seaboyman ~ poetry

Behind the seen

1.

When my grandma went to the Modi rally,

Grandpa said to me- Look at her

Off with her woman gang

Full in four standards.

We have a TV; I'll paint the walls orange too

But no she goes I

Collect rubber from the fields not mine since your mother's marriage,

Milk no cows since your uncle's. The hen I open early,

She has educated them in an English medium, your grandma, the hen,

I say here, they go there, I say down, they walk on all the branches.

I missed the fish, messed the rice and if the wild cat takes away a chick today,

I may not see the sun rise tomorrow, twinleaf stand because

She will fall like a shadow upon me.

2.

When she returned from the Modi rally,

My grandma said to me,

Nothing- they confiscated the black flags

He was late, twenty minutes, they snatched away some more.

He came he waved he spoke

Something we did not understand, some chanted some

Like us silent, some respectfully taken away without a sound.

At the end of it all, there was sambhar rice.

Not that good either, the rice too big, the sambhar too thin,

There was curd rice too which ended before our turn but I doubt

The rice was any smaller, the curd any thicker.

We did not even stop for tea, on the way back,

The sunset point of Kanyakumari did its thing,

We looked through the windows and sped back

Before the night fell hard.

~Ajay
10/3/19