C/O God — Three Poems by Aishwarya Roy

You are five, maybe, when you first learn that God watches.

Maa's soft, but firm voice tells you as she ties your hair before school.

ঠাকুর সব দখেছন!

God sees everything.

He is in the flickering diya, in the tulsi plant, in someone's kindness. But more than that, God
is in your guilt.

In your little lies, your sharp tongue, your unwashed hands after eating — He sees it all. And as you mumble verses you don’t understand, you wonder if God sees the mess inside you too, and if He’s already disappointed.

•

At nine, the temple priest speaks of karma like an arithmetic problem.

যমন কম তমন ফল!

What you do, you will repay.
You watch the beggar woman outside the temple gates, her body bent like a question mark.
But the priest tells you not to give her anything. “It’s her karma”, he says.

You watch her go away, barefoot on burning pavement, and wonder what kind of God
balances His scales with suffering.

That night, you ask Him, Why do You let this happen?

The silence that answers you feels louder than any prayer.

•

At thirteen, God has become another set of expectations you fail to meet.

You are told to wear modest clothes, to light incense every morning, to never talk back.

You hear whispers about your cousin who eloped with someone her parents didn’t approve of. “Shameful”, your aunt says. “How could she betray God like that?”

You wonder if God cares about love as much as He does about obedience. And if people care about God as much as they do about others' opinions.

•

Now you’re twenty-five, and the world feels like it’s burning.

You watch news of children pulled from rubble, of people fleeing their homes, of billionaires
buying a yacht, and influencers selling products to style your next lockdown outfit.

And then you also see — forty crore people descending into Ganga to wash away their sins,
or wash their hair with Yamuna's foam.

The water is brown with dirt, devotion, desperation.

And you just stare at it and ask...

Even after all this time, why do people believe in Him?

“Maybe when there is nothing left but God, they discover that God is enough.”

— The sins answer back, sinking to the riverbed... waiting to rise again.

One Chair, at a Table For Two

My life is a parched pomegranate without my thammi, who would open it over me and let it
scatter, seed by seed.
It is a series of holding the chopsticks and shaking the noodles free in the boiling water. The
way a friend taught me one lonely hostel night.
It is me making my aloo chokha (mashed potatoes) the way my Bengali mother cooked every Sunday. Offering spoonfuls of mustard oil and tenderness.
Words and gestures fade, but not the stains they left on your oven mitts.
Because we are the breadcrumbs of everyone we have invited to sit at our table. Everyone we have ever loved.
My life is the freedom that reappears in the form of turmeric stains on my apron.
Unwashed dishes, and carrots chopped into uneven hearts.
Is it a privilege to be able to mess up?
Onions and julienne-cut tomatoes are being tossed in a wok as dark as night.
This kitchen is a strange creature. It doesn't mind my singing voice. It doesn't even flinch.
Today, the sky is as bold as one of dadu's lemon jellies. And at the edge of the cotton cloud,
there is a brilliant empty patch.
So I remember my life this way,
A body that is trying to get comfortable sitting alone, at a table for two.
Hands that have started to feel like dough; like every fleeting touch left an imprint.
Mouth that still speaks in the language of jaggery and honey, despite having the aftertaste of shukto.
Feet that make black holes in muddy grass while plucking dasheri aam; footprints that never make their way back home.
And a heart that likes to show up every day. To switch on the chimney. To cook the mundane.
To eat with herself.
Because everyone told her not to go grocery shopping when she was hungry.
But no one warned her enough about looking for love, when she was lonely...

She took birth and did a 2.4-mile run between Sealdah and Armenian Ghat Street.
Passed vegetable wagons and ornate colonial buildings with pride, as if she knew her
purpose.
Grew up a little and started rattling along the bookstores of College Street, announcing
herself with the quaint chime of a bell.
Thrifty women of all ages would board her with discarded clothing, and sit quietly till the last
stop, to layer them. 'Kantha stitch'.
She belonged to a city that turned mending holes into an art form, stuck small pieces of soap
to make a bigger one, fought the toothpaste tube and the colonisers who didn't want to give it
all that it deserved.
She saved what she could.
Turning 77 brought her liberation. One that wasn't exclusive to the privileged.
With fierce songs on tongue, bleeding freedom fighters took a ride to plant ideas and trees
they won't see the shade of.
While crossing a century in this climate-conscious world, she felt her emission-free veins,
powered by overhead electric lines, would be largely applauded.
The world would still find poetry in watching a city unfold at her slow and languid pace.
But overhead faint whispers of a passenger —
"beautiful journey, maximum time"
Getting old with each passing year, walking the roads like an old woman with crooked back
and aching knees, she still remained the cheapest mode of transport in the city.
But not many riders remained to take a journey with her.
She carried the slow-moving old people, who had nowhere to rush to.
There was no place for her among the crazy unpunctual ones who, somehow, were always
running late.
But she still loved hearing the faint sound of ruffling tickets the conductor made while
collecting fares.
Today, she is a 151-year-old woman, a repository of memories, wearing a black bindi, lying
on her deathbed.
She sees the war raged against humanity getting scarier.
The leaves detach themselves from the tree, like a child losing the firm grip of his mother's
palms, and getting lost in the crowd.
Once a lifeline, now just a relic,
She lies back and wonders —
A museum of failure, or a gallery of trying...
Just who was I?