"Vanaprastha 2009"
Lenin’s angular profile studies the ceiling’s corner
Raised stiff, suitably elegant and intellectual
Photo-framed on the freedom-sky-blue wall
Lacquer bowls, Russian, with puckered faces not
Able to see their own paint-smeared smooth bellies
In a melee of scores of seashells nestling in them
Short changes from long-ago family holidays
An office union calendar, don’t know who got it
Hangs urgent and fluttery in the semi-spring breeze
Mondays, Sundays, paydays, all days organized well
As in a spreadsheet, boxy dates to enable scribbles
About meetings, reviews and occasional lockouts
My parents did not have the heart to change the TV
The color tube’s a bit busted, spills green more
But the screen beams in Nat Geo & History they watch
In a silent slump from re-painted couches of Assam cane
The brass xorai is not for praying. "True is it, your dad’s a
Red?" A neighborhood uncle had asked me, "doesn’t pray."
Do I know? I also know dad waited with us for prasad
From mom’s puja evenings of camphor, Lakshmi’s calm
That’s her favorite chair, those his books, cobweb
Under curtains long unwashed, my embroidered
Dancers, brother’s rickety racket, the portly phone
Awaiting the ring of our brawls. Where will it all go?
We all laughed, sang, ate and told each other stories here
Raised stiff, suitably elegant and intellectual
Photo-framed on the freedom-sky-blue wall
Lacquer bowls, Russian, with puckered faces not
Able to see their own paint-smeared smooth bellies
In a melee of scores of seashells nestling in them
Short changes from long-ago family holidays
An office union calendar, don’t know who got it
Hangs urgent and fluttery in the semi-spring breeze
Mondays, Sundays, paydays, all days organized well
As in a spreadsheet, boxy dates to enable scribbles
About meetings, reviews and occasional lockouts
My parents did not have the heart to change the TV
The color tube’s a bit busted, spills green more
But the screen beams in Nat Geo & History they watch
In a silent slump from re-painted couches of Assam cane
The brass xorai is not for praying. "True is it, your dad’s a
Red?" A neighborhood uncle had asked me, "doesn’t pray."
Do I know? I also know dad waited with us for prasad
From mom’s puja evenings of camphor, Lakshmi’s calm
That’s her favorite chair, those his books, cobweb
Under curtains long unwashed, my embroidered
Dancers, brother’s rickety racket, the portly phone
Awaiting the ring of our brawls. Where will it all go?
We all laughed, sang, ate and told each other stories here
One of those about this house of memories now on sale.
Images from my computer: "The House of Twining Roses" where I spent my teenage years
