Common House Magazine

“Hot Wonderlands” 

There was heat in every crevasse; through the air with the moistened steam of chai – a burnt orange gleaming like silk in its little white teacup – and with the scratching of your purple saree that tingled my skin until the heat buzzed the surface and stung like a bug bite. Then there was the overwhelming warmth of love, pulsating to let you know it had always lived there. It reverberated through the room, bouncing off the walls so that even a child as young as nine could catch it.

One of your children sat on the ground, massaging the soles of your feet while I rested my head on your chest. You ran your fingers through my hair. Another came prepared with a fan for when your cheeks flushed. Your youngest hovered with a teapot that steamed the air with cardamom as you took your last sip of chai. You sat amongst the beings you created in your image, painted with streaks of quiet beauty and overflowing with respect.

I was too young to wonder if you regretted abandoning my father, in that moment, while your fingers were tangled in my loose curls.

***

“Homage” 

There’s a clump of hair clinging to the spikes of my brush.

“Where did I even get curly hair from? My roots are fucking straight!”

You were beautiful. Thick dark hair slicked back in a neat bun, little wispy coils escaping to meet your cheekbones as they dimpled when you smiled. You didn’t look old enough to have as many grandchildren as you did. Every child in this family has looked like my grandmother¹ at some point during their morphing stages. Not me, of course. They say I’m a spitting image of you – I should be flattered, yet I’m repulsed.

Reality is less pretty than the images you created in that warm home. You’ve made a tundra in the dark abyss of the soul you’ve decided to inhabit, so the reality here, in this land of barren spirits, pricks my skin with a sudden iciness.

I don’t want to be you. I brush my hair again.

____________________

¹ There’s a counterpart to দাদী (Dadi): নানু(Nanu). One empty word for my father’s disappearing creator and one heavy word for my mother’s absent-minded creator – I say creator because “mother” may be too kind of a word. Although there are images of Dadi that inhabit my memory in waves, Nanu is a concept. There’s supposed to be unconditional love, lots of hugs, and prideful admiration from Nanu in theory. In practice, Nanu held her crying grandchildren when they realized their grandfather had died. She didn’t console me though. She barely looked at me, even though I was the most wounded from this loss. I laid crumpled on the sticky wooden floors, printed with the sweat and tears of my cousins who barely knew the man. Their Nanu watched.

***

“Deer in Headlights” 

I can’t move. I’m too scared to remind her that she’s a concept, incapable of being tangible.

Her thin gold bangle presses into my skull as the tiny cells of absorbent skin are charged with a cold gloss. Her skin runs into the small pores my hair wildly strays from. The dryness of my scalp itches against her soft fingertips, worn from age. She pulls her fingers through the spiralling mess of strands. I can imagine how the dark curls winding down her wrists shine like burnt cherries, blazed in the sunlight pouring into the living room.

“Your hair is so…” She’s searching for the right word as if her instinct is too offensive. “Crooked.”

My rib cage expands, the gaps between the bones filling with air and fleshy tissue as I finally breathe – but only breathe. Her fingers are still delicately crawling through the clumps and knots of my bed-head. She still hasn’t realized that it’s me attached to the crooked hair.

“It’s so red under the sun.” The period at the end of that sentence is palpable in a vibration that whispers, that is all there is to say. This is not a compliment, question, or anything warranting a response. The divide in our existence still complies. 

Where do I get it from, don’t you want to ask? 

From a mother, who was never a দাদী (Dadi) or a নানু (Nanu) despite the crooked genes she’s left embedded in a body that can’t accept itself. This is the tombstone for the jagged fragments of love that sometimes tore through the two of us, strangers.