Diaspora and Bollywood: a culinary parody
April is the cruelest month,
Cutting dead fish on steel-blades
Mixing mustard with desire.
As the yellow spread like a drop of color in my pan,
Mustard blossomed, from Yash Chopra fields
With Simran running to Raj now,
and now, running to Raj who morphs
into an Arjun whose mother waits and waits.
And now it is my mother who waits
to hear…
if mustard could indeed mix with desire.
Jar-ring during Quarantine
Noises that usually jar
At any eardrum, are now
Gone. And have settled into
Jams and preserves with colors like dawn;
Into spreads, curries, and butter—beige, brown and fawn-
and ere they mutter
Any sound, they muffle their music
Inside the freezer’s hum,
Trailing on the walls of many a sticky jar.
And despite this silence of safe solitude,
we cannot leave our doors even a bit ajar.
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