Soliloquy

I started life as a seed flowing south,
Unaware of the fissures that swimming
Against my instincts would arouse.
I did not remember much from 1997,
Coming to fruition the next year, nine
Months into the gestation of goodwill.
I did not know you before September
That year; I did not know that you
Disliked being known as just a mother;
That you liked the sambar of Coimbatore;
That you had been harassed in Delhi.
You spoke of the narrow lanes of Baroda
The way you would describe Amherst Street;
You bore them to your bosom when the
Mass murderer of Ahmedabad and Godhra
Let your friends rot; Dismembered by India
And disremembered by the media,
You welcomed them and sheltered them
From the rubble that dignity had been
Reduced to; you spoke in cliches that
Your son misinterpreted, and your husband
Misunderstood. Left in the decaying walls
Of men’s conduct, you bore your indignation
With a resilience Calcutta did not know.

You walked amongst the bushes wearing
Spotless white; your son trailed behind
With wicketkeeping gloves too sizes far
Too big for him. You remembered how you broke
Your nose in Wellington and how your wife
Broke down each time she saw the aquine,
If misaligned features you graced your face
With. You would walk on glass if asked to,
And charge into walls if enticed to. Lacking
The temperament of your father to induce
In yourself improbable and unjustified fury,
You made peace with what you had become.
Your father – largely absent from his own,
His wife’s and his sons’ lives – had the excuse
Of losing his own at two to sink back on;
You had nothing but love – however mercurial –
To resort to when vulnerability paid a visit.

I resembled no one I knew in September 1998.
I walked on an earth that I had no memories of.
If I had failed to be a son worthy of you
Back then, I had no reason to do so now.

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