NANSI, Pooja

Listening to Mukesh

Driving to your block,

I slide in my father’s cassette

of old Hindi songs and

I am humming in twilight

to the legendary

playback singer’s baritone

releasing those sounds in that

language that makes me feel like I am

home. In the back of my throat,

I can taste my grandmother’s

translucent thin chappatis

that as children we would

hold up

to the light,

the dough so evenly rolled out

by her hands that not

one lump would show.

I never appreciated them till her hands

shook so much,

she could no longer grip

the rolling pin.

I hear the children from the slum

that emerged behind my grandparents small

two-storey apartment block.

They are swearing

in that deliciously punctuated rhythm

only the born-and-bred tongue

can dance to.

I am home for a while.

I can smell dust and kerosene

in the air and hear

high-pitched devotions to the gods

blending without objection

into the stone thud bass

of the latest film song.

Jamming my brakes at a traffic light,

I realise home is supposed to be these

dustless streets and the smells

are alien culinary concoctions,

like pigs’ knuckles and chicken anatomy,

that my migrant tastebuds

cannot migrate towards.

I have taught my tongue

to like the garlic sting

of Hainanese chili paste

and form some Hokkien curse words.

It even enjoys the harsh bite of it,

but it is not

a taste, a language

that makes my heart sing

like these notes on my

car stereo.

Jaoon kaha batayen dil,

Duniya badi hain sangdil

Chandini Aiyen Ghar Jalane

Sujhe Na Koyi Manzil.

Tell me where I should go

in a world filled with indifference.

The moonlight filters into my house,

but I do not belong,

neither can I think of a destination.