By ANKITA GUPTA
The petals lie crushed on the road
like withheld testimony.
A rickshawalla rides over them, the red stains maturing beneath his tier
just after he collects his 20 rupees for dropping me at the court gate.
My clothes white and black, so I add a note of colour to the monochrome,
a cherry-wine macron shade on my lips.
The shade of red that refuses to lower its gaze.
But will I too be crippled under the silence of adjournment today
like the Rakt-Semal crushed and cemented within dust in these concrete ground?
Outside courtrooms, the pollens float with the old gossip,
and verdicts are whispered within supari-anchored teeth of constables.
A splash of crimson they paint,
like that of dusk spilling from cracked pomegranates,
at the corner walls behind the Bare Acts,
Maybe someone chewed too hard while deciding
why one should be bailed,
and who should be shamed today.
We never fought wars at home.
At 10 am, Aita used to find her daily peaceful settlements in the morning’s lal-sah,
with no complaints and no cross examinations.
She taught me to drape life as simply as
she gathered the 3 pleats of her muga mekhela-sador
to be worn with grace of sharp creases and
how to pin it to softer voices.
At 10 am, Ma turns to orchids,
planted once with faith in the dry December soil,
the Kopou now blooms,
holding off the four am sunrises sparkling in the sky.
She says Gods don’t wear uniforms, but they arrive,
always,
with patience, on places wherever you want them to be.
At 10 am inside the premises of the Delhi High Court,
the smell of sweat spreads, along with the scent of absence and old papers.
I fail to remember the citations.
A memory of a sound strings in my thoughts,
the hiss of Panchfuron in aita’s kadhai,
the justice of mustard oil veiling the boiled potatoes,
served in a brass bowl, where even fermented rice had a flavour.
No landmark cases can reverse the marks on a wife’s skin
or account for the quite way a mother loses custody because she stayed at home.
I fail to remember the cries.
Of that 14-year-old,
who no longer counts the nights her body was opened,
just knows it began with the Paan shop uncle
and ended with too many doors closed.
And yet I walk in,
with documents, with doubts
my watch striking 10 in the morning,
the road looking like the red carpet, lined not with roses
but with Semal petals,
tender,
bruised,
unwept.
And I hope that the bench is not empty,
and a prayer is heard.
That the Gods remember to sit.
And that someone, somewhere in here, shows tenderness towards all things red and crushed.