Discourses From the East
Illegal Migrant Checkpoint on the Guwahati-Shillong Highway
The cab slows down.
The cop glares.
I stumble upon my own reflection
In the rear view mirror,
And look for traces
Of my grandfather,
Who had fled
East Pakistan
Many years ago.
For Darwish’s Children
I put a flower in the barrel,
And your gun implodes.
We both die; that’s true.
And yet you go to heaven,
While your medals chain me
To the pits of hell.
And all of this happens
Right here;
On earth.
Digholipukhuri
A friend asks if I can spare tomorrow to go save the trees with her,
And with the rest of this city that grows and shrinks and multiplies
Like a bitch in summer heat.
My mother thinks that they will shoot me dead
If I go anywhere near her trees.
And I seem to have inherited this cowardice,
For even I think that they might.
And then, with all these promises of roads that take flight, and boats that run on wheels,
It is quite the distance that I’d have to cover
To reach Digholipukhuri—
Distance enough for my tongue to twist,
And start speaking in a different language.
Naincy Hair Saloon
While sparring with my turbulent beard,
Bhola receives a video-call
From a friend floating daintily
On a mattress somewhere in Bihar.
With half my lathered face on screen,
They giggle at each other like minions,
As one says that his train arrives the next evening, And the other asks if he has had time to buy scissors.
