Poetry: Mona Dash

Mona Dash

Turmeric

 

On shop shelves, flavours of peach and turmeric, in little Kefir shots

Cranberry seeds and turmeric, masks and masques in recyclable pots

Some love yellow milk, drink an aphrodisiac in a tall glass

steam fish soft in thin gravy, liquid gold on shining white rice

 

Turmeric tastes on the tongue, lingering in infinite swirls

like Jazz, Renaissance, the Beat, a turmeric rage grows

in homes, health shops, the patents, the recipes, lotions

on skin everywhere, in all its fine avatars

 

But I remember it on my mother’s fingers, her tiny nails

bitten to the quick, haldi, turmeric stains on the nail bed and folds

from mixing fish-heads, pumpkin flowers with turmeric

 Yellow stains left on handles and plates and clothes

 

like on this scarf, her fingertips, yellow dots, from far-away home.

***

 

Shakti

One day you will see

-        the Neelakurinji flower that blooms blue, once in twelve years

-        the Aurora Borealis that flashes across cold still skies

-        the Mariana Trench’s secret life in its blackest depths

-        metal glowing gold in the fire, carbon pressured into diamond

-        the pyramid of Mount Kailash and the peak of the Himalayas

You will see it in my eyes; the past, the future, both in this present

You will see it on my mouth, you will see it on my face, glowing forehead,

where the mountains and trees and sun and moon and stars are etched

 and your very gaze will change. You will see. Me. One day. In this life

or many lives after

In me. Shakti.

***

 

 

Tardree forest

 

Patches of moss below trees

A sliver of a stream

Waiting for rain, and birdsong

from birds she can’t see.

She wants to feel a part

of this immensity

speak to the silence, or have the silence

talk to her.

 

In her mind she occupies the forest

collecting things from the past

and then she sees a shrine, a stone idol

sindoor pasted, turmeric slathered

a shrine below a conifer

a face watching from between the trees.

Unknown laughter resounding

rising, rising.

 

She must mark this forest

on the edge of the world

She marks it as her own.

***

 

 

 

drown

 

You didn’t say a thing

You didn’t do a thing.

Those curious eyes watched.

Not sure why,

not sure what they thought.

 

I drowned. I struggled. Thrashing as the water rose

in waves and whirlpools

I sank, you watched

You who had said, water

fall in, feel it, let go!

I did,

And you let me down.

 

The moon, your friend, is glistening low

It doesn’t let me see the shore

But somewhere a lighthouse glows

Surely it will carry me through to morning

When at last the daylight shows.

***

 

Mona Dash is the author of  A Roll of the Dice : a story of loss, love and genetics (Linen Press, 2019) winner of the Eyelands International Book Awards for memoir, and a short stoy collection,  Let Us Look Elsewhere (Dahlia Books, June ’21). Her short story Twenty-Five Years  was commissioned by BBC Radio 4 Short Works, a long running short story series. Her other published books are two collections of poetry A Certain Way and Dawn-drops, and a novel Untamed Heart. Her work has been listed in leading competitions, widely published in international journals and more than twenty-five anthologies. A graduate in Telecoms Engineering, she holds an MBA, and also a Masters in Creative Writing (with distinction). She works in a global tech company. Born and brought up in India, she lives in London. More details about her work at  www.monadash.net

Twitter @dash2mona
Instagram @monadash

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Setu, November 2022

Usha Kishore interviews Mona Dash on her book, A Roll of the Dice: A Story of Loss, Love and Genetics.

Mona Dash

UK: Call it memoir, call it life-writing, A Roll of the Dice is a powerful book.  It touches the soul and heals the mind.  What made you write this book?

MD: As a writer, one often draws from personal experiences. I have written poems about loss, death, motherhood and my short stories often explore these themes. So, the crucial decision was not whether to write A Roll of the Dice or not, but the genre to  write it in.  

When I was going through all the various medical challenges, one of my sources of strength was reading true stories –about other women facing similar problems and about victory of the human mind over the body’s limitations. Even as a child, I was fascinated with the medical miracle stories I read in the Readers Digest. There is hardly anything written about SCID and even lesser about PPROM – this is the first memoir. So, this book was my own little way of contributing towards self-help for people like me Googling desperately when faced with some insurmountable challenge. It’s my attempt to create awareness about this rare, fascinating genetic condition.

 But even though I had been planning to write the story, I hadn’t imagined it as a full-length book. That came about thanks to my Professor and classmates, during my Masters in Creative Writing.  Having read a piece I wrote for one of the modules, they insisted it needed more space, and the story commanded a readership.

So that’s how my 10,000 word essay became a 70,000 word book!

 

Usha Kishore

UK: The book covers a broad thematic spectrum, among others: a strong auto-biographical element, reflection, spirituality, personal experience, emotional healing and faith.  Which in your opinion is the closest thematic element?

MD: I think it would be faith and personal experience. Every word of the book is true! Every incident described, every emotion, every thought, every person! What I hope has been conveyed is the arc of personal experience, which evolved, from being a student of science, an ambitious, career woman, not a believer in tradition, to someone who just had to believe in the healing power of spirituality. 

UK: The book houses at least a couple of medical conditions: SCID and endometriosis.  You have been very brave to write on these conditions so frankly and without any self-pity.  What gave you the strength?   Could you elaborate on these conditions and the experience of living with them.

MD:  Indeed, I have often been quizzed about the book’s honesty, without the mask of fiction that I usually write. To be honest - I had never written non-fiction before.  It was however my strong feeling that by writing the actual facts, I would do justice not only to myself, but also to all the many women and families who are living through SCID, and many other such medical challenges.

As for living with the conditions, when I first heard of the acronym, SCID, the feeling was akin to having the floor suddenly pulled out from beneath your feet. The shock was intense. But then, as part of the SCID group, I met (virtually of course) so many incredible families, some who have lived through it for generations, some who have lost children, some who have healthy treated children and others, who have children who still need medical care. I was not alone in my journey.

With endometriosis, I was lucky, that I didn’t face any of the symptoms like debilitating pain. However, because there were no symptoms, it was diagnosed quite late, after a lot of damage was done, and it was Grade 3. 

I had to internally reorient myself.  Like everyone else, I’d expected life would be ‘normal,’ but for some of us, this ‘normal’ is different.  Self -pity is not something I wanted to wallow in since there are so many people who are going through a lot of sorrow and pain. So, all we can do is face challenges with dignity, courage and of course, humour.

 

UK: What brought about the title, ‘A Roll of the Dice?’

MD:  It is a term which is often used in the X-SCID world when they explain the odds of having a child who may be born with the condition. X-SCID is one of the forms of SCID when the mother is a carrier and passes on a defective X chromosome to a male child. There is just no way to control the outcome, it all depends on how the dice of genetics is cast. A girl with XX or a boy with XY and if XY, then will it be a good X or bad X? Such a tiny factor, with such huge consequences!

 

UK: I have read this book, a few times.  Each time, I could feel the tears well up in my eyes and hope filling my heart.  Did you think that A Roll of the Dice would affect emotional healing?

MD: Thank you, that’s so gratifying to know!  I hadn’t thought of it as helping anyone else heal. I think, for me it had been about sharing information, giving hope to anyone fighting and trying to overcome the odds. It was all about a struggle.

When one faces a terrible loss, everyone says time heals, and though it is such a cliché; time does dull the sharp edge of pain. But healing comes only when you face the intense pain and then transgress it. Healing is soothing, subtle!   So, I am really touched when someone says they found the book healing. For a writer, this is the greatest gift!

 

UK: The book has an introduction by Prof. Bobby Gaspar of Great Ormond Street Hospital.  What brought about this introduction?

MD: The silent hero in the book is the NHS with its amazing doctors and nurses. It was the publisher’s idea to have a foreword written by a doctor, since this would add to the authenticity and credibility. There are three main doctors mentioned in the book, all three are my Godsent angels!  But since SCID is the very core of the story, it made most sense to ask  Professor  Gaspar. I have huge respect for him, for all the work he does for children and  his research in gene therapy. Professor Gaspar was so amazing with the treatment plans, not to mention his patience with my incessant questioning! We were delighted that he agreed to write the foreword.

 

UK: There is a considerable amount of reflection on life, birth, death and Nirvana in the novel.  Would you agree that your Hindu ethos played a major part in this reflection? As a practising Hindu, I was certainly drawn to the power of the Mrityunjaya Mantra and the Hanuman Chalisa. 

MD: Indeed Usha, you really are into Sanskrit shlokas and Hindi translations! I actually didn’t know any of them.  It was during my pregnancy, that my mother suggested I recite the Hanuman Chalisa and the Maha Mrityunjaya mantra, especially with the latter, the calmness and strength I felt was astonishing.  It became a habit to mentally chant it, whenever worrying thoughts invaded. Words have power, since they have been chanted over the years, and they gather a quiet strength of their own. The vibration of the chant helps!

I have never been an overtly ritualistic or religious person and prefer to say spirituality rather than religion. If one casts aside all the rituals Hinduism is known for, and looks at the very ethos, it is a strong bedrock. I now believe that the soul has its own journey, it takes various forms, various lives.  This belief in something bigger than just one life, helped me heal.  Of course, there is meant to be a sense of fatalism in Hinduism, but I don’t think it is entirely true.  Ultimately, you have to help yourself and to allow God or the Universe to help you. I also have also been influenced by the teachings of the Mother and Shri Aurobindo of Pondicherry, since this is the belief I was raised with as a child.

 

UK: I am really inspired by the epilogue – the reflections on faith.  What made you include this epilogue?

After going through this veritable rollercoaster of a journey, I wanted to end on a note of calmness and stillness.  I wanted to highlight my own learnings, but not in a preachy dos and don’ts manner. I felt this was the best way to write it, and the publisher had commented that ‘it read like a prayer.’ It is also a reminder to myself, that things may not always be ideal, but it is important to remember that ‘light enters through the chinks, to know that your life has to go through the struggle it has chosen.

 

UK: A Roll of the Dice, I would say is a journey into motherhood.  Also, as an immigrant woman, I am struck by your courage and resilience.  What do you say?

MD: Yes indeed, it is a journey, it is about motherhood.  I feel that mothers  are often  portrayed as kind, self-sacrificing, over-emotional. Strength is not associated with a mother, but if you look at the animal world, the mother protects her young, she is a terror if anyone tries to hurt her young.  For me, being strong and nurturing is the focal part of being a mother.

Hence, I think it is very important for women to take responsibility for themselves and have a strong sense of self. To realise that one’s inner essence – the soul – is not the same as the form. Don’t let your feminine form dictate everything you do. The outer form is feminine, our bodies are different from men, we can bear and give birth, but the inside, the core essence, is really about being a human being. A person!  It is important to keep that core essence strong, and not keep falling into the trap of the feminine form, whether in feeling victimised, or using it to your advantage. To assume parallels with the book, while the challenges I faced were because I am a woman, I can say that in reacting to them, I was a human being, the core-essence!

I was always a feminist.  I don’t think motherhood as sometimes thought, is at loggerheads with being a feminist. But I did change from being the ‘corporate person’ I was trained to be, to becoming fluid, open to change and developing a humility that nothing can be taken for granted.

At another level, this is also a story of migration about leaving home and familiarity, to find your feet in a foreign country, looking for solace. I think it helped that the city I came to was London!

 

UK: Behind every successful woman, is a silent supporting man.  Do you count yourself blessed in this count?  

MD: Yes absolutely! My husband is a more patient person than I am. To go through what we did, the commitment had to be mutual.  All through the journey, and the trying pregnancy, he remained resolutely positive. He didn’t research as much, nor did he communicate with a whole network of doctors and other families, but the poignantly crucial thing was his belief in me, which strengthened the belief in myself.

 

UK: What are your upcoming projects?

MD: My short story collection Let us look elsewhere, shortlisted in the SI Leeds literary award in 2018, is being published by Dahlia Publishing UK, next year. I am also working on a new novel. As part of the writers’ collective The Whole Kahani, we are working on our third anthology of short stories.  

 

UK: Thank you for your time.  I knew that A Roll of the Dice was a finalist in the Eyelands Book Award 2020 for the Memoir category, and I have just heard it won!  My very best wishes and congratulations! 

MD: Thank you  and for your insightful questions, Usha.

[More about Mona at (www.monadash.net )
A Roll of the Dice is available on Amazon, Waterstones Online, Barnes and Noble Online

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Setu, December 2020

Resonance: English Poetry from Poets of Odisha

Rob Harle

Chittaranjan Misra, Jaydeep Sarangi, Mona Dash (eds.)

2019. Authorspress, New Delhi, India

www.authorspressbooks.com

p. 197 ISBN: 978-93-89615-03-6

Reviewed by Robert Maddox-Harle, Australia

It is wonderful to read poetry with specific parochial flavours, the world may now be a small place but that does not mean that artworks from different areas need to be homogenized. There has been considerable problems over the years, particularly  the post-colonial years in India of choosing to write in English, some believing that to do so is remaining  subservient to a colonial past. “Indian-English poetry has come of age and its readership has crossed the boundaries of borders and become global.” Many Indian poets writing today are “fusing aesthetics with political perspectives.” as this book clearly shows.

Odisha is a region of India on the East Coast just below Kolkata in the Bay of Bengal. Unlike many other Indian regions it does not have stereotype global prescence, such as Rajasthan for example, and is somewhat low key. This book is a selection of poems from Odisha poets writing in English, the sense of place that the poets evoke is not based on regionalism or nationalism, but a genuine feeling for the characteristics of the place they grew up in and where many still live.

The neologism “glocal” has been used to describe the situation where an individual still honours their local roots but does not shun the bigger global connections that have become available in all countries. Dr Mohapatra uses this notion to describe the poets selected in this anthology as an attempt to retain genuine local identity but to spread it far and wide to the rest of the world.

There are thirty two poets in this wonderful collection, which has tried to situate itself in the middle position between elitism and populism. I thoroughly enjoy reading poems which transport me to a very different place to that of my own early years. Nandini Sahu in her long poem, Growing up Amid the Ruins and the Rains, recalls her early years growing up in Udayagiri, her Utopia, a small town in central Odisha, below verses five, six and seven:

Rains were awful, power cuts for

weeks, incessant rains, mountain rains

with thunderstorm, eerie wind. Mother

was prepared with her kerosene stove

for a minimal meal of rice and dalma

with pickles and papadam, since her

soil-hearth was wet for days. The

open-drain in our courtyard, water

splashing, flooding like Mahanadi

The book has attempted to include both established and emerging poets and also poets of the Diaspora, which of course are still part of Odisha even though they may be living abroad, as does the editor Mona Dash. The editors need very little introduction as they are all well established poets and academics, the quality of this collection attests to their expertise as literary luminaries.

Many people are familiar with the famous Sun Temple in Odisha, with all its exquisite carvings, below is the full poem, The Sun Temple at Konarka by Niranjan Mohanty (p.109)

Between an argent shaft of sunlight

and darkness, it sleeps and wakes,

its muted stones roiled in a heap

of white whispers, flutter of absences.

The wheels broken beyond cure.

Etiolated gestures of dark dancers

demand a little love, a little solitude

to measure the immensity of their blood.

The wind, as usual, straggles the sand,

the century-wide mirror of our becoming.

Is grief a well where nights shed

their darkness, and days, their light?

A godless emptiness floats in the air

converting it into a convention of despair.

Between the jaded stare of stones

and an unknowable glare of silences

a father’s frozen tears shine like dew.

And a host of adept fingers bleed

at the unkind whimsy of a king.

Is the chronicler of history a dying thing?

When I first started reading and studying Indian-English poetry the name Jayanta Mahapatra (b.1928) kept coming up, for good reason, he laid the foundations for Indian-English poetry, and is an exceptional poet in any language.”Poets from Jayanta Mahapatra and Bibhu Padhi to Shanta Acharya and Rabindra K. Swain have paid attention to the diction of their poetry. They have perfected idioms which are supple and resonant.” (p. 8) This is a very important point, as we know poetry is not like writing or translating an engineering specification, the subtleties and imagery of each language make writing poetry in a different language just that much harder. Mahapatra has certainly perfected this transmutation, below the first verse of his poem, The Road (p. 67):

It’s not the road anymore

along which my mother sent me on errands.

Nor where dogs slept all day with one eye open,

their tails pestered by flies.

It’s not the road which chewed its lip indecisively

waiting for the future to be predicted.

Nor is it the road that steered me once

into the heart of one primeval garden.

As well as representing established and emerging poets Resonance also features, in memoriam, a number of poems by some Odisha poets no longer with us, below the first few lines of one such poet, Shankarshan Parida,  Super Cyclone in Orissa: (p. 181)

Nature’s malevolence

ravaged the land

when the Puja festival was in full swing.

The unprecedented cyclonic storm

along with tidal waves from the Bay of Bengal

created havoc

and the tormented and tortured people

underwent the trauma, anguish, horror and hazard

now writ large in their memory.

The vicissitudes of fortune

took away numberless victims to the other world

what to speak of beasts and birds.

Most poets featured in this anthology are bi-lingual, writing both in English and Odia, there are no translated poems. As the editors state: “This is not to deny the power of regional language translations, but this anthology is a humble beginning at bringing together poems in English from Odisha who have already made their voices audible through books, anthologies, web-journals, festivals, reviews, and social networking sites.” (p. 9) I believe the editors have done a remarkable job of achieving this, and have done so with a genuine sensitivity to the subtle problems of representing local creative works in a global context.

Resonance is not only a wonderful collection of poetry for poetry lovers world-wide but an excellent reference and representation of original Odisha poetry for scholars and students.

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Local 2020 :: Setu, June 2020

Book Review: The Waiting, by Usha Akella

The Waiting, by Usha Akella (Sahitya Academy, India, 2019, Pages 45)

Mona Dash

I read this slim collection of poetry fittingly on the plane from the UK to the US. I say fittingly, because the poet lives in America, and some of the poems were written when she was here in the UK.  Secondly the location felt most appropriate– it was silent, most around me were asleep, our plane was somewhere over the Atlantic, over the seas, over clouds, not moored anywhere, and in that space between day and night, moonlight and sunlight, there I was reading The Waiting, unable to tear myself away from the beautiful words gracing the pages.  A sense of floatation   is what this collection inspires.

Love, is at the heart of this interconnected poems, numbered, not named, from 1 – 28. Many are form poetry, sentences decorated across the page.  The love here, is love for the Divine in the form of a Beloved, just like the mystic poets – Bhakti, Sufi, Kabbalah, all these ‘philosophies of rupture, rapture and release’ as mentioned in the foreword by Priya Sarukkai Chabria.

Akella starts the collection, dated 15^th October’ 16, enroute to Cambridge, UK from Austin.

 All around me, people know everything.

 I am an unsaid question

Usha Akella

And this seeking and exploring continues throughout the other poems. She implores, she requests, she demands of the Master.  She says in poem 3:

Do not be the outpost of my heart,

Do not enter,

Do not occupy this house

Don’t hold my hand,

Don’t hold me close,

Don’t be the present

Or the past,

Don’t become my future….

Do not be gentle my Master

Do not melt me hidden fires,

Do not pull the wires like a puppeteer

I am breaking breaking breaking.

Elsewhere she says – Be a wingless cloud –  Colorless rainbow, scentless flower, Die!  This stripping of the ego and a complete offering is what the poems teach. How does one remove everything from the self and offer to the Divine? – ‘Here, I am slain! A heap of straw.’

Then sometimes it is as if the poem sings to the lover, as it seems, where she demands and rightly so, ‘if people are attached to their dogs and cats, why not you to me?’

These poems can be read all together, or on their own, and any way it is done it doesn’t fail to move. When reading a collection, I love to find my favourite story or poem. But it was harder to do it here, since so much of it is so beautiful, so deep.  In poem numbered 19, she says, 

You might say: the earth’s crevice is filled with sky,

This is law,

so, why not I?

Written in a deceptively simple manner, The Waiting is a song, a story, a poem, holding in its heart a rare intensity. Modern poetry is varied, sometimes clever wordsmithery, sometimes clever performances, striking imagery, in all this, The Waiting is a classic piece of poetry, and Akella has bravely experimented with the form and the structure of the poem, to produce this really unique collection.

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Mona Dash is the author of ‘Untamed Heart’ (Tara India Research Press, 2016), two collections of poetry Dawn- Drops (Writer’s Workshop, 2001) A certain way, and very recently, a memoir A Roll of the Dice : a story of loss, love and genetics (Linen Press, UK) She has a Masters in Creative Writing (with distinction) from the London Metropolitan University. Mona was awarded a ‘Poet of excellence’ award in the House of Lords in 2016.  Her work has been published, anthologised and listed in various competitions such as Bath, Bristol, Fish, Leicester Writes, Asian Writer, Momaya Press to name some. Her short story collection Let us look elsewhere was shortlisted for the SI Leeds literary awards ’18.  Mona is also a Telecoms Engineer and MBA and works full time in a global technology organisation.  Originally from India, she lives in London. www.monadash.net

Usha Akella has authored four books of poetry, one chapbook, and scripted/produced one musical drama. Her latest poetry book is published by Sahitya Akademi, India’s highest Literary authority. In 2018 she earned an MSt. in Creative Writing from Cambridge University, UK. She read with a group of eminent South Asian Diaspora poets at the House of Lords in June 2016. Her work has been included in the Harper Collins Anthology of Indian English Poets and included in various anthologies.

She was selected as a 2015 and 2019 Creative Ambassador for the City of Austin, USA. She lives in Austin. She is the founder of ‘Matwaala’ the first South Asian Diaspora Poets Festival in the US, and co-directs the festival with Pramila Venkateswaran. 

Setu, October 2019

How do you feel, living in another country?

Mona Dash

- Mona Dash

The question may be simple to articulate but the answer, surely never that simple.  Diasporic literature seeks to explore and answer this in its many forms. Post-colonial theories try to understand the behaviour of the colonised and the colonisers. I don’t need to however think of the history, the geography, and the various opinions and views: when asked the question, forgetting my many characters in the stories I’ve written, forgetting my words in my own poems, let me try to answer.

But in trying to answer, I find it is easier to ask more questions. Another country, a foreign country? For how long does it remain ‘another country’? Will it always be so, even if you have lived a significant part of your adult life? Have had children and are raising children in this other country? Even if you speak the language? Does the country of birth always mean more than the country you live in? maybe even die in?  Are the ties with this other country, meant to be as easy to sever as easily as a climber’s thin roots, easily uprooted, growing elsewhere? Is the family you are born into always more important than the family you have created? And is it that impossible that you can love both fiercely?

The other country I live in, and which I moved to was out of my own free will. No husband in an arranged marriage who booked a one-way ticket and forced me to live in a cold, grey country, no employer sent me away to complete a project.  The only reason was a desire to move somewhere else, and that was brought about a big change in personal circumstances, which is another story. 

When you come to this other country, not by force, but by choice, you will see things you like. A sense of freedom for one.  The much maligned west does offer a stronger individual sense of freedom and identity, more so when you move, without any prior ties, there is no community, no society. If you are a married woman, then a sense of fresh air, away from the voices and relations you had acquired, weighing on your shoulders, demanding what you do not wish to give. 

You may also like the beauty of the countryside, the beauty of the city. Diversity, a huge variety of cultures and people to meet, a feeling of the world suddenly becoming your oyster.

While the sense of self is heightened when you are away from the roots which bear you down and away from the voices in your own head which tell you things to do and not to; and brings with it a sense of accomplishment, there are things you don’t like as well, living in this other country. The sense of a question; from everyone those you live with and those you have lived with: who are you after all? Are you one of us, or one of them? Will you ever be one of us?  And if you become one of them, remember you can’t be one of us anymore.

And a sixth sense develops quickly enough. Comparing, contrasting what is here and what is there, asking of yourself, of others; sometimes leading to a sense of disillusionment and anger, usually with the country one lives in; sometimes with both. And sometimes, just sometimes, leading to a balance,  where the other country one lives in and the country one is born in, are both complementary, accepted and loved at least in your own heart.

Never mind what others think of you.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

A certain way

As an immigrant,

I am expected to behave in a way

a certain way.

Colour the walls with turmeric,

fill my soul with lament

for the land whose shores I have left

to become richer economically

poorer emotionally.

Fold oil into long black hair,

dream the stars of the eastern skies,

in this land, the land I call my own,

but never to be my own.

Wrapped in sarees, sapphire blue, sindoor red,

meant to be nostalgic about the

monsoon spray dazzling my eyes

calming my burning skin.

 Instead, my mind

soothed by the nourishing cool green

of the land I live in,

energised by the glowing orange sun

of the land I come from,

decorates ice cubes with spice.

With silver anklets, red stilettoes,

the shortest, blackest dress,

I sip prosecco, spear olives expertly,

pile plates with rice and chicken curry

while in the garden

lavender, jasmine, clematis, and marigold,

spread their roots, dance their petals

into the pale grey wet skies

and the searing sunshine.

Uproot, grow, take root

parallel truths, a little of this,

a little of that.

For an immigrant,

there is no certain way to be.

(From the poetry collection : A Certain Way, Skylark Publications UK)

Setu, November 2018

Poetry: Mona Dash

Mona Dash

The Skin of Tradition

1

The foreigner watches a wedding in fascination

large bindi squatting on her forehead

red saree colouring white limbs.

The elders enthuse how she

sits relaxed on the dusty ground

reveres the sacredness of every chant

embraces chaos in wondrous happiness.

The Americans, Germans, English,

French, Italians flock here, hearts one

with conch shells; cross-legged,

slurp white rice and dal from banana leaves.

Yet I, I ask for my fork and spoon.

Yet I, born in a small town, tempered by heat,

coloured with tradition, married saree-clad

 in front of the fire, complain of the fumes

my eyes burning. I, brought up within these walls

makes it a point to question too much

why should I, why must I, bow in respect,

 hide in shame, follow rules and customs,

 forget myself. I question for years.

Later, in London, that city I call home,

forgetting, at home tulsi plants sit in courtyards

white chita is drawn on Thursday

 to welcome Lakshmi.

‘A city without temples scratching its skyline

cannot be home ever,’ they pronounce.

I question for years.

2

The answer, thought but not mouthed:

You can appreciate culture,

fold your legs in suppliance

bend your head, fast all day in a temple

knowing tomorrow you will be home.

Today is a thrill, like climbing Machu Picchu

like rowing down the Okavango delta.

When the blood that runs in you today

bled on a pyre, hundreds of years ago

soaking chrysanthemum garlands

when a village is somewhere, had you lived

fifty years before, you would be

behind a veil waiting, watching,

when not that many years back, a marriage

marked you with blood red sindoor in black hair

closeted rooms, opened legs

breeding healthy sons and if not white widows.

When you know all this, then, the legs don’t fold here

in the dust, in the sacredness

even though they do at Yoga in the gym.

The heart that belongs, never accepting, runs,

runs the farthest,

to shed centuries of old skin.

Metamorphosis

Narcissus sits transfixed

head bowed, limbs folded

watching a water spirit, he thinks.

Watching and loving and calling

a form like no other.

Nymph or spirit who loved before,

they wait for him, invite him back.

Forms naked in desire, in bodies.

Echo weeps and calls out.

They ask him to return from the lake

yet transfixed he sits

and pines and loves what cannot love him back.

He waits, and he sinks

into himself, gaunt and lonely

into the lake reflecting

mountains, the world, his love.

Until the skies break into colour.

Until the earth weeps red.

Until his head implodes.

Cracks appear,

his body moulds into stone.

The rock he sits on

forms a giant hand

holding a cracked egg.

A narcissus blooms

hesitantly white,

deepening yellow,

forever brightening spring.

(Based on the painting ‘The Metamorphosis of Narcissus’ by Salvador Dali)

Nympheas

The lilies brood

darkening thoughts of what is past,

of what may never come,

dread rising silently

in stagnant roots.

The lilies weave

pink, purple, blue, flickers of

dreams, of wishes, of holding

bits of the sky in their bodies.

The lilies wilt

drooping lives, death the sentinel

standing close.

The lilies bloom

magic on paper, colours in the water,

impressions forming, growing, breaking

the canvas ablaze with a day, a season

and just for a moment

the lilies hold

eternity in their bodies.

(Based on the waterlilies series by Claude Monet)

Aquarelle flash

A pot of paint spills
inking the pale blue
a rich pink, a muted orange.

Golden strands backlight

the palette

as rainbow colours

come together

in a sensuous embrace.

                                                                               

A quadrille of colours

lifts the sky

mint freshness

infusing the cool air.

Dawn breaks.

Inside, they continue to sleep

Oblivious,

the smell of yesterday

clinging to damp eyelids,

beer filled snores

reverberating inside walls.

As Infinity smiles outside

for just a second.

Jealousy

She of the tiara, of stars in her hair,

of moonlight, silken gowns,

of the sun transforming her house into shining heavens,

she of the beauty, which lustrously invaded her husband’s mind

and other parts restlessly every night; she the owner of

artefacts, jewellery, from shops, online

brought in by ships from exotic countries

with unpronounceable names.

She of the beauty and riches,

saw others with dimples laughing in their cheeks

brighter stars than hers in their eyes, slimmer waists, softer breasts,

songs in their steps, taller houses and wider gardens,

and she made sure they were not around her anymore.

She saw her child laugh louder in the company of others

 even more than in hers, so she snatched the smile away

 to hide in a little red box studded with shiny mirrors.

She prodded and carved out the eyes of one, the heart of another,

the friendship of the generous, she marvelled at her claws

growing faster and sharper by the day

to gouge out what should have been hers.

She hid them in coloured boxes and kept them in drawers

safely, to look upon as hers every day.

Much later, she saw her skin had turned salak like,

snakes mated in her hair.

When she laughed, blood dribbled from the sides.

The boxes when opened were empty

dried kernels of nothingness –

and she wondered why.

Salak: snake fruit; fruit found mostly in Indonesia with scaly skin.

Setu, September 2018