these days

these days

i know what a piece of cotton cloth feels
when it's drowned in a mixture of onion skins,
or lac or turmeric roots or a vessel full of scented pink garden roses.
and left to stay there overnight or more.
what goes on inside that powerful darkness,
the explosion of hushed conversations
between the juices, the colors, the cotton filaments
and the empty spaces between those filaments.
the poetry of their marination, the staining of one soul over the other,
giving rise to a desire to remain overlapped, dyeing.
but equally bursting with an urge to share the sublime experience.

.

i'm a cotton cloth let to dye inside the pages of a book.
the letters, the thoughts in those letters and the man behind those thoughts and letters
are staining me in ways my own words could never reveal.
and as our souls overlap, i'm blissfully torn between
wanting to lock my inner door to everything outside
and a desperation to emerge, briefly, to play my rapturous flute.

.

i stay awake in bed under a warm razai and read.
i sit in the sun warmed balcony with saanjh bringing me
tiny stone gifts at random intervals and read.
i lay on the cool, naked floor surrounded by balloons and read.


. . .

wednesday afternoon
the sixteenth
kārtika

these days

these days

each evening,
the sun writes his last poem on my wall

these days

these days

we wake up in the morning to bird hymns
dulcet sunshine singing over hilltops
and a balmy wind softly stirring the world awake.

clouds are scribbled all over the sky
sometimes fleecy white wafting towards the distant blue
other times, painted gray and wistfully lingering
like a scene from my favorite movie, only yesterday.
we watch enthralled it's moving shadow gliding over hills.

during lunch, we tell stories. saanjh and i.
i narrate scenes from my own childhood
of gathering amrud (guava), mulberries and star gooseberries from a friend’s aangan (courtyard),
of borrowing a little blue cycle from the neighbourhood shop and riding a riot through the streets,
of helping a school teacher’s gardener (maali-kaka) in their beautiful garden.
in return, saanjh narrates her own sweet compositions
of a fairy loosing her star on a country road,
finding it and loosing it again
only to find it back finally when a helping cow fetches it for her.
(the specialness being, she’s never been told a fairy story. so it's truly self-woven).

post lunch, we stand by our bedroom window
with curtains and screen slid open, gazing at the afternoon outside
squirrels chasing each other, mynahs perched on khair branches,
a brown rabbit timidly hopping between rocks and foliage
some local boys plucking raw mangoes, a flock of pigeons dancing in the air
and often, pointing at imaginary animals.

come evening, we await and celebrate papa’s return from office
have dinner in our balcony, under the magic of stars and fairylights
while the fragrant song of mogras and a playful west wind plays on.

. . .

tuesday noontide
the thirty first
vaiśākha

these days

these days

i sit on a garden step,
and watch a freshly bathed saanjh
blissfully dust sand all over herself.
a swallow tatse a ripe jamaican cherry
and flit over the garden hedge.
we bring home a basketfull of fallen butterfly-wing leaves
to weave along our dried mogra festoon.

in the kitchen,
i prayerfully stir milk to make kulfi (traditional indian frozen dessert)
and find domestic poetry
in the drying of melon seeds and curry leaves.

between doing and sleep,
i meet these kindred words
and preserve them in my mind.
relearn a forgotten lesson of love
and slowly begin to gather
my thoughts and our things;
for far from here,
a new house, a new city and a new chapter await.

. . .

friday, noontide
the eleventh
māgha

these days

these days

my life reflects the season outside

the cold mornings and night
hurt fierce like your missing
while a deep serenity,
like the warmth of the winter’s sun,
fills up all the space in my chest.

we wake up at dawn
and visit the awakening ghat

as we sit listening to the sanskrit chants of your antyeṣṭi
my mind begins to find divinity
in the smell of incense that embraces the mist
in birds perched on wires, sunbathing
the kindhearted december sun
in diyas and flowers placed in leaf cups floating on the icy river

my edges feel softened
and i offer you my own humble shraddhanjali.

at home, i weave your memories with our everyday
make a twig-star for saanjh on christmas
gaze at your picture on the wall many times a day
light a diya of remembrance, every morning and dusk
make your favourite mithai again and again
smile often

.

i'll remember these days

. . .

tuesday nightfall
the twenty ninth
pauṣa

these days

these days

i'm letting life's tenderness float in my eyes
working hard, sleeping less
stealing moments to dry my freshly washed hair in the winter sun
tending my heart's zen garden

. . .

wednesday noontide
the tenth
mārgaśīrṣa