By Eashani Chettri
dasai smells of curd, sugar and red paste-
this red tika on my forehead
is a picture of the poem I lost
where I captured my grandmother.
my cousin is a careful writer
who asked me to build a home for my words-
i grieve
because I lost all my words
and her all over again.
and so I write a revision poem
like the three hundred revisions I do
for an exam I decided to pass (or fail?)
because Serious Woman and Holiday Poet
share the address of my body.
this dasai-
i wore an oversized orange sequined anarkali
called all my cousins overseas,
disregarded my dermatologist
with dairy, sugar and comedogenic makeup.
i thought of my grandmother
when the pedas were brown
because she always saved the white ones
and I wanted to say-
my hand looks like my mother’s
because hers look like yours.
i have stories within me-
because she grew them in her womb;
through my aunt- who I call my thul
so I capture this raato, this red of my tika
in my language, my words, my stories.
these are
the raato, the red, the blood of my thul’s heritage.
dasai tika means food- chicken, mutton and paneer
sweets- Kalakand, gur rasdana and barfi.
and loud conversations
about aunts, uncles and cousins who live overseas.
much later, much quieter-
Sisters confide
about the lovers that we hope
Will share our red.
dasai tika is hierarchal-
eldest to youngest
my grandfather, my hajurbua,
mistook my brother for being older than I.
twilight years in the backdrop of
ancestral betelnut and coconut trees-
a pink evening in autumnal Dooars;
my ordinary life has broken its’ promise
because today it is a glimmering paint
diamond shrapnels of love and loss
your memory is
the red of our tika.