From a schoolgirl’s diary On Saturdays I went to Buddha’s house where he sat in lotus position, eyes closed, filling the circular room that was earth, his conical head touching the arched sky. Saturday was holiday for school. Papa would be at his office. Mama was always absent; she was in Dubai nursing an Arab’s […]
Salt Mother thunders into the kitchen, a banished witch reclaiming her place amidst the arcane, and tips half a jar of salt into the rice like she tipped over the wardrobe earlier, her rage untrammelled by grey pills or Godrej steel. ‘Choril uppilla,’ she chants, her abrupt fury terrifying my cousin, whose perfectly-cooked rice has […]
“After all, Punjabi is spoken on both sides of the border, divided only by the script”~ This is the splintering. This is the passport which still reads Lahore, India. This is also the indiscretion. What no scrubbing can erase, for the way sameness seeps through cracks and makes itself known. To speak my father’s tongue […]
Premonitions 1 A white room with monitors an otherworldly space in winter I see you from the flip side of the soundproof glass-wall; tubes inserted from every side screens playing an unscripted language in motion. Your body is immobile – but your eyes, they dart in all directions in their yearning to remember – our […]
For Mama *** Mom and I talk in the kitchen only. I follow her and say, in English, I miss the Arab fisherman from Marina beach terribly. The joy in your eyes when he caught a fish every Saturday was special. She says in Konkani. Dole pole. She points at the fish eyes. I search […]
The poems can be read in their original format by clicking here