‘Aai lost her navel to me and my brother’: This book of poems talks of the home a mother embodies

Load Shedding

Aai brings back Geeta Dutt to life tonight,
As she admonishes her lover (Ja Ja Ja Bewafa),
In a game of antakshari she can never lose

Every time she pokes a needle into her stomach
Her insulin resistance breaks through her skin
And cracks in her voice grow branches.

In a cement tank overflowing with sand
Where a lonely dog sits every morning. I take his
Place in this night of government supplied darkness.

When Aai fans me with events of yesterday –
Death, decay, destruction, the usual –
An ant colony takes a stroll on my dress.

And abandons me mid-sentence.
By the time We are returned to the light, our faces have
Been altered, for the sake of belonging.

Aai grates her fingers to fit into her new body
And we follow her footsteps. And our grated fingers
Are turned into wall hangings, with pretty tassels.

I slip into the sand with ease now.
My breasts have been chiselled,
They gouge through palms.

These hands won’t close your eyes anymore.
Thereafter, with our grated fingers, we return to life,
With hopes of forgetting the people we once used to be.

The Dahlias of My Garden

Baba refuses to grow vegetables,
He only likes flowers.
He waters them every day.
He talks to them. Removes dead
Leaves saying they take his resources.
He grows them on his stomach.

His stomach is hard as...

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