‘To mark my home within the luminescence of poetry’: Poems from a new book on the self in the city

To own a home

To own a home is to ingest it
and hope the concrete doesn’t
reverse track. It is to pray
the apartment breaks
down into paste in the entrails —
a process that takes as long
as final possession. It is to serve
the carpet area with a side of dadi’s
pickle (which the broker enjoys)
while the builder consumes seventy per cent
in cash, deep fried, and the rest
via bank transfer. (No salad.)

It is to feel lime-washed walls
slide down the throat with deceptive
sweetness and swirl in the abdomen
along with years of EMIs.
It is to brace for the acidity
of loan interests, corrosion of the inner
lining, lacerations and leakage.

It is to tackle complaints from neighbours,
which involves too much caffeine.
It is to watch the ceiling
peel, which is nobody’s concern
but yours. It is to devour meals
on the sly like a sleep-eater.
It is to decorate each room with care
and diabetic sugar, hoping everything
dissolves easily into bile. It is to feel
as if you have swallowed a rock,
though others are quick
to assure you this is normal
for property ownership and crucial
for a comfortable life.

Coastal road

The coastal road curves above the diamonds
of the Arabian Sea like an armful of edelweiss.
We drive towards its hologram
of urbanity, watching it expand like a promise,
noting how it links dreams to the soul.
My father marvels at the speed
of progress in the evening light
in which even the blue
tarp of need is made picturesque
by the sun’s wet kiss. As we cruise
onto its other limb, metal and cement
grow familiar under a fuchsia
sky. My father ruminates on the
vow fulfilled in his lifetime, and
the imbalance from which came this
moment of awe. To one end, it seems,
are our lives: a melding of gold
and survival, while the other holds
hope. Between them lies
this longing, these aspirations
that soar like comets. Sitting beside
my father, watching him accept
his mortality, I hold on and focus,
like him, on the direction of love.

A Byculla poet

After hearing him ask her
at a literature festival
whether there exists another that draws
Chinchpokli into poetics (because such
a thing is an absurdity), I, a Byculla poet
(of which I may be one of two, the second being
a name on a mural), sit in a cab
and fly – since it is a good day —
past buildings, two of which have a coconut
tree standing awkwardly between them
like I would have stood with the luminaries
had I courage to tell them I use the name
of that very neighbourhood as an endearment
to elicit my parents’ smiles. Instead,
as their conversation ends, I choose to shuffle
away with downcast eyes
and fly under a moon
gilded by the pair, thinking of how
to mark my home too
within the luminescence of poetry.

Corporate job

Over rows of desks
joined in reverence of a capitalist
goal, under a roof
of glass, natural light spills
like a mistake. Here time is full
of insects buzzing with seconds,
and rays swerving like swords,
attempting to slice heads
while I, in the office chair, work
against its progress, glaring
at the computer’s slow rise
from outdated sleep.

Bhaji wali

She announces her arrival with a call
that travels from her lips to windows
a generous radius away, her vowels
growing wild, expanding
with an elasticity that mesmerises,
the eeeh and aaah roaming like wind
and petering to the slow breath
of a summer breeze, leaving you
to mourn the energy that
dissolved to naught.

Encore.

War poem

Here there
is no blood —
tainted phrase releasing
like a bullet. No artillery —
laden words joining arms, forming
battalions. No rage. No tears. Not
much of anything. Only this pillow —
soft resignation to provide
a gentle, pointless end.

Excerpted with permission from Absurd Theatre, Suchita Parikh-Mundul, Paperwall Publishing.