Radha Kunj
With it’s black metal gate
that never quite closes fully.
Maybe that’s why the door needs
three locks and
three steps.
My grandmother stands at the open door,
with questions about my well-being
spilling out of her smile
(as they often do with grandmothers)
so quickly,
she sometimes slips into Konkini –
my mother’s tongue that she shares with
her mother –
One I do not speak and barely follow.
I answer in English
as I wander around the house,
looking for changes,
happy to find
the box on the table
still full of Himalaya Koflet.
I take one
though my throat is not sore
and see
the mug I’d drink milk from
till I was ten,
still there,
now retired in old age
to being a toothbrush stand;
my ten-year-old self
still smiling out at me from the
same photographs on the
same shelves in the
same rooms
my mother grew up in.
My feet remember
the red oxide floor and
marble tiled staircase
as a steady ticking follows me
from all the clocks
in every room
in this house where time stands still.
About this Poem
This is a very very rough draft of a poem that I intend to be a part of something larger that I want to work on. I didn't want to start on this till this month was over, but I was drawn to it today and decided that with all the rush in my life and constantly running out of time to do things, I could revisit this place where time stands still - my grandmother's home (named Radha Kunj) in Mangalore, a city on the West coast of India, where my mother is from. I hope you enjoy it. Will forage for and share a picture soon and edit this post.
Thanks for reading!