Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Agarwal thathi

Agarwal thathi


I.

In a tiny flat in New Panvel,
idlis are passed around,
a celebration of her passing.

'No lunch without oorga'
she insisted her bed ridden tongue
got the tangy smear, daily.

She fed with her hands, her sweat,
and her heart, stuffing growling stomachs
with kai murukku, cheedai, pakodaam and boondi.

Her identity strongly scented
with decoction kaapi, hing in her sambaar,
her pickled pulikachal took her across the seas.


II.

Evenings at Kesar Villa with granddaughters,
she coloured with her magenta kumkumam,
gifted jasmine gajras wrapped in leaf packets.

Heady fragrance of Mysore Sandal Soap mingled with chaafa, her colourful nine yards
with white blouses from Arvind Mills.

Potato chips in a square tin box
with occasional jam and khaari.
Nei paayasam on Fridays in Aadi Maasam.

Always, a flow of abundance,
but not for everyone.


III.

In her world, women got pregnant
when saree petticoats spoke
to langotis on the drying line.

Boiling water satisfied cravings,
of her tulsi plant that blossomed
out of its pot, as if on Viagra.

"Haavu!!" Uncles played striptease,
making themselves a little too comfortable.
What next, she would wonder.

She enjoyed these risqué escapades,
hands hiding her face, as laughter
and tears rolled down her cheeks.


IV. 

Turned off the radio, mid-song,
as she spotted her husband
from the Akhila Kunj balcony.

Filled both of her son's pockets
with chana, to nibble on
as he left for work each day.

Slapped her daughter
who danced in a school performance
without asking her first.

Calls of "Labour pains have started, maami!"
she answered with hurried visits
all over Matunga.

Summoned to control the next-door
uncle's manic rage, she brought him down
with iron grip and steel gaze.


V.

Daughter of a straying school teacher,
blankets mimicked his profile
on the porch nocturnally.

Back home, she would scale
coconut trees by the night,
to dive into ponds of Koovapaddy.

As a new bride in Bombay,
she refused to shit in her first,
white tiled toilet.

When pregnancy fatigued her
she rested standing, leaning her head
against mattress stacks.

Chhota Thathi - bald, with hanging earlobes,
kept vigil on her daughter-in-law from her bed
in the room at the far end of the house.


Glossary:
oorga: pickle
kai murukku: deep fried savoury snack (chaklis made with hand)
cheedai, pakodaam, boondi: deep fried savoury snacks
kaapi: coffee
hing: asafoetida
sambaar: Indian lentil soup
pulikachal: spicy, tangy sauce made of tamarind
kumkumam: powder used for social and religious markings in India
chaafa: champaca flower
gajras: flower garland
khaari: layered baked savoury snack, mostly not prepared at home.
Nei Paayasam: pudding made using clarified butter
Aadi Maasam: A month in the Tamil calendar
langoti: loincloth
tulsi: holy basil
Maami: a common usage to address a woman of acquaintance
chana: chickpea
chhota thathi: little grandmother.


Published in the Hong Kong based Voice and Verse Poetry Magazine, Issue 56: Home (November- December 2020) 
https://vvpoetry.com/2020/11/07/issue-57-november-december-2020-special-feature-home

Thathi, chill!

On a stool in a new bathroom.
Mugs of water poured, gently over my head
relieve me from sweltering heat.

A wet ear held next to a cellphone.
I hear hysterical sobs,
then silence, to gain composure -

"Are you ok?"

Thathi, in Navi Mumbai 
imagines my communal bath
in Nellore before Nalugu.

Her innards churn,
she demands
that I stop it immediately.

She tells me how
her mother was stripped naked on her wedding day
before being made to wear a new saree.

This cloak of protection thickens across generations,
just as the cloak of shame thins out.

I've bathed with friends at fourteen-
a drenched state
isn't mortifying anymore.


Published in the Hong Kong based Voice and Verse Poetry Magazine, Issue 56: Home (November- December 2020) 
https://vvpoetry.com/2020/11/07/issue-57-november-december-2020-special-feature-home/

Monday, February 22, 2021

Love, sent to a single loaded corridor

Hanging upside down, like a giant lizard 

I cling to you with unblinking calm, 

draw waves along your length.


I dream of ways to inhabit you again,

my Marsyas, as your voussoirs shelter me 

under nine arches.


Out from under the First, I regain balance

on moss-retaining tiles, checkered red,

laid at 1:5, turn away from its faint stench.


Rants of a cutter-armed friend 

ricochet off mount boards;  she completes 

my model, saving my ass under the Second. 


A ninja jumps out from under the Third

negotiating a bush, watered from above.

A puddle forms in broken asphalt.


I witness a red-rose proposal 

under the Fourth, where level differences 

match heights, and hearts.


Perpendicular runs under the Fifth, midway

on steps that bite into the plinth,

stage ephemeral greetings, impromptu baithaks.


T-scales dumped under the Sixth –

the ancient bearer of unreadable results 

that wears a baroque egg tiara and watches on.


Vapour swirls from tea, served in paper cups 

held by Dumbledore Longbeards,

spilling out of seminars, racing to reach the Seventh.


I wade through a copy of the new Shilpasagar, 

on a table, as I peep into the Principal's cabin 

under the Eighth. Sore 


from an overdose of architecture,

I turn to the fine arts, a gallop away, 

to contemplate an escape under the Ninth.


I don't act on it.

Oscillating between volume bursts

You are Newton's cradle,

I come to you, to go nowhere.



Published in the February 2021 issue of the Indo French (Jaipur-Paris) RIC journal https://ricjournal.com/2021/02/22/love-sent-to-a-single-loaded-corridor-pooja-ugrani/

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Reading poetry

I jump into your quagmire

wading through greys 
like a sieve, between fiction
and places that aren't.

Stained with what sticks 
I wish the rest remains 
water under a bridge.

Tell me, 
did you jump in naked too?


Published in The Woman Inc Poetry Series on 03/02/2021 link: https://thewomaninc.com/2021/02/03/twi-poetry-reading-poetry-vaira-mookkutti/

Vaira mookutti

keloids shine alongside stones,
survival of the right nostril
threatened by her maamiyaar
who aggressively strives
to home in a fat pin
into allergic skin
with an almost,
maternal enthusiasm

she rescues herself
resorting to
talagaani mantram
after the third attempt.

decades later,
her great grand daughter yelps
as she pushes it home,
satisfied that she looks
vintage, traditional, kitsch.


Vaira mookutti : diamond nose pin
Maamiyaar : mother in law
Talahaani mantram : pillow talk


Published in The Woman Inc Poetry Series on 03/02/2021 link: https://thewomaninc.com/2021/02/03/twi-poetry-reading-poetry-vaira-mookkutti/