POLLY SAID HER BACK HURTS

….
Polly said,
“Your poems are too long and repetitive
Your films are pretentious
Your trousers are woefully out of fashion
Your hairstyle is outrageous
Your parents were in love with different people
You're the one who killed your grandfather that July
For years, your mother longed to see you. But you were never there
You sing like a girl and you kiss like an adolescent
Winnie was fucking Mandy the whole year you were in Florence
Her love had faded long ago”
….

ONE

The ceiling fan billows the white sheet
Giving an illusion of breathing inside
It is such a tempting illusion....


Looking a bit like one of Sarat Chandra's heroes
He's sitting quietly in a corner
Like the malignant tumor with folded hands
Camouflaging his tears with his dimpled smile
But the rouge of his eyes, like welts from a belt
Betray him from under his brown- black eyeglasses
You don't fool me, brother....


The doctor says, “Well of course, he has to cry”
He hasn't spoken a word since the morning of the ninth
It intrigues me
His cold blooded silence


I miss the sound of his voice
That's like a cross between his father and John Lennon
Raspy, but not shrill; boyish but not naive; accented but not heavily
I also miss his precious smile
I remember, when we were children, he laughed,
When I kept asking questions during the bedtime stories he so skillfully narrated at nights
Or when I tickled his feet to wake him up in the mornings
Or when I showed him the salsa that I thought then that I had mastered


Maybe I'll bake him his favorite, slightly salty, flour biscuits with tea in the afternoon
Maybe I'll flash him a smile, a quick glance of my cleavage, hold his hands tight
Maybe I'll let him give me a back massage and then....
Anything to draw him out
Of the bedroom of denial he has locked himself in


TWO

To tell you the truth, my eyes this morning were red;
More from the lack of sleep on my flight
Than grief
That, I guess, had not sunk in then
I wonder if I scream tonight
Will anyone be able to hear me?
Or it'll be like in that dream
Baby, I can't express
My mixed emotions and my helplessness


There are small things I remember from the haze of today
The slicing sound of a devotional song somewhere in the background
The second rate Assam tea being prepared in abundance for the glycerin giving guests
All of whom come up to you and ask, “What's your pain, stranger?”
Your black colored Salwaar Kameez that made you look a pucca Muslim


Our life too will pass like the traces of a tear
And someday after tomorrow
You would no longer catch me unawares
By tickling at my feet


THREE

We drive back home, with you waving us goodbye from the porch
I keep watching you till you melt away in the distance
I have failed you
You still haven't spoken
Or Laughed
Or Cried
I feel the sudden urge to weep
And I wish we could have wept together


FOUR

And still
The silly, sentimental heart craves for
Another world cup,
Another cup of tea,
Another monsoon,
Another moment free
Another Sandesh,
Another happiness,
Another hug,
Another caress


You wrapped me in your arms
With the familiarity of old, warm, winter clothes
Your eyes seemed to say to me
“It is going to be all right”


Polly, you told me so many things
But I have all this pain that I never tell you
Because I think it would shatter you
Even more
It was only after you drove away crying in your Toyota;
Then it was my turn to be staggered.