Bride, 1970

A new bride has come, the palanquin has left. 
Those who’ve come late — the old viewers: grim.
Brittle-finger mothers measure the skin
of the girl. Her ornaments’ weight. Hair. Teeth.
The onlookers grow. This new girl’s laugh —
Tell me, tell me, ma, will she be tame?

Will she not blind our boy (for how long they themselves
could)? But a new girl shall possess new new tricks!
Carrying paddy from the paddy fields to the paddy pots,
pots to the oven. Oven to the mill.
The animals of the flower-bed night bathe 
the cattle, feed the cattle, smell of cow urine.

Love. Who calls its obtuse name? The clarinet calls.
At the midnight play, Majnun bawls. The girl, too, weeps with him. 
Till her man appears. To bring her — to bed.
Till the birds cackle, the sun appears. The girl wakes up to sweep 
the floor for another ten years. 
Now when the cowshed is clean, her daughter goes there to read.

(The poem was first published in the May 2023 issue of Poetry India: https://www.ethosliterary.org/poetry-india/may-2023-issue/poems-by-arun-paria

Tamarind Tree

Those were the impeccable times.

Thatched roof home,
cow-dung veneered verandah
stretched
from
the shallow pond
to the phani manasa shrub.

Grandmother appearing.
Two brinjals in hand. Two khadus on two wrists.
Jingling. Ironly cuffs.

Said, “These are yours now —
two young cows, you Badua!
Take them to the grazing field.
Protect them from Pashupati the bull.
Collect dung in an iron pail.

We will not cut
anymore this year a tamarind tree.

Only dry coconut shells, chaffs,
cow dung cakes
to boil
cauldrons of paddy.”

The two brinjals were burnt the same night
on the embers
of a two-mouth chuli.
Their violet skins peeled off,
revealing mouth watering meat.

The same year, my grandmother peed
on the verandah. On the mud it had made she slid,
to break her forehead
against her iron arm.

The vaidya prescribed a Chandrayan.

"Scant virtue, woman,
too much phlegm!
Yet, your silly heart beats!”
He roared kindly.

Crooked lips — red eyes —
three aunts circled in
from their in-laws’
by noon —

At nightfall, we downed a tamarind tree.

Glossary:

Phani Manasa: Indian prickly pear tree, Opuntia ficus-indica.
Khadus: Thick bangles.
Badua: The head of a village (affectionately used).
Chuli: An oven made by digging a hole in the ground.
Vaidya: An ayurvedic doctor.
Chandrayan: A Hindu ritual to wash off the sins of one who is soon to be deceased.

(The poem was published in the Sahitya Akademi’s ‘Indian Literature’ #326 in December, 2022)