Photo credit: picryl.com, painting by Max Rentel (1911)

GRANDMA’S CHIN

Perhaps she once held me, examined my blooming bruises
as I fell from the swing set onto that unkind, uneven gravel.

Her songs were healers alone, her words filled the interstices
of my childhood. Lullabies that I still turn to when I run out

of my own stories. But memories are fickle fugitives, eager
to sublimate at the first hint of winter’s wispy cold. Now 

with glassy eyes that don’t see beyond her own suffering,
she fails to recognize me. Frail hands with paper-thin translucent

skin quiver over my face, perhaps seeking other unseen bruises,
which don’t hover on the surface. I can only offer my tears

to her infinite sea of love, lashing at me time and again, wake up,
wake up, rise to your potential. Nothing reaches her now – she is left

to bear witness to a world that whizzes by, uncaring of her prayers –
the few she still remembers. But she senses my touch, points to the

errant hairs on her chin, prickly as pinecones, beg me to pluck them.
I am blank-faced, hiding a million regrets, failings. This – I can do.
 

 

OFFERING AS A GRAIN OF RICE AT MY SON’S THREAD CEREMONY
 

May Annapurna always nourish you, I utter into his ears
as my son, sunshine pouring out of his face, looks at me

seeking alms. His clay bowl is hollow, reverberating
with the vibrations of a million sages, as the priest recites

from the Yajur veda, mantras tumbling out at supersonic speed
from his well-practiced tongue. My hands touch the long grains

of white rice from the sack. Mine is the first offering, I am
the first person he approaches, a privilege for having birthed him

after 36 hours of labour. This man-child at the cusp of boy
and adult, standing at the threshold of youth, his brown eyes

beacons of purity and hope, holds out the bowl, repeats thrice.
“Bhavati bhiksham dehi”. Wasn’t this the same rice, watered by

the rainclouds of the monsoon in the paddy field, that I fed to him,
cooked in milk, as his first meal as a baby? Of course he doesn’t

remember, I do, my memories attached like a chain to the severed
umbilical cord, his skin formed of mine, separating from mine,

a birthmark blooming – a Bermuda’s triangle on his right shoulder.
The same rice grain which, separated from the husk, made its way

out to the world, into the mouth of a child. Into elders’ palms
during weddings, so they sprinkled their blessings onto newlyweds.

Into a bride’s cupped hands so she spilled abundance onto her home as she
prepared to leave. Into a kolam traced on the mud floor of a village house.

Now I look at this humble grain as tears threaten to pool in my eyes,
scoop the rice in my cracked hands and pour it into his bowl thrice.

The priest asks all the women to line up behind me, do the same.
Everyone cheers, claps, congratulates us. The stolen moment is lost

in a mayhem of prayer and the clink of copper pots and anklets.
The next day, I will cook this rice for lunch and feed him, as my

lifeblood once did. This time, I’m sure he will remember. The tether gets
weaker. The circle bigger. The radius longer than my aging arms can reach.

( Notes : Annapurna - Hindu Goddess of food and nourishment; Yajur Veda - Ancient Vedic Sanskrit text; Bhavati bhiksham dehi - May you give me some alms; Kolam - traditional form of floor art in South India using rice flour.)
 

 

HOSTILE ENVIRONMENTS

1
 

In the summer of 2006, a machine was put on trial at a tribunal. A semicircular frenzy of sharks with pin-striped suits and razor-sharp teeth assumed a chakravyuh formation in the C-suite. They debated the machine’s return on investment, the billable hours, revenue lost on maternity leave, training a replacement. They chided the machine for its bad timing, for its refusal to serve their Gods — the clients. They frowned at the increased commute time when the machine moved to the suburbs. Words like “lawsuit”, “woman of color”, “part-time” were bandied about. The machine’s boss, a single twenty-something Type-A woman — her eyes shooting darts of fire, plotted revenge. In her rent-controlled apartment in the Meatpacking district, she had nightmares — of an incomplete project, her bonus missing a few zeroes, not making partner, of her perfect streak ruined. The machine had let her down. Eggs could always be frozen. She would make the machine work excess hours with no bathroom or snack breaks. She would make it cry. She would get infuriated when it smiled and took deep breaths and tuned her out within its impermeable shield, chanting “Om”.

2

A few months earlier, the machine was being wooed by fertility clinics, where an army of white coats and scrubs upgraded the machine’s lexicon to include medical jargon, with a cloying bedside manner — since the machine had excellent insurance paid for by the sharks. It was told to reduce its A1C levels and its stress levels by taking long walks, doing yoga, being mindful of its calorie intake, while also listening to Mozart and meditate. And avoid multitasking. All this so its processor wouldn’t overheat and require a patch fix. The machine knew what a Hobson’s choice meant. It did not want to fail another home pregnancy test (classic overachiever). Nor did it want to tolerate the annoying monthly visitor (introvert mistaken for rude). So, it continued its long commute, developed a craving for pesto, rasam, tahini and coconut milk, ate every two hours, and started watching murder mysteries. It also got an iPod. It told nosy people that it was getting fat and happy on purpose. It discovered the power of hand sanitizers and water bottles.

3

There was a petri dish waiting in the lab. The ovary rejected that impersonal apparatus and blessed the debutante egg for its launch (broke a coconut for its safe passage), watched like a proud hen as it traversed the Fallopian tube, bribed the cilia to deposit it safely into the thickening uterine wall. Kamasutra on a weekend getaway did the rest. The egg was now a zygote with a heartbeat. The machine saw its successor on a sonogram and felt strange. Because no university degree, award or material possession felt close to this superpower of creation. The machine became a bear in nesting mode, growling at intruders, building a nursery. The ovum was finally home.

Sidebar : The company was voted best workplace for Mothers. The machine read the rankings report while pumping breastmilk in a tiny closet in that shiny skyscraper.

(Notes: Chakravyuh - complex multi-layered spiral military formation resembling a labyrinth – deployed to trap an opponent; Rasam - spicy South Indian soup.)