My Mother-2

My Mother-2

On a certain cool saturday afternoon,

my mother unwound her coils of memory

(like the coils of bandage over her varicose veins)

as children and thronging grand children

struggled unbelievingly to peek into

her prankful pigtailed past.

When the drama troupe had come to town

she had stolen out at the dead

of two successive nights

to see the same play twice.

(These days she turns the TV firmly off

if the evening movie is on air the second time.)

She had played marbles with that

dark skinned neighbourhood boy

who turned taciturn with every game he lost.

That one fateful day

when she took to the hills

and shared a tree-shelter

with a girl friend and one stray cow

for five hours as the

rain poured rivers down the hill side

and came home skipping

sodden skirt and all-

late, after night fall

to receive the one and only

spanking of her life from a

doting freedom fighting father.

She smarted real anger when

in the eighth year of her schooling,

her father took her out of school

and ended her marble dreams

and she in vengeance explored

the world of letters, reading every

book, novel, poem, essay-

any printed word that came her way

and dreamed and dreamed

till marriage cut her short.

At this point,

Father, who till now had sat sullen,

suddenly brightened

and came into his own.

(Remark: This last para too may make a good poem, but is not fair to my father.)  

Self Portrait

Self Portrait

1

Looking into the mirror,

I sense a certain elemental asymmetry.

The spectacles weigh down on the left

and a centipede-eyebrow

peeps over the rim on one side

but not the other.

The left nostril is smaller

than the right nostril,

and the stubbled cheek will not do

for the local passport photographer.

(“Have a shave sir”, he said deprecatively

before leading me to his studio

and offered free of charge-

a razor and some cream.)

The hair slightly parted

along a scalp-line on one side

is a style that has been recently dropped

from the menu card of the local barber.

2

The occasional visitor

would train his critical eye on me

like an artist would

on his canvas

and declare,

“He looks very much like his father”.

And I, in terror

would grab my father’s shaving mirror

to see if his ugly pock marks

had begun to sprout on my cheeks.

Years later, seeing us both in profile,

riding a scooter, a neighbour remarked,

“He looks so much like his father”.

I merely smiled, and was glad

when my wife did not share this view.

Time has erased his pock marks

and his crooked teeth have given way

to young denture.

The hair on my temples are greying.

With years,

only our resemblances have grown.

Our quarrels have grown more bitter.

(Remark: The last line may make for a good poem, but does not reflect the truth. In fact, but for a brief period, my father and I shared a deep empathy. I still recall his memory every day and remember him with pleasure and happiness.)