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.
They cannot find his fallen corpse,
Despite the sixty-hour search.
No blood on rocks. No washed up clothes.
No shredded alligator scraps.
They call it “corpse”, though no one knows
If there’s a chance that he’s alive.
You don’t survive a fall like that.
And yet, no one is fully sure.
Except his mother, sister, “friend”,
Who have been up and down the stream
Again, again, again, again,
But not in search of any corpse.
“Why does he have to do these stunts?”
“Why does he never obey me?”
“Why always gone? He’s thirty now.”
“Why worry? He will turn up, see?”
He’s led two hundred mountain treks.
He’s conquered thirteen different peaks.
He’s climbed up breathing volcanoes.
But never up a waterfall.
His final photo shows him thrilled.
His wetsuit zipped. His helmet strapped.
And those “sawanobori shoes” –
Oh God, they look so “duplicate”.
The backpack-mounted GoPro shows
A tumble of some ninety feet –
The wet lens bouncing off a rock,
Detaching from his falling shriek.
A journal in a ziplock pouch
Inside recovered backpack reads,
“Because…”,
“Because…”,
“Because…”,
“Because…”
To every “Why?” he did not heed.
She fears the loss of local lore.
The men and women of my age
Know neither Gods, nor sing their songs,
Forget the plays put up on stage
To keep their stories living strong.
She fears the loss of local herbs.
The men and women and the old
Know neither names, nor use of them,
Forget the bedtime stories told
To learn this creeper or that stem.
She fears the loss of local pride.
The men and women and the young
No longer paint themselves, nor wear
The _jatra_ costumes, strung and swung
In ecstacy of zesty prayer.
In eighty years of selfless art,
They did not let her write her heart.
They fetch her on the jatra days,
To bathe her, clothe her, paint her face,
And loose her like the Goddess Storm
Descended into human form.
Elated, she assaults the street,
And picks up dung with painted feet,
And flicks it on to motorbikes
And kicks whatever she dislikes.
The people watch her from the rooves –
Her shrieking, reeking, Goddess grooves –
And shower on her mango leaves,
Which, with her curses, she receives.
The jatra lasts about an hour.
They let her go with bags of flour,
Forget about her, as before,
To wander as the loony whore.
“If wearing Batman t-shirts could
Provide me Batman’s fortitude,
And even Batman’s fortune too,
I’d torch them all without a chew.
I’m dumb that way. I’d be so lost
With so much unearned plenitude.”
“You sure? It sounds so empty, dude.
You haven’t ever shied away
From freeloading on snacks I buy.
I’ve never seen you even try
To work on earning anything.
Agreed, you’re dumb. Just not that way.”
“Come on. That isn’t even fair.
I don’t know what you’re on about.
I earned my t-shirt – smart retail –
I brought you intel on the sale.
Now get yours with the cash you earn.
The buy-one-get-one’s running out.”
This inward journey simply whelms –
Not over- and not under-. Just. –
I wonder if I like it so.
I find no joy in others’ joy,
No pain in others’ crying pain,
No oneness with their loneliness.
They push. I simply empty out.
Without resistance, balance lost,
They fall ahead. I do not care.
Is this what dead-end jobs are like?
Or treadmill jobs that go nowhere
Despite a lot of huff and puff?
Is this what water feels inside?
Just cycling states and getting bored
Until it’s split by lightning strikes?
Be water, my friend?
Minakhi Misra 