Ankush Banerjee |
|
CACTUS
After 12 years of living away from home,
I arrive at the following statistic: distribution of talk time
while calling up home –
sister – 38 minutes
mother – 22 minutes
father – 1 minute, 12 seconds.
Seems the father, forever caged
in name and narrative, manages to
survive sans affection, like the cactus plant.
It needs only a little water to survive.
The emotional realm, dominated by mother,
like her kitchen, is watery, moist, redolent –
a swamp of affections that will never set one free.
What transpires between two strangers sitting
in front of the television, watching the evening news,
is telegraphic need, purpose sharpened on want.
Even a hug at a farewell seems out-of-place,
like a vestigial organ – seen only by accident.
After grandmother died, one evening,
he called me and spoke continuously for
36 minutes. We discussed politics, cricket,
his love for hot chapattis, an old sweetheart,
the time he was in Iraq and drove 50 miles
to catch a glimpse of Saddam –
the skies of my childhood
opening like a cataract, a tap in the phone
flooding my adulthood.
Perhaps, all grief
is an aftermath of love. All love a preparation
to face something glorious in ourselves, like the butcher does.
And so does the chicken, before it is left dancing.
A cactus needs less water. But more sun.
A lot more sun!
*
IF THE BODY BETRAYS
it does so, because
it doesn’t know love
the way it seeks desire.
When she told him she was
cheating on him, my friend flew
half way around the world to sleep
on his childhood bed. The body will
never know the price we pay
for hiding sadness
in the folds of our skin. Shallow
moon. Thirst that can’t be satiated
by touch. The
toys we grow out of,
hair that falls just as easily
as rain. Even if we try, the light fades,
and we don’t catch
the last bus home. A moon cuts through the sky.
Becomes our own. We shut the window
and betray it. The body has no windows –
only mouth, eyes and something
we forgot, before embarking on the crocodile’s back,
taking us home to have supper with him and his wife.
One can’t tell why – it happens over and over.
Shoulder dislodging from a socket in the swimming pool,
breaking wind in the elevator, the mutiny of
a million cells, or that erection that never came, despite
me dancing at your door
with a big, ochre flower in my hair
going, round and round,
round and round.
*
After 12 years of living away from home,
I arrive at the following statistic: distribution of talk time
while calling up home –
sister – 38 minutes
mother – 22 minutes
father – 1 minute, 12 seconds.
Seems the father, forever caged
in name and narrative, manages to
survive sans affection, like the cactus plant.
It needs only a little water to survive.
The emotional realm, dominated by mother,
like her kitchen, is watery, moist, redolent –
a swamp of affections that will never set one free.
What transpires between two strangers sitting
in front of the television, watching the evening news,
is telegraphic need, purpose sharpened on want.
Even a hug at a farewell seems out-of-place,
like a vestigial organ – seen only by accident.
After grandmother died, one evening,
he called me and spoke continuously for
36 minutes. We discussed politics, cricket,
his love for hot chapattis, an old sweetheart,
the time he was in Iraq and drove 50 miles
to catch a glimpse of Saddam –
the skies of my childhood
opening like a cataract, a tap in the phone
flooding my adulthood.
Perhaps, all grief
is an aftermath of love. All love a preparation
to face something glorious in ourselves, like the butcher does.
And so does the chicken, before it is left dancing.
A cactus needs less water. But more sun.
A lot more sun!
*
IF THE BODY BETRAYS
it does so, because
it doesn’t know love
the way it seeks desire.
When she told him she was
cheating on him, my friend flew
half way around the world to sleep
on his childhood bed. The body will
never know the price we pay
for hiding sadness
in the folds of our skin. Shallow
moon. Thirst that can’t be satiated
by touch. The
toys we grow out of,
hair that falls just as easily
as rain. Even if we try, the light fades,
and we don’t catch
the last bus home. A moon cuts through the sky.
Becomes our own. We shut the window
and betray it. The body has no windows –
only mouth, eyes and something
we forgot, before embarking on the crocodile’s back,
taking us home to have supper with him and his wife.
One can’t tell why – it happens over and over.
Shoulder dislodging from a socket in the swimming pool,
breaking wind in the elevator, the mutiny of
a million cells, or that erection that never came, despite
me dancing at your door
with a big, ochre flower in my hair
going, round and round,
round and round.
*
