Return to Mother's Land

Return to Mother’s Land


To a plane, to a place…
My freckled father calls her my Motherland.
Surely she is my mother’s land,
shallow earth dug from the water
that I packed away in intricate
patterned saris and coconut husks,
wrapped in mosquito nets, Nannu’s
loud phone calls, and the language
I knew, but stutter-stumble now,
bandaged in love-worn jeering and
the locked door of the nearest bathroom.
It’s an exotic everything,
except for me.

There were times when I hid in the latte skin
that I must wear without rest.
There were times when I shamed
beneath that cloth as the
burlaps goggled unabashedly.
I’d try to avert my eyes, though the stares
spilled from every crevice and corner,
and I drowned in them.

This time I lift up my telltale face,
wear with pride
my belly, my breasts,
my creamy skin.
And wade through the stares.
I glance from one to the next,
take a whiff, the sweet-spice of paan,
a scent that instantly recalls
ripe orange colours,
fibrous sponge textures.

My mind reels from the reality of memories.
The stale grey-time of inbetween passed
too quickly to prepare…
and I missed the veined red-paper flowers at landing.

Touch-down is a hard jolt.
I gulp in polluted air,
the static before an airport riot.
Nerves buzz as I respond to an image:
bough-like rifles laid easy in the arms of uniforms.
A crow gives me a puzzled welcome,
head cocked to say, “Where’d you go?”

Again I am sent in a dizzy spin
as I look at my cousins, snips of yesterday,
and wonder at the character
who has finally filled these
once-shoes of mine.