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/

Cheluvi

streaked with rivulets 

you run through me, 

fragmented islands 

submerge, resurface 

in eyes that hold 

azure tessellations.

I blush a bristly persistent pink,

tear away only to know 

I am consumed.

I let you in 

to become the raintree.

Cheluvi- 

a film directed by Girish Karnad (1992) is the story of a girl who could convert herself to a tree.

Published in The Tiger Moth Review, Issue 5 on 26/01/2021
link: https://www.thetigermothreview.com/blog/cheluvi

Jamun

Over a bowl, we share
our stories of the fruit.
I sing a song from Jait Re Jait
about a dhol played under a tree.
She sticks her tongue out
wanting it to emerge purple
like Neema's from her story book.

A cautious bite, a clean roll
and a seed spat out,
leave terrains on my agile tongue
that I stick out to entice her.
Unconvinced, she decides
to lick a jamun, only for its colour.

The astringent bites her tongue.
She runs behind me, wanting
to cleave my frozen ruts,
plough through tightened textures,
waving a pink comb for relief.

Jamun – Java plum

Jait Re Jait is a 1977 Indian Marathi language film directed by Dr. Jabbar Patel whose story revolves around a tribe named Thakar

Dhol - drum

Published in The Alipore Post as 3 poems on Motherhood on 17/02/2021

https://www.thealiporepost.com/post/3-poems-on-motherhood-by-pooja-ugrani

Holes

she punches my eye blue
a toe nail, storing clotted blood
remains black for months
after she drops a heavy vessel
on it

the reflex to strike back
that I never tamed
and always gave back to the world
I now withhold with caution

count, breathe, seethe. don't act
she doesn't know it hurts,
sees me in pain and hugs me
still confused about what she did
it is always a game for her

yet, when all hell breaks loose
for the umpteenth time
after I have, in a low sincere voice
tried to explain
she still refuses to listen

the physical force of her body
overpowers me,
flailing limbs land hurtful kicks
punches make my arms give way

I bite my lower lip,
make big eyes, hold her arm
and place a carefully weighed
whack on her behind
with a third of the force
I feel inside

rage boils over, a moment
of regained control sears holes
in me and in her
that may take a lifetime to heal

01.06.2020

Published in The Alipore Post as 3 poems on Motherhood on 17/02/2021

https://www.thealiporepost.com/post/3-poems-on-motherhood-by-pooja-ugrani

Expecto Patronum

my toddler in the colony park
breaks out into a wild dance
celebrating the wind
that sways huge trees all around her,
just when the evening storm is setting in
I egg her home
run behind her screaming "Slow, slow!"
with my jhola full of groceries
as she speeds up in her pink scooter.

This creates my shield
fights a world that has become so gory
I cannot understand it anymore
I need help today
for I have knelt down
hung my head in shame

She makes me get up and dance with her,
we blow raspberries at each other,
create bubbles with our saliva,
birth marks become burp marks
we hunt for muddy puddles
where three different bow bows
and diaper wearing snakes made caca

She makes me
forget a little, live a little.
She is not my Horcrux,
she is what my Patronus is made of.

01.06.2020

Published in The Alipore Post as 3 poems on Motherhood on 17/02/2021

https://www.thealiporepost.com/post/3-poems-on-motherhood-by-pooja-ugrani

Two feet

Two feet witness
those toiling to reach home,
witness the sum of all things unjust,
all seasons adverse, weathered,
shaped by the unprecedented.

Two feet find
the will to break barriers
that segregate, cage, dictate
leap over fears that open out
possibilities to be shared as humans.

Two feet unravel
knots around identity,
enriching such choices
of what is imbibed and what is kept out,
find their way through a tunnel that connects.

18.05.2020

Published in hākārā: a bilingual journal of creative expression, Turbulence, Issue 12 in September 2020 

https://www.hakara.in/pooja-ugrani/

To giraffes who keep their necks above the clouds

aspire to reach the sun
pine hard, long enough
that anatomy changes

crane up to bask
in the effervescent sunlit sky
at a hot air balloon's height

then, also, stick your head
into the bedazzling brilliance
of a jumped-in monsoon puddle

follow the sun to the ground
the linear path imagined
shall curl into a spiral

bend down harder and
you may see light shining
under you, inside you

laden clouds around your neck
cast shadows, obscure vision
'other' the world

don't you want to be
bigger than what shaped you?



30.04.2020

Published in hākārā: a bilingual journal of creative expression, Turbulence, Issue 12 in September 2020 

https://www.hakara.in/pooja-ugrani/

Knife and phone

I sit down to enjoy my art

with a knife and phone

a faint hunger works up
after listless hours of scrolling,
satiated by plating colours,
textures, guising gnawing boredom

an elaborate post production
followed by regular reporting
to imagined drools, likes,
hearts and compliments

a click later, the deafening roar of
aeon travelled stomachs
shatter my plate. I gulp splinters

stab what is left
of hunger inside

15.04.2020

Published in hākārā: a bilingual journal of creative expression, Turbulence, Issue 12 in September 2020 

https://www.hakara.in/pooja-ugrani/

C

"I can draw a C on your bum
when you stand sideways"
was when i started using
three limp layers
to drown a C of flesh

extending below waistline
slits on the sides
of a straight cut,
accommodate the C
aid locomotion, on land

to inspire flight,
one would need
to cut, rotate and hinge
these fluttering flaps
along a perpendicular axis

today
they instigate
agonizing, culture driven,
guilt ridden cover-ups
of what is already covered

anarkalis, with spacious insides,
expand auras, promise more fun;
they billow, cajole to spin,
to mirror infamous aunts
blown up by Harry Potter

An accessible grab
in the washroom
a swift pull ensuring
friction between cloth, skin, hair
To savour blissful dry hours

Fabric finds function
satiates by sucking moisture

I step out with wet patches
over time moved consciously
to improbable locations
hoping they dry off, unnoticed
for basic social acceptance

olfactory traces of rubbing my insides out
on the C covering garb marks my body
filtering heads that are invited into my lap

10.03.2020

Published in Cafe Dissensus Everyday blog in April 2020

https://cafedissensusblog.com/2020/04/07/three-poems-by-pooja-ugrani/

To the boomer who called my baby a burden

A throwaway remark
dished out at lunch,
oozing slyly
at the colleague/husband
by someone who has
never provided for me,
and never will.

You have no idea,
how and why we choose
to live with each other,
nursing our soreness,
standing up to face the world,
while a little being observes us
closely, intently.

As I step out to earn
he steps in to rear
I let her fall, dust her wounds,
needing her to be tough
he dresses her up,
makes her look into the mirror
to feel beautiful
I teach her to live
with what we have
He allows her to indulge
every once in a while

There is no space in our lives
for unmeasured judgments
or unimaginative minds
weighed down
by the beliefs of yesteryears
You cannot begin to fathom
this magnanimously beautiful chaos
we have painstakingly worked on.

We sit
on each other's shoulders
we are our own giants,
learning, dancing, fighting, fluid,
filling each other's voids
with everything
that is anything but a burden.

13.01.2020

Published in Cafe Dissensus Everyday blog in April 2020

https://cafedissensusblog.com/2020/04/07/three-poems-by-pooja-ugrani/

Also published in The Kali Project: Invoking the Goddess Within / Indian Women’s Voices on 08/01/2021 by Indie Blu(e) publishers

Palimpsest

I witnessed a child, wronged
inside a temple and vowed
i wouldn't enter one
its sanctity, polluted for me
to a point of no return

the horror that child
must have gone through
contained there
conflicted hard and battered
my image of a temple

of stone walls dimly lit,
of facing light, bowing down
eyes shut, to keep in and not keep out
silences where voices are heard
assuring you that you are safe

I shut down, impotent, helpless
hugged my young child
and cried each night

I cursed myself
for having brought her
into this messy coccoon,
laced with pervading, engulfing
nightmarish possibilities

I lived and quietened a million what ifs
I wanted to forget that face
I wanted to unsee and unremember everything

Recently i took my child
with her grandparents
to a temple

It didn't feel traumatic, 
Enough time had passed,
enough for a mute observer
on Facebook pages
not having to clean up and deal
with the mess later
not getting daily reminders
of horrors from the past

A new patch stitched over old clothes
As fresh memories cover older ones
into gentle oblivion

accepting
not negating, not normalising
only, very selfishly
finding my peace.

16.12.2019

Published in Cafe Dissensus Everyday blog in April 2020

https://cafedissensusblog.com/2020/04/07/three-poems-by-pooja-ugrani/

Also published in The Kali Project: Invoking the Goddess Within / Indian Women’s Voices on 08/01/2021 by Indie Blu(e) publishers

On having entered a room

On most days I witness

seesaws of alternating identities 

as we hiccough through planned exchanges 

and spontaneous spurts

engaging in our own little play, 

trying to sit still, weightless in the centre, 

as if we do not matter

Today’s different, somehow

cracks laden with seeped pretension threaten collapse, 

realignments of agreed-upon definitions for this space,

as the sanctity of boundaries between relations 

that changed behind closed doors

is dragged into the public eye 

With blaring earphones and eyes shut

I no longer exist in this room

now I am a cat that waits 

to jump out of balance, to find myself 

to make me whole 

to become manifold, timeless

18.10.2019

Published in hākārā: a bilingual journal of creative expression, Turbulence, Issue 12 in September 2020 

https://www.hakara.in/pooja-ugrani/

I want to sing like you

To Vidhya Gopal
I want to sing like you

I sing like the
single running stitch
of an unoiled tailoring machine,
reaching, quite linearly
from one point to another,
amply wandering, uncontrolled
outside the edges of sur in the songs i sing

You sing like the
convoluted floral embroidery
of a kurta worn proudly
created by hands, weathered by riyaaz,
making listeners lose themselves to
the nuances your textured voice creates
in snippets caught on Insta and Facebook

The completion of your song
holds no relevance to me
as the safar has become
more khoobsoorat than the manzil
and i enjoy your rendering of individual words
as you nurture and embellish them
with seemingly effortless harqatein

Your singing comes from a place of truth without pretentions.
It has made me knock on the door
of that room within me.

15.05.2019

I have been following this girl for sometime now on Facebook and Instagram and my, how she inspires me! Total fan I have become!

Published in The Punch Magazine, the Byword on 14/12/2019

https://thepunchmagazine.com/the-byword/poetry/her-marred-maang-and-other-poems

The ride home

6.45 pm on a Saturday, two bodies try to catch up
with traffic swayings and omnipresent speedbreakers
Our Maruti Alto negotiates its presence and passage
with bikes, cows and vegetable carts

A third body inverts itself between the two seats
Legs up and hands groping air reaching towards a wheel that juts out of the car dikkie

10 minutes of flailing in limbo
My right shoulder bettered
by an afternoon session
at the physiotherapist groans

A moment before I falter and let her jump
for her prized wheel and crash,
You park the car and jump out
Plucking our bawling distraught child out of my arms

In the car now drenched by a wave of silence
Shuddering more out of exhaustion than anticipation
I look out to see a vision radiating happiness
Vismaya in her new red and black tricycle
a fair distance away from the park.

Published in The Punch Magazine, the Byword on 14/12/2019

https://thepunchmagazine.com/the-byword/poetry/her-marred-maang-and-other-poems