from your actual work,
Because it’s easy now to shirk.
Your Dad is gone. You blame yourself.
He was beyond our mortal help.
No need to go somewhere and fight.
You have the time? Sit down and write.”

The barber who came by today,
The one who claims, “I’ve shaved you all” –
My father (dead), my uncle (dead),
Their father (dead), their uncle (dead),
Their distant cousin (almost dead),
And me, when I was one year old –
Deduced I am “irresolute”.

I laughed despite the blade he grazed
Against my prickly clover chin.
“And why exactly am I that?”
He blew upon my shaven skin,
And razed the Adam’s Apple slow.
“Just look at how your beard grows.
See, this way, that way, swirly, cursed.
A nightmare for our razorwork.
It’s like it’s trying to be rude.
Directionless. Irresolute.”

“And how were my forebears’ beards?”
“Oh! They were straight and silk and sparse.
And nothing like your prickly brush.”
Before I spoke, I heard him hush!
“I’ll cut you if you move so much.
Unless you straighten out your ways,
You’ll have your bloody shaving days.”

He sounded almost menacing.
This toothless, though unfrazzeled, king
Who sat upon his three-legged throne,
And held his court from door-to-door,
At least the ones that opened still.
“Your father had an iron will.
Don’t shame him like this anymore.
Make up your mind. Become his pride.
And get yourself a decent bride.”

Now, where is it? I wrote something.
About an hour, I wrote something.
My body knows I wrote it all.
Or, was it just a fevered dream?

Anthropomising all my fears
As children I have tumbled with,
As faster boys in games of Tag,
As quieter girls in Hide and Seek,

As little children beating me
In every game I play with them,
Except in chess, where I don’t lose:
They win because they blunder less.

There’s nothing on the paper, though.
There’s nothing on my Google Keep.
My body knows I wrote it all.
But, was it just a fevered dream?

The characters are fading now.
And not the way when I awake.
The way they do once I am done
Imprisoning them on a page.

My soaken bed shows sweaty sleep.
My mother’s face, that I have screamed.
My body knows I wrote it all.
And yet, it was a fevered dream.

My grief is not the woe of loss.

It’s all the love I have for him,
But cannot give him anymore.

It’s all the chess I’d learned for him
But cannot set the pieces for.

It’s all the books I’d bought for him
But cannot read aloud to bed.

It’s all the want to join him now,
But cannot, in the land of dead.

My grief is not the woe of loss.
My grief is woe of hoarded junk.

She came as soon as she had heard –
A newborn in the Brahmin house.
Perhaps, a boy? Perhaps, a girl?
If boy, they’ll give her gold for sure.
If girl, at least, a saree pair.
She stopped outside to catch her breath.
She stood up straight, then bulged a hip,
Then with a smile, she clapped her hands.
“Congratulations, Brahmin Sir!”
“Congratulations, Brahmin Maa!”
She swayed her hips and walked inside.
The twenty-somethings looked at her.
Then looked at fifty-somethings there.
The first-time mother cried aloud.
The first-time father looked around.
The fifty-somethings stayed inert.
“Come, take this devil out of here.”
A devil? What is going on?
“Hey you! Come here and take this out.”
She walked, no longer swaying hips,
To where an infant slept in peace.
A devil? Yes, a devil. Sure.
Not boy, not girl. Not human, so.
She picked it up and stood up straight.
With swaying hips, she smiled around,
And clapping breast, she sang in joy,
“Congratulations, Hijra Tai!”
“Congratulations, Kinnar Maa!”

Now every time I hear the drums,
A heart of me escapes a beat.
It triggers some uneasy hours
Of helpless stuckness in my back
That arched to mind the ceiling of
The ambulance we travelled in.

The coldness of the ambulance
Was not as cold as what I touched
Beneath the starchy white linen
That smelled of mothballs stretching arms.
The flowers, basil, incense sticks,
Leftover nebulizer scent,
The flatulence of driver-guy,
Suppressed my foul incompetence,
Whose fetid reeking now effuses
Every time I hear the drums.

Another heart of me refuses
Turning into trampled crumbs.

He reads her poetry at dawn
Before she wakes and takes her book.
She writes in cursive alphabet
The lines that keep him on the hook.

She never reads her lines aloud –
Nor lets him read her “loopy hand” –
For once her pencil’s run through it,
There’s nothing left to understand.

Some days, it’s just a couple lines,
Some days, a song is fully formed.
Some days, a moon of gratitude,
Some days, a cloud in thunderstorm.

He’s proud of her, afraid of her –
So much she’s learned at age of twelve.
He’d never found the time for her,
And now she doesn’t want his help.

You cannot find a tale inside?
You think it’s ’cause you’re empty now?
Or is it that you cannot see?
Or is it you’ve forgotten how?

The form, the space, the mood, the tale –
It’s all in there for you to find.
If form and space and mood you have,
A tale cannot be far behind.

Go inward, inward, inward still.
See further than your furthest view.
Remember, making circles small?
Your breakthrough is your baseline new.

And then, relax. Exhale. Emerge.
Remove your self and pick your pen.
Whatever rises, jot it down.
Repeat till you can write again.