‘Somehow, I’ve made it to the last paragraph’: Poet-novelist Anupama Raju has a new book of poetry

What You Don’t Know

You think you can
stun me to sleep,
shun my words,
and hold me down.
What you don’t know
is I am an axe.

Planning Dinner

There’s batter in the fridge anyway,
enough to last a week for two.
Idlis are great, but too cumbersome.
Their moulds pile, grate in the sink,
steel scrubs, screams shrill.

Soft mounds turn surly in the end.

Idlis are not as easy as you think.
Supple, warm, plump. They soak up sambar,
only if they ferment as long as swear words
that linger unsaid, unheard in the tap water
now gushing out loud, loud enough for the neighbours to
know it’s idlis for dinner.

So, no idlis tonight.

Let’s settle for dosa.
Let’s go round and round.
Leave a sizzle here, a dribble there.

Crisp enough for you?

Cleaning the House

Saturdays are for cleaning and writing.
I begin without map or warning,
moving in circles, gathering dust and dirt,
a week’s cobweb gobbling more than spiders.
Sometimes I return to the same spot,
sweep under the dining table, pick up nothing.
I sprinkle some dust.
Floors need footprints.
Furniture needs proof of life.
So I wipe them clean, except for the coffee mug stains.
Spotless is lifeless.
I must write too, as ideas settle
on the corner coffee table.
The broom, the dusting cloth and mop
fit beautifully in my hands.
Their hold is real. Their hold is real.
Much more than words that reveal.

Home

But this time I write of a different love
my country, the place I call home.
Yet I betray it, this place I call home.
Where I breathe in cinnamon skies,
dream on summer-studded roads
and sleep on dreamless pillows.
My country, the place I call home,
I betray it, this place called home.
It’s a crime to speak too loud,
worth a dime when I cry too loud.
I betray it, this country, my place, my home.
So I write of a different love.
But the words roll off the page
for another love, another place they call home.
We all betray our place called home.
This country that we call home.

Nostalgia

That street we walked on
runs through me like a spine.
The bare bone longs
for our fresh footprints.
If the crunch of that
evening walk, hand in hand
means standing tall,
I don’t mind having the street
run through me like a spine.
I don’t mind at all.

The Same Page

I was never good at finishing a page.
Somehow, I’ve made it to the last paragraph.
On my way, I passed a few unfinished sentences
meant to be completed by you.

Or was it by me? I don’t remember.

These days we hardly talk, and when we do,
you don’t notice, you don’t remember,
I’ve made it to the last paragraph.

You’re in that unfinished line somewhere on the last page,
or is it the next one, I don’t remember.

We leave each other’s sentences on different pages
in a book that isn’t meant to be.
We leave behind our pages in different books
about a life that isn’t to be.

Bitter Gourd

A glass of bitterness
goes well with age.
Get on with it, drink it every day,
keep your head bowed.
Each time the world hits you,
survive the blow.
Even if justice is served,
it will be bitter,
it’ll remind you to lie low.

Excerpted with permission from Bitter Gourd, Anupama Raju, Copper Coin.