Ankush Rakela

 1.

 My paycheque overshadows my worldview

I cannot afford to voice my opinion

I squirm in the comfort of shutting up for my loved ones

My safety net wasn't woven that dense

 

2.

 A peek into a larger world,

I am pulled back by the ankush

of check marks against my name on a society list.

I was taught to fear instability,

to remain afloat and not cause ripples

 

I was also taught to use a lot of words

as any woman should in a male dominated world.

 

A wrinkle-free everyday

thanks to privilege

where any reaching out

is read as an act of pity

 

3.

 I flex and the air around you shrinks

I am convex when I stand in the crowd-

entitled space, I was meant to occupy

even before I was born -

 

Quick to reach the counter at my local shop

I am concave as I bow down

to education and intelligence

inert happy, inside a bubble 

not wanting to interact with the outside

 

I fuse instead with the father of my child

we parent together, or make love.

 

4.

 I am an umbrella over the ones I protect

and a bucket when I receive

These identities where I take your space

and you take mine

 

intersect

 

5.

 When I was seven, I touched Rakela

who worked in our fields

Amma had asked me to give her a glass of water 

She swept it away

fearfully, inevitably saying,

the child doesn't know.

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/

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/

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/

Thud!

A familiar sound

drops boulders in my belly
a second before i open the door.

a skull that hit the floor, now bobs up
to greet me in silent relief

Guilt boils over, I let out an angry yowl,
She joins in, confused
I hug her, kneeling on the floor

amidst debris of broken embankments
pillows and bolsters mis-navigated
in her flight from the bed

Fear drives shame away. For a while,
I keep the bathroom door open as vigil,
postponing worldly lessons
to a later date.

Published in The Mom Egg Review, Range of Motherhood folio on 14/09/2020 

link: http://momeggreview.com/2020/09/14/thud-by-pooja-ugrani/