Two memories, Delhi

I

Laxmi Nagar, Delhi
1997

I must have been twelve
when a grand-uncle was discovered
during a vacation in Delhi,

you don't know him? we'd told you, he's

nani's eldest brother,
(also from Sargodha, Pakistan)
I'd never met a grand-uncle.

In his Jamuna-paar house, he looked so frail
in his drawing-room that my twelve-year-oldness
was afraid to go near him.

He could not see. And, for me, then, his could-not-seeness
had sat in the middle of the room
but no one would mention it.

He spoke to us and I followed his closed eyelids
that kept egg-whites beneath them.

I tried to measure how much 
he could see of the snacks on the table,
of my fingers, of all of us talking,
of his own speaking-about-us-without-knowing-us,
as if of course I know you, you're my sister's grand...

After a while,
he asked Pinki (my mother's name
for those who knew her longer than I)
to let him see us.

We were made to get up and
stand in front of him.

I walked slowly, my bones
shaped like awkwardness.

He touched my face with his fingers,
frailness, moved them lightly over my nose,
my eyes (should I keep them closed? or open?)
and said, he's "nice-looking" in English,
and then let me go.

I bundled back
to my edge of the sofa,
to the edge of my mother,
near her, asking her to keep me
from her people, those who knew her
longer than I, grand-uncles whose egg-whites
roamed on walls and who saw people through fingers.

II

Jangpura Extension, Delhi
2016

Rohit, it has been about six years
since you left, and of-course-this-is-very-little-time,
especially-in-this-day-and-age,
but I thank my stars that sometimes I find it
difficult to remember
your face
fully.

It is surprising how much six years
without a facebook-friendship can do,
how they can blur the edges of cheek-bones,
make the nose go was-it-like-this?
and eyes, were-they-dark-brown-or-black?

Around the third year,
when this slow forgetting had started,
I found these little slipping-away's of details
to be a form of betrayal, like the final warrant of
now-nothing-can-start-again, like the final final, like
even his face now...

but when your going sunk in through the years,
this slipperiness of memory felt kinder,
this inability to remember no longer argued with me,
it sat on my lap and let me stroke
its chin, and loved me back,
if even his face can go, then surely...

but, sometimes, near the hours
that are no-longer-night an' not-yet-dawn,
when I lie just on this side of sleep, sometimes

not always, my hand takes the shape as if it is
holding you from the back,

and the fingers still hold the gossamer air
of the bedroom as if they touched your cheeks,

as if the small slant of your nose was there,
the graze of the stubble, the lemonness of hair,
the soft drip of your ear,

as if rememberance was a game
played by fingers on gossamer fields,

and, in those nights, I didn't need
memory's ability to see, I touched, and without
saying it to you, meant, like in
those nights, "nice-looking",

and saying it held off dawn, it held off the claim
of the next day, it held off who-told-you-to-go,
why-did-you-have-to-go, it held off
where-are-you-now...

Against

his dark skin

I find myself
capable of sin.

??? ??? ?? ??

???? ????-???? ????? ??
??? ??? ???

He sees me. I see him.

"You're a little chubby,"
"I guess you're a little dim,"
we part ways, he's not gettin'
sharper, I'm not getting thin.

Come

tr. from Ashok Vajpeyi's '??'

Come,
like darkness comes near darkness,
like water runs into water,
like light dissolves in light,

come, wear me,
like a tree wears the bark,
like a mud-path wears the grass,

take me,
like the darkness takes the roots,
like water takes the moon,
like the infinite takes time.

You walk in

and my eyes catch fire, you touch
me and my skin's live wire,
and no matter tonight
how much I deny
her, I think I
am going
to die of
desire.

He doesn't say - Ashok Vajpeyi

tr. from Ashok Vajpeyi's '?? ???? ????'

He says
he has only a little heart,
like sunrays say
they have a little light
fire says
it has a little warmth --

sunrays don't say they have the universe
fire doesn't say it has those flames
he doesn't say he has his body.

[after Ashok Vajpeyi's return of the Sahitya Akademi Award, Oct '15]

Beds

- there've been many,
and I've sworn all of them to secrecy,
hoping mattresses keep their promise.

The one in Stokey

in the house behind the
Abney Park Cemetery

to which my mother, calling from Lucknow,
had said - "When you sleep, do not lie
facing the cemetery,"

though, often
in the evenings

I'd look at our backyard fence
running against the 18th century graves

- where an angel, an urn, a lion,
all contracted in cement, kept
an Anglican hymn-maker, kept 17 year old
world-war veterans, kept a girl who
"left us so suddenly and so irrevocably
in grief" -

and I did not think it was anything
particularly serious to be
facing them while
I slept.

My German and Greek room-mates
often partied, "facing the cemetery."


A year later, the single-bed in King's Cross,

on the fifth floor,
floated above police sirens
and bus horns,

and was stuck to the right wall of
the room that I'd expressly asked "should. face. outside."

the hostel warden - this nice white guy - was surprised,
"you're the first one to ask for a room facing the road,"
"I like the noise," I said. I did not say I'm from a bigger city,
 I'd sooner die than face the "serene," that
little patch of green for more than a day.

He smirked but let me have my choice.

That bed afforded the view
 of Constable churches, of a Punjabi grocer,
a car rental and a Tesco,

and it was on this bed
where we managed to do it
for the first time,

using face-cream as lube.

Sometime that year,
the bed in your downtown house
near Battery Park,

that I knew only for a night
while visiting New York,

where I made plans which were
(presciently) smaller than my hands,

where I looked down into your city

where even
the parking-lot at mid-night
seemed unbelievable to me,

where the bed, holding my knees,
and your umber skin, as you slept,
told me that the tense of desire
is always the future,

one in which no plan survives,
no suture holds,
no love keeps,

one in which you leave me, always,
so suddenly and so irrevocably
in grief

that night after night
beds now
are of a kind,

that have very little to do
with sleeping.

Jangpura Extension

The Latin word for the
ear is 'pinna' - 'wings' and
I knew why this morning

as you held me between
finger and thumb, I was only
cartilage ready to fly --

you woke up, and outside
the rain made even the petals
of bougainvillea so heavy,

that the plants had to
shed them, filigreeing the
pavement with the

colour of sunrise, & later
as we walked towards the
stadium, we waded the

remnants of the sun,
attenuated under our feet,
as "the earth," was

"thawing from longing
into longing," you said bye,
took the metro, and I

walked on past noon,
and when turning near JLN,
a car stopped by, a

man, about fifty, Sikh,
asked me the directions for
Khanna Market; I told

him. He said "Come I'll
drop you," but "I am going to
Lodhi Gardens," I said,

he said "Come I'll drop
you," and it took me a second
to know that the wings,

and the thawing, and
the sun, the bougainvillea,
the pavements were

all in his eyes. I said "I'll
walk," and he took my answer,
and crushed it on the road.

You pass by like a train

I shiver like a bridge.


tr. from Dushyant Kumar 'tu kisi rail si guzarti hai / main pul sa thartharata hoon'

Dushyant Kumar

 

As s/he logged on

to the Yahoo gay chat forum for the first time
with the username intersex90, the first
minute was 32 pings.

Of those 32 pings, only 31 were tarnished by
curiosity, and the remaining was an ad
for dick-size-enhancement.

"So what do you have down there?" gayboy94 said,
"I'm only asking," and s/he thought how "only
asking" when actually asking was redundant.

The ping bell didn't stop: delhi10inch said "I have never
met an intersex person," "Do you have sex?" "So you
have both penis and vagina, really? Hot!"

and when s/he thought, s/he'd log out because maybe
this is not the right chat forum, bottomboy95 said
'Yuck, how does someone even suck you,'

so right before logging out, nervous though, s/he be like,
on forum chat so all can see: "It's gorgeous down
there, & I do just fine, and yes, fuck you."

Kiss

The kiss on the cheek marks affection,
the kiss on the hand takes you nearer,

the kiss on the lips burns circumspection
to dust, the kiss on the neck dips you

headlong in lust, and when love exceeds
so much that it knows not what it implies,

you find yourself reaching and kissing him
on his eyes.

i want to 377 you so bad

till even the sheets hurt i want to
ache your knees singe your skin
line you brown breathe you in i want to
mouth you in words neck you in red
i want to beg your body insane into sepals
i want to 377 you like a star falling off the brown
i want to feel you till my nails turn water
i want to suck you seven different skies
i want to be a squatter in your head when
it sleeps when its dark i want to break laws
with you in bed and in streets and in parks

Though my memory might be dim,

but I remember, the bar, the
walk back, him. I remember his
middle name spelled in gin, &
the evening moving on a whim.
And where the Caledonian Road
turned like a river, where the
lights of King's Cross limned
his black jacket, his short hair,
and his eyes as brown as sin.

I was scared to talk to him, he

was so beautiful that I was all
psyched, his eyes were like...,
his hair were like..., when he
turned to look at you, you turned
into..., so try as I might, I couldn't
do, but then one day, in one of
those moments of courage that
come very, very few, I wrote to
him, being all spruce and fly,
asking him "So why haven't we
met so far?" giving him the cue,
he said: "I was scared to talk to you."

He looks up, is it prayer,

he looks down, is he shy,

looks askance, does he dare,

looks away, and I die.

(translation from Javed Akhtar, version)

"Nazar Unchi Kari To Dua Ban Gayi

Nazar Neechi Kari To Haya Ban Gayi

Nazar Tirchhi Kari To Adaa Ban Gayi

Nazar Pher Li To Qaza Ban Gayi" - Javed Akhtar, version.

"Should we go to mine,"

I said, but then feeling creepy,

added "or not, you must be sleepy."

He leaned nearer, "I'd just said

let's get out of here, no one's

sleepy, don't put words in my mouth."

Tingly, that this might go somewhere,

I shifted between legs, & didn't know

where to look, right or left, north

or south, tonight, there's just one

word I want to put in his mouth.