Poetry by Naisha Chawla

GULAB JAMUN

Kafka would've liked these corridors,
these walls of painted advertisement,
these coloured towns with attributions to deities at every tree's feet.
The running nerve of this place,
through the garble of a thousand dialects,
sounds all kinds of chants,
of faith, food, and architecture,
of life weaving through its weighting waiting slums, 
through linoleum hardened heel-clad grounds.

Not a day goes by without auto horns,
or political instability,
or chai,
sweet, sweet, God-sent chai,
a thousand wicks in a thousand burning lamps,
a million lit cigarettes in stalls,
a million lit-up smiles in places you wouldn't expect to belong.

This home functions upon its dysfunctions,
builds upon what breaks it,
ever encompassing,
entirely amassing,
fields in farms,
skills of talents,
sacks of wheat,
bundles of wires,
collected coins,
plastic bags like Russian dolls,
ringing evening bells,
a life so culturally fulfilled,
lived in the grand denominations of
Division of the masses
and Parle G*.
 

* A popular brand of biscuits in India