I’m chasing my impossible –
Infeasible, intractable –
In hopes that I will one day be
Enough for choosing to be me.
I’m chasing something valueless –
It’s marketless and targetless –
In hopes that it will one day be
Enough to warrant currency.
I’m chasing still with chaser’s hope –
Rewards attached to end of rope –
In hopes that I will one day see
Enough to chase detachedly.
Another Horcrux I have made
By striking out a living love
And crumpling down a leaf of soul
To stuff into my empty words.
I’m less than what I woke up as.
And yet I’ll live the longer now.
I’ll feed on inkiness inside.
The Slytherin is strong in me.
I am okay the way I am.
Before I knew the word Guru,
I knew my Jejema was mine.
Her simple, grandmotherly words
(When not accusing everyone,
Or not complaining, grumbling, rude)
Were always dripping wisdom pearls.
I still preserve a memory
I have from baby cradle days.
(Or maybe it was later on
And now my mind is playing tricks.)
I had a plastic pointy star
Suspended from my cradle’s arch.
I tried to grab it, never could,
No matter how I stretched my arms.
And even if a fingertip
Would lightly tilt it to my side,
It quickly slid and rocked away
So much further from my reach.
Frustrated, I would kick it out,
And teasing me, it swung to me,
To only swing away again
Before I clutched my fingers tight.
She saw me do this all the time –
This constant game of pull and push –
And one day, smiling, spoke to me
In what I’d come to call her “voice”:
“It’s fruitless trying to control.
Attachment, pulling, takes away.
Avoidance, pushing, thrusts your way.
And such is life, my little one.
Remember this in everything.
I saw it late. You saw it now.
I hope someday you’ll understand.”
My Muse arrived with floury hands,
Her apron tight around her neck,
But loose around her foodie waist –
An actual superhero cape,
Which has a use, though worn reversed.
She dusted off her latest fight,
And X-rayed me with laser sight,
To ask me simply, “How’re the lines?”
I showed her furrowed ploughing marks
Which started straight, but went awry,
Like oxen still unsure of yokes,
Unsure of bamboo sticks on hinds.
“Another day of shittiness?”
“Another day of shittiness.”
“Remind me why you daily write?”
She teethed the dough beneath her nail.
“Umm. Practice promises progress.”
She teethed the nail to rip it out.
“You mean you’re getting better at
The thing you practise everyday?”
I nodded, frowned at ugly nails.
“And if you daily write this bad,
You’ll get real good at writing bad?”
“You burned the rotis yet again?”
“It’s a girl.”
24 years ago, when my mother heard these words, she was so thrilled that she forgot all about the pains of her pregnancy. Her pregnancy had been taking a toll on her lately with the weight increasing too much in the past two months – she had known ever since that it was going to be a big baby and a difficult one at that, given all the kicking it had been doing. Moving around also had not been so easy since her feet always hurt and she wanted to sit down anywhere she could. It was one such occasion that led to the events of her getting the news, which came as a welcome relief from the pain she had been handling in the past nine months. To top it all, she had always wanted a girl. So, in a way, her prayers were coming true. (more…)
“Can I have a look at your work?”
For a long time now, I have dreaded that question. For me, my writing is private. It is not meant for those who do not know the context and so I choose very carefully who sees my words. And yet, if you know me well, you would know that I have tried in the past to overcome this dread, that this page that you see today is not my first blog. I have, in the past, started and abandoned three of them. Each of these blogs has a story of its own and each has quite an independent share of my writings on it. I will not migrate my work from there, though. They belong there, crystallised in the amber of time. But I will tell their stories here. (more…)
Minakhi Misra 