Sunday, April 24, 2016

Hapus Aley!

Thankful and reflective in a world 
where much is mixed up.
that buying mangoes is still a thing

and memories are many
of fragrances
of sun warmed charpaaies
and the resin, dripping from stems

The Market where BRK used to buy the boxes
rough hewn and filled with sweet smelling hay
and remind me always

that hard working farmers grew them
and that the largest and that 
the best ones were always always
sent abroad, a word I did not then understand

Export Quality he used to say and
explain that the mangoes went on a plane 
to places far away

And now I buy them
unloaded off planes
and get a call from the store from a brother
from the Emerald Isle in the Indian Ocean

The Alphonso are here, are you coming
I pay him and get a box and a half
not knowing when the next batch will arrive by plane
Now I am at the receiving end of the export.


I alert friends who understand hapus
The children are happy, are these the REAL THING? They quip. knowing that I am a Mumbai girl

And I marvel that I, 
societally single
Am able to continue the traditions of my father
where buying mangoes is an annual ritual

I place a fruit at the alter and light a diya of thanks
for farmers who grow mangoes
the rains that watered them
and the insects that made possible, the flowers and fruit

and for memories
that wing me back to the places 
where charpaaies sit under mango trees
waiting ...

that someday I shall return


the same way the mangoes came to me


Thursday, April 21, 2016

To Rishma from me

When I started my M.Ed in 2011, I had wanted to take a course with Rishma. When I would be at Winter's College for courses after a full day of work, I would wonder what it would be like, as a poet, to work with a teacher who also lived and understood the same medium of expression: I would not have to silence myself and write a certain way all the time. That prospect was infinitely exciting. I couldn't take a course with her, as she was away.  

And yet when I wrote up my research, I had my poems intertwined with all the other big words I had used. Perhaps it was the magic, even without spending a single hour in her classes, I learned that it was possible, that I did not have to erase myself in order to do academic work. It has been promised that when the student is ready, the teacher will come. I have been gifted many Dronacharyas in my life, and Rishma is one. The time I was given with her was just a few minutes spent in the hallway of Winter's in front of her photograph. Yet to have lived in a time period as did she, is the learning.