Inside the Haveli
Published in Fresh from the Fountain
It was dusk when we heard that voice
and entered the Haveli . Then, there was only silence
between giggles and the rust
peeling from abstract tiles and the forgotten
arteries of ghosts were held by floating diyas and the soft light
pestered with insistence, fled and could not find its way back again.
‘Children are not allowed here at night’ again and again
Our ayya would insist, and that the light
seen with childlike amazement was to be forgotten,
tucked away in a solitary room to rust
like all of childhood before her. There was always to be ‘silence’
locked in an anti-climactic battle in-between the contempt of her voice.
It was something not easily forgotten, her voice
which would reverberate like the melancholic croak of a frog somehow forgotten
by its army, yet, our disdain was marked by silence
upon decrypted walls and other innocent acts impervious to rust.
It was in these moments that the resounding ‘AGAIN?!’
would sound and we would cower away somewhere with no light.
Breakfast was meticulously served after the morning light
hit the corners of our eyes like ants under microscopes and again
the melody of the Azaan would float across and to besides the old divan, a rust
coloured tapestry, completely insensate to sense from where, a soft voice
would bring us, at least me, back to the forgotten
giddiness of the previous nights’ dream in silence.
It would do good now to forget that embracing silence,
make my way back to the courtyard and search for the voice
from so long ago. I do not know when I can again
find the ghosts hiding in the crevices of attics with such delight.
I will try to discover when ‘we’ became just ‘I’, that sporadic rust
that haunts the courtyard of our haveli, but not forgotten.
This is no place to be a forgotten
ghost, like the ones we used to catch till our ayya’s voice
drowned us away from those diyas reflecting the soft light
of the moon in glistening silence
and so we continue again
by repainting over the rust.
I have witnessed silence and the voice
we misconstrued for light and again,
it will not rust, nor be forgotten.
Index.
Haveli- A generic term for a mansion in the Asian subcontinent .It is based on certain subcontinental architectural designs.
Diyas-Oil Lamp made from clay that uses cotton wick dipped in vegetable oil or clarified butter
Ayya- Maidservant. Akin to a nanny.
Azaan- Muslim call to prayer. Heard from nearby mosque at least 5 times a day.
Published in Fundstücke – Trouvailles 3
Letters // (from an adjacent parenthesis)
That day
I am sad like the skin of the boy in the sky
Eternity cuts between us,
I lose countless images to the other side
-Chika Sagawa, Circuits.
Because I was –
no one
I was left behind
Accepted; only in 3rd person
singular.
Body – carved as afterthought,
after Seven days I learnt how even
ghosts haunt through hollow eyes;
as unquenched lines
roaming on papyrus.
Because, I was, no one,
(Senile senses stirred to sterile perfection)
Languid trembling of finger –
tipped the flies aside &
delivered the 32p due; in years.
(sans post-script).
II
Prelude
STAY! WATCH!
the sun
SET -(tle)! down
(b r e a t h e… between the parenthesis)
Exiting (in statuary silence):
> ‘We never herd into-
lamb
skins on our own,
waiting for …
(letters)’ <
Bow… // Brake… //
Bow…//
(Break!)
III
(…)
The fly hovers until it droops down
& finds itself wading around
a half-broth stew
I break news of you;
in novels consisting of 140 ( – to 280 -)
characters
Hollowed; and (in) such loneliness –
the transmigration of sole to script to soul
The evening then transpires as it should
until it is a fly
meditating on Buddhism.
Published in The Selkie
Evening Shrouds
The evening — the cold resilient
sweet evening is adrift
Listen! the muezzin
screams into corners
of himself. The sacrosanct
is camouflage. Believe
in the echo displacing convenient spaces
displaying stain glassed windows
folding on a dare.
Disk is distant,
it festers like moving frames
in the back-alleys of Nice
I listened! to stained glass
breaking and delivered (its)
shrapnel as sacrifice.
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