MAIDS OF HONOUR

Steps in the house with a bunch of marigolds, roses or hibiscuses
puts near Mum's altar, picks the chalk, the bucket and the mug
heads for space outside the front door
washes and draws rangoli pattern
an Indian morning ritual.
A gappy smile for Padma, the neighbour's maid
both exchange their daily chitchat
hands draw beautiful rangoli designs on the floor.

9 am, Sarojini's second or third house by then,
a grin for the family members when eyes meet,
the gap of her lost front tooth an accustomed view
as the scorching sun outside in the south Indian city.
Similar chores repeated flat after flat
vessels in the sink, the rooms, the bathrooms, the kitchen slab,
the thrash binned and more.

Up and down, just as the lift of the building.
her feet get some rest when shouted for tea and breakfast
breakfast skipped, packed for her fatherless boys
hot sugary tea, her energy booster, back in the loop once more.

Round and round from one room to another,
from one house to another
as a Ferris wheel she spins till sun sets.
but. another house still left
her shack, chores need to be finished,
boys need to be fed; her treadmill does not stop.

Her daily milestone of ten thousand or twenty thousand steps or more
no smart watch to track, no one to pat and no one to share or compare with.

A relief in every Indian housewife's face,
the minute the maid rings the calling bell.
Housewife's smile warmer for the maid
than for the husband when he comes back.
The husband may earn
the lift may carry people and their bags
but she relieves the fatigue of every housewife.

In addition, the building gossip, the maids share
who bought a new car, which flat's
tenant has left or who is the whiny neighbour
and more, the topics and names change
an unpaid entertainment at all times.

Sarojini or Padma, to name a few
backbone of every Indian household,
their backbones do get tired too
but none remembers
as their motor never stops to spin.

Rajgangpur

 

City, too big a word to express it
town, preferred for the place where I grew
saw it first in arms of my dad, arrived as a two-year-old
have no memories of what I saw then
a small town tucked in Odisha, then called Orissa
a state in east India.

Memory fondly reveals the narrow road between two big ponds,
on the way to school, our rickshaw travel providing the mixed view
of lotuses and the washermen with piles of clothes.
The burial ground adjacent to the school
no one thought of its unusual location,
every time a body arrived
students seated near the window enjoyed the distraction.

The fenced roundabout on the way back home
with its two theatres, bunch of street side eateries
the taste of beetroot cutlets, my taste buds still remember
sight of the fried crispy samosas and queues at the till
the tyre shop near it and men with their tea glasses.

The railway crossing after the roundabout and the two roads jutting out
one leading to my house and the next to the big church in the huge green compound
the tubewell on the way and the tucked little ration shop stocked with sugar, rice and wheat.

Our roadside house and the medley of hawker's voices on cycles
few selling carpets, some cotton candy and roasted nuts
the veranda outside our house, where we played with friends
the well at our backyard, which my sister would always walk to jump if scolded
and be back, when I sneakily told, at my dad's behest about frogs in the well.
An anecdote as the town itself.


The other end of the city where my college lay, the packed bus stand nearby
a new road more travelled once I became an adult in my mind, the pond and the rickshaw stuffed to the back of the mind.
Eyes feast the new sights
the cloth shops, the tailors, the cosmetic store enroute to college
the Friday crowds to the mosque on the parallel road
the spicy puffed rice vendor near the college gate
where girls jostled to buy.

The single-track crossing, the cement wagons pushed by elephants
replaced by engines after.
The dusty trucks laden with cement bags
workers and cement both in one colour
a sore view,
livelihood for majority in the town.

A new part of town now,
our new house above the mill
with its white windows
where we moved in,
the vegetable market behind the house
the tiny post office facing it and muddy roads at the back
the lanes where I drove the first scooter
visits to the Shiva temple adjacent to it
and the decorated hall nearby where I got married.

The quaint little town circled
the same station again, where I bid adieu to my parents
the station now expanded, lights of which do not fuse
witnessed that ten years ago on a reunion visit.
Left Rajgangpur thirty-three years ago,
the name acquired as was a princely state during the British raj.

A town whose lanes and buildings
hold my gossip and my secrets,
whose roads and bricks saw me cry and laugh
saw me grow from a toddler to a woman
a place which has understood me and fulfilled me
more than any city I have lived till now.