By Madhu Raghavendra
Spring
My memory of our pregnancy
Is all kinds of red―
Peeling beetroots, chopping carrots
Deseeding pomegranates
Rinsing tender desi chicken
Removing the gills from the fish
Standing by the three-burner gas stove
The flames are a handful of semal
The sound of red glass bangles
Every time you change sides in sleep
Eyes shut in broad daylight
Red from the aorta of the night
The linea nigra is a brownish horizon
That bears the crimson dawn
The placenta brings a lifetime of spring
The heart of a mother, the hands of a father
You lie under a flowering hibiscus tree
The rust-red iron sucrose
Flows through a timeless drip-set
The ever-fluctuating haemoglobin
The ultrasound images of the baby
Somersaulting in the womb
Like a bird that cannot wait to find the sky
Through a bougainvillea doorway
The body is a scrambling summer vine
That bears sweet, juicy, red watermelon flesh
The courtyard, the heart, everything overgrows
Gently, red palms rub the bump, calm the baby
A beloved promise pollinates from love
The pink lilies open their buds, birth.
An Evening in Agartala
Desire dances wildly
To the beats of a giant dhak
In a forest of shimmering datura
There is no society
But four corners of our bed
Under a white lighting sky
Black clouds grind our bodies
The secret stays— what's yours, what's mine?
The lust camouflaged within
Manifests on our skin
We lie lifeless,
My holy thread entangled,
torn apart in your arms
Saliva-sweat sorbet, a ripped bouquet
'Do I satisfy you?' you ask
No, you keep me hungry
We listen to our breathlessness in peace
The evening crows have returned
To the silhouette of the lichi trees.
Gālè
— for Poge Karso
The wrap and weft of stories
Knit life and lore tightly
Automated looms loom
The dust on our hands draws debt
And dullness takes over
The assembly lines kill culture
Societies now come in the same clothes.
She meditates like a mountain
One end of the loom tied to the window
An antelope of light leaps looking for a companion
The other end to her spine,
Her nerves run through the universe
There are no permanent fixtures
The voice of her fabric is untameable.
Her dyes don't bleed, she bleeds love
For daughters, brocades of rain,
Fashion, decorative dashes, peacock plumes and
Lakes of lilacs that drown man and his machines
Her colours are infinite, her needles converse
In codes, migrate centuries
Before she brings them home.
Her motifs are faceless revolutions
No pamphlets are served, no slogans raised
Yet her women blossom
At the dance of her tribe like wild orchids
She owns no war, stiches boundaries and
Harvests the Sun on her loom
Yet none of her children weave a gālè.
(Note: The gālè is the colourful wrap that is worn around the waist by the Galo women. The Galo are a central Eastern Himalayan tribe which primarily inhabit the West Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh. Although it is common for women to wear a wrap in North East India, it would be identified by different names.)
Madhu Raghavendra is a poet, and social development practitioner. He is the founder of Poetry Couture, one of India's largest poetry initiatives. His poetry movement has created free spaces for poetry in many cities of India. His debut book, Make Me Some Love To Eat has been well-received nationwide, and is in its fourth edition. He has conducted performance poetry workshops and read at many schools, institutes, and festivals across India. He has been a part of Sahitya Akademi's Young Writers festival in Jammu. He was a resident artist at Basar Confluence, Arunachal Pradesh’s first artist residency programme.