My Dadi tried to give her whole
world to me. I suckled at her old
punctured breasts when mother
was sick. She’d walk Belonia
thousand times over if it meant a
chuckle out of my feeble teeth.
She’d fix the moon. She’d cover
the day into night with her white
drape and valleys would croak
with frogs, her ever bare feet
would crush mushroom heads,
summon Krishna with her chants
and make the sky cry a slumber.
We’d go past the emerald ponds,
past lands spilled with betel nuts,
past a Durga, past a Takkya Ali,
over the hump of a moon, past the
glowing snakes, through purple
mustard and bare fields. All this while
her body moving like a cradle. I, hung
in mid sleep — one eye shut, one
watching. We’re so far away from home,
in a different planet. But she walks
through a pale blue mist and I’d smell
the rice cakes, the thick date syrup
and the hum of my mother over a
red Gita and I’d know home was here
as if teleported through time. And I’d
run to mother bent in prayers to boo
at her and break her trance. I never
looked back. If I did, I’d see my Dadi
hiding her tears. She loved me so, she
loved me forever.
