bezubaan
i. bezubaan
I've been here before at kingdom’s end
in that corner of the night when
the moon shows its farthest side
when the streets are the most
without speech- for there is no word
in English that can fully let us feel
the sadness of coerced silence.
ii. exorcism
I've placed myself alone in the resonance
of winter, but you were always
there, I know you from the mirror
when I put on a dress and danced
you are here despite your voice
being thrown out at the chowrasta
in a charm of lemons and chilis.
iii. pieces
we cross the road to Jiyaguda
and walk among the offals, discarded
I thought myself shattered, always
looking for the pieces- words in the heart
of marigolds and upturned insects
that is what growing up meant, you speak
“there is only harm in all this hiding”.
iv. animals
a hijra woman walks across Nayapul
scattering ashes, she places her hand
on our heads to tell us we are flower like
we sit on the pretend chariots
and unwanted gods along the Musi-
an arbitrary depiction of all animals
that the city at night is built upon.
v. paradise
you break into song in the way
that I always wanted to, incandescently
“wo apni khoobi-e-qismat pe kyun na naaz kare?”
with the cold pushed back into our bodies
we embrace and cry at the possibility,
the necessity of a new world
I ask you to stay, you tell me
to always follow beauty and grief
to their lairs, and I will find you there
in all this living, in the smallness
and enormity of our desires
in the crevices, in what is not said,
in the stumbling that scatters fallen leaves
just as I will find myself.
Macondo
it was Macondo again
in the tyranny of September
with the unending rain that became
silence itself in this in between world
of motion without moving where joy
exists without an underside and the heart
of love appears open to all like a hill station
chapel, there is also apathy, the city
overflows with it as the sewage workers
even in death try to hold reason together
so that we can let ourselves be carried
away by the child ghost of change
arriving at night on his palanquin,
the cicadas molding and the white
bougainvilleas turning pink
but the same stories that burnt under
the fire star of summer, wash up now
stricken with dengue and poverty
the pain in the bones from which
lasts at least two lifetimes
they wash up with the contradictions
and the detritus in this cavern of grief
(that we call our city)
where one will also find the girl
and her father who drowned
in Tolichowki, with their snack cart
of jalebis and bhajjis, smashed open
even in death, they try to hold beauty together
or what we imagine as a bluegreen
and majestic god, dancing
and bringing forth the rain.
theory 2
every morning, my mother fills a bowl
on the balcony with broken rice
she watches the gathering
of pichukalu- old world sparrows, it is
more like an explosion of joy
in her as she smiles to herself
privately, as she always has
you would have to look at the tilt
of her head to tell that she is,
in this way and others she tries to revive
the world that she grew up in, or
rather the world she wishes
she grew up in.
in the late afternoon, when she
goes back in time through the years
she is careful to avoid the pain
like the thorns in our flowers
that unnamable pain, born
in the Malapallis of East Godavari
and raised in the city with us
I tell her it will swim in our blood whether
we like it or not, I tell her only singing
and the burning of gods can change it
she half agrees, places the roses
in a vase, they are little more than
wounds without an origin.
when there is no origin, no roots
the body tends to find itself one
by way of hands digging into soil
it knows all stories have a birthplace
there are words that I've heard my mother say
that contain in them their own consequence
chinna pranam, thokessina, naligipoyina
always the chintz of a butterfly wing
always the plucked out eyes and thumbs
and in this way, inadvertently
she made me aware of a world that runs
on the crushing and crumpling under foot
of small lives.
at night, she sleeps closest to the door
so that she can hear the sound
of someone trying to break in, I wonder
who or what she is really afraid of
while I watch two men sneak out
on a Splendor, the one sitting behind
holds on to his lover with all his might
I watch stray dogs chase them, playfully
they turn and they fight, playfully
they tumble and they glow, knowing
that the dark is truly when they are home
I hope my mother can hear their howling
and then see me among them, free.
About the Poet:
Chetan is a researcher based in Hyderabad. Poetry and photography are his windows to the world of art, supported by a passion for discussing literature, cinema and music. These are a means for him to understand his place in the world, historically and in turn politically. When he's not doing any of those things, one can find him pacing on the terrace while listening to a podcast and observing the mood of the evening sky. Or one can find him sitting by the window in his room sipping coffee, in the company of his best friend, Albus the shih-tzu.