Curse-Words
1.
The ache I feel while whittling the curse-words
from my tongue is the knowledge that I have
another story hidden in my belly. I was a girl who was hungry
in a very literal way. Sucked pebbles because there was
nothing else: willing to saw through skin, flesh, bone, marrow
if only
that page could be torn forever from the Advice Manual
laying out the step by step instructions on how to build
and preserve the heritage of women too eager to satisfy
the mapmaker's caprice.
2.
This story begins with my grandfather and his brothers.
If there was anything before them,
a different plot
a different twist
or a more dramatic beginning,
it was conveniently forgotten.
They had held the lump of earth in their hand, the specks of dust
touching their skins hazier than memory. In that lump of earth, they
tried to draw the house they planned to own. And failed. Could not
decide on the number of rooms. They argued in a tongue broken right
through the middle. Because they all vouched for that language, even
in the middle of their monumental divisiveness, they kept going back
again and again to the wholeness of the mango skin. It lactated, at the
slightest
tough of their nails. They ignored the stickiness, the skin bursting at
its
seams,
and concentrated on its sweetness. Mangoes were like mother's
breasts�round
and triangular at the same time, sugar bubbling beneath the crusts.
Although
very few of us would be able to describe in precise words what mother's
milk
really tasted like. That's why they looked for mothers everywhere
Every little girl born to them became a mother. Even before she outgrew
her baby gurgle and earthworm finger. Little mother, they called these
girls.
Who lived forever under the weight of their names lost to a mono-syllabic
word--
ma. Little mother for sure, but mother still.
In the books they wrote, the two words house and mother began to look the
same.
Increasingly. And then they finally lapsed into one. My mother read the
drafts of
those books again and again. Because she had mastered the art of excellent
penmanship,
she copied and re-copied the manuscripts. Checked the spellings, retrieved
the sentences
from below the scratches.
She did not write any books herself. She did not believe there were enough
plot-lines in her
anecdotes to become stories.
3.
My mother clung to paper pages; to the book,
a keyhole which she peeked through
Because no one told her what to look
for, and all that she could see were her father�s
fingers trying to write one word over
and over again: the word which spelt mother,
but meant house.
She tore herself in two.
One half split apart her own tongue,
sought to become that word which her father
had tried to write. The other half hurriedly
bade adieu
to the morning, creased
itself into the alphabets of the
pages she read. They would cradle her somewhere
beyond the gutters, peeled paint and
windowless walls
4.
In this photograph, I am eight�scowling.
Learning to say no. My dress rolled up around
my waist, because it is trouble. Getting stuck
on the fences, hedges everywhere. I bite when
called ma: am beginning to figure out fingers can
cause pain. I slap others when slapped, though
I wasn't slapped too often: endearments fall around
me, heavy as stone. I make fists often.Hardly anyone
sees them. Mostly, they are lost within the folds of my
frock. But I keep on making them. Until one day, I
raise them in the open, closer to the sun.
........................................................................My mother did not always
follow
........................................................................ when I quietly stepped
out
........................................................................ of her shadow. The last
time I saw
........................................................................ her, a year ago, she was
still trying
........................................................................ to peek through that
keyhole,
........................................................................ which had long narrowed
into rust.
5.
That is the story I hide inside my belly .
The one that curls its paws like a monkey
begging to come out from the zoo-cage
The one that seeps out like pus
in the curse-words I throw at her and the world
Nandini Dhar's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Muse India, Kritya, Mascara Literary Review, Off the Coast, Pratilipi,tinfoildresses, First Literary Review, Hawaii Review, Prick of the Spindle,Penwood Review, Poetry Quarterly, Stonetelling, Cabinet Des Fees and Asia Writes. A Pushcart nominee, Nandini grew up in Kolkata, India, and received an M.A. in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University, Calcutta and another M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Oregon. Currently, she is a Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature at University of Texas at Austin.
1.
The ache I feel while whittling the curse-words
from my tongue is the knowledge that I have
another story hidden in my belly. I was a girl who was hungry
in a very literal way. Sucked pebbles because there was
nothing else: willing to saw through skin, flesh, bone, marrow
if only
that page could be torn forever from the Advice Manual
laying out the step by step instructions on how to build
and preserve the heritage of women too eager to satisfy
the mapmaker's caprice.
2.
This story begins with my grandfather and his brothers.
If there was anything before them,
a different plot
a different twist
or a more dramatic beginning,
it was conveniently forgotten.
They had held the lump of earth in their hand, the specks of dust
touching their skins hazier than memory. In that lump of earth, they
tried to draw the house they planned to own. And failed. Could not
decide on the number of rooms. They argued in a tongue broken right
through the middle. Because they all vouched for that language, even
in the middle of their monumental divisiveness, they kept going back
again and again to the wholeness of the mango skin. It lactated, at the
slightest
tough of their nails. They ignored the stickiness, the skin bursting at
its
seams,
and concentrated on its sweetness. Mangoes were like mother's
breasts�round
and triangular at the same time, sugar bubbling beneath the crusts.
Although
very few of us would be able to describe in precise words what mother's
milk
really tasted like. That's why they looked for mothers everywhere
Every little girl born to them became a mother. Even before she outgrew
her baby gurgle and earthworm finger. Little mother, they called these
girls.
Who lived forever under the weight of their names lost to a mono-syllabic
word--
ma. Little mother for sure, but mother still.
In the books they wrote, the two words house and mother began to look the
same.
Increasingly. And then they finally lapsed into one. My mother read the
drafts of
those books again and again. Because she had mastered the art of excellent
penmanship,
she copied and re-copied the manuscripts. Checked the spellings, retrieved
the sentences
from below the scratches.
She did not write any books herself. She did not believe there were enough
plot-lines in her
anecdotes to become stories.
3.
My mother clung to paper pages; to the book,
a keyhole which she peeked through
Because no one told her what to look
for, and all that she could see were her father�s
fingers trying to write one word over
and over again: the word which spelt mother,
but meant house.
She tore herself in two.
One half split apart her own tongue,
sought to become that word which her father
had tried to write. The other half hurriedly
bade adieu
to the morning, creased
itself into the alphabets of the
pages she read. They would cradle her somewhere
beyond the gutters, peeled paint and
windowless walls
4.
In this photograph, I am eight�scowling.
Learning to say no. My dress rolled up around
my waist, because it is trouble. Getting stuck
on the fences, hedges everywhere. I bite when
called ma: am beginning to figure out fingers can
cause pain. I slap others when slapped, though
I wasn't slapped too often: endearments fall around
me, heavy as stone. I make fists often.Hardly anyone
sees them. Mostly, they are lost within the folds of my
frock. But I keep on making them. Until one day, I
raise them in the open, closer to the sun.
........................................................................My mother did not always
follow
........................................................................ when I quietly stepped
out
........................................................................ of her shadow. The last
time I saw
........................................................................ her, a year ago, she was
still trying
........................................................................ to peek through that
keyhole,
........................................................................ which had long narrowed
into rust.
5.
That is the story I hide inside my belly .
The one that curls its paws like a monkey
begging to come out from the zoo-cage
The one that seeps out like pus
in the curse-words I throw at her and the world
Nandini Dhar's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Muse India, Kritya, Mascara Literary Review, Off the Coast, Pratilipi,tinfoildresses, First Literary Review, Hawaii Review, Prick of the Spindle,Penwood Review, Poetry Quarterly, Stonetelling, Cabinet Des Fees and Asia Writes. A Pushcart nominee, Nandini grew up in Kolkata, India, and received an M.A. in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University, Calcutta and another M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Oregon. Currently, she is a Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature at University of Texas at Austin.