Poetry | Issue 2 (October 2023)

I remember telling her I would paint her a Krishna

standing in a garden, because all children drew gardens,

with erect trees and singled out leaves, and blades of grass one could count.

Krishna was a story I knew about her. Her daily prayers at 5 am,

hair washed and plastered against her skull, sitting out in the grass,

Rudraksha beads sprinting between her fingers.

She smoked Camels, unfiltered, and enjoyed a whiskey or two.

I knew that story too.

Was I too young to be a confidante? I wonder now.

Each time she opened her Godrej, the sound jarring 

like a blaring ship being dragged offshore, I would run to see 

what she kept locked inside. I learned much later that some widows 

choose not to own too many things, and like living in a pale palette,

as a blanched reflection of who they were.

Your Nana sat with people fighting for our freedom.

We would hide them in our homes, she would tell me 

pointing to a photograph stuck inside her cupboard. 

Rawalpindi, partition, strange words dipping their toes 

into our conversations, but never fully explained. 

“Jai Hind Ji,”, was our “Hello”, “Good morning”, “How are you?”

I barely understood the gravity of these three words or

knew anything about the freedom she spoke of.

Years later, memorising the events of 1947, studying in a 

British boarding school, I still understood nothing of the fight.

GLOSSARY:

Nani — Maternal grandmother 

Krishna — One of the Hindu gods 

Rudraksha — Dried stones of a fruit used as prayer beads 

Godrej — Metal cupboard; Godrej is a popular brand that manufactures such cupboards among other things

Nana — Maternal grandfather 

Rawalpindi — A city currently in Pakistan, earlier a part of undivided India. 

Partition — India’s partition  

Jai Hind Ji — A salutation that means “Long live India”

1947 — The year India attained Independence from British rule and the newly-formed nation-state Pakistan was carved out of undivided India.