Chocolate cookies soft enough to stick candles in,
Idli cakes,
Cooking chaotically with friends, everyone managing to burn something; still enjoying each other’s dishes regardless,
Friends that introduce you to tea flavors and combinations you would’ve never come across otherwise,
Watching trailer after trailer to choose a movie,
Rating and ranking movies,
Starting 3 hr long movies too late into the night,
.. so, Short films,
Cutting apples for make-shift charcuterie boards,
Empty theaters,
Excitedly experiencing sunlight with the rest of the city on a random Saturday,
Sneaking into graveyards,
Legally entering graveyards that also happen to be arboretums,
Running into people you only sort-of know, two days in a row,
Group naps after all you can eat Indian buffets,
Solidarity in times of political distress,
Peeling hard-to-peel oranges like it’s a challenge,
Aunties that hug you upon their first time meeting you
Political organizing; sharing grief with community; rebuilding hope
Uphill walks
Spring tulips
rasam (a stream of thoughts)
“make sure you stir it first. you can have it with or without rice!,”
I tell my roommates.
sassam, I laugh to myself
it’s sassam with rasam and no kadi patta,
what have i done?!
even worse – it’s sassam rasam with no pappad.
Mamama will scoff. It’s her dish after all. for me, it’s mamama’s invention
i have never had a rasam like hers (CTR could never).
“rasam again?,” I used to frown. Without forewarning,
a final night flew past me, and I never had the thought again.
..
Regrets:
I wish I paid attention to mamama when she made rasam (and anything else for that matter),
her unwritten recipes live on in my head, and the taste of her phodi will forever cling on to my perpetually-dowsed-in-nostalgia taste buds
she never missed an ingredient. even if she did, we never knew.
she silently made all her dishes, and then added too much to our plates:
puliogare, polo, appo, ambo ukkari, tendli, and it goes.
I wish I never complained about the 2-nights-in-a-row rasams,
9 year old me bikes away with Ajja, we secretly get tandoori chicken, ice cream, and pack some for akka and mamama,
it’s no longer a secret. rasam, rice, and tandoori chicken for dinner.
13 year old me thinks about the whereabouts of Ajja’s bike, and his love for food,
with passing thoughts of him, I ask Mom why we can’t just have a burger for dinner. I think of his toothless grin when we brought him KFC at the hospital.
Rasam again?
of course, Mom rolls her eyes and splatters rasam on my plate.
Dad lectures that I am going to miss this one day. I roll my eyes.
..
my sore throat today had me reaching for MTR’s rasam packet at the back of my pantry. I needed to soothe my pain, but not necessarily because of the powdered ginder, turmeric, and tomato, and it’s various healing elements
I decided I might as well make enough for the next few nights as well.
the stove in front of me escaped my vision as mnemonic images flashed back to dinner with my parents.
lol sassam
I cringed at my negligence as I added corriander powder instead of leaves.
needless to say, it didn’t taste like mamama’s.
in fact, this was not a rasam i would even allow the inventor of rasam, mamama, to have – it didn’t even have tamarind.
My roommates repeat rah-saam slowly back to me as they take their first sip.
I think of Mamama laughing at my attempt but applauding me anyway, ajja’s sympathetic smile, mom’s pride followed by some critique, and all the dinners my dad quietly drank rasam from a cup.
“it’s kind of like soup”
Protected: home? (not a poem)
lessons for living
tell me how to be, darling –
begin with beauty, define its synonyms,
teach me to be
elegant, smart, and
quiet at the right times.
lure me into you, with: fine silk, love poems, song, dance, promises of fortune, wealth, and magical swims at sea (at night, with bioluminescent fish)
and once I have learned, darling,
arts of pleasing,
means of conviction, of you for me, me for you, for you, darling,
and have numbed my fingers sewing red carpets and ribbons of silk, for you, dear darling,
take a bow, walk ahead
inaugurate your promised pristine vehicles of wealth,
name it after me. call it mine. call it a celebration – magical, miraculous.
teach me how to be darling,
and I will fill my notes with all it’s antonyms
..
set me up for the world, dear guardian angel, and reason for life;
and when I begin to define my wings, feathers, and direction,
prepare me for flight –
with your toughest love, and ceaseless appraisals of the feathers I dye, wings I sew, and my maneuvers of flight.
teach me: strength to quietly transform into ash from generations of inextinguished fires, patience to ice unhealed burns, and bandage scars from your/your guardian’s/ their guardian’s and their guardian’s precursory collisions, crashes, and slow collapses
– with shackles at my claws and feathers intact.
tell me who to be, dearest well-wisher, guardian, reason for life,
and I will be exactly it’s opposite, for me.
draft 3 8/19
my monthly wannabe shrine
I am selfish with my time…
and body,
every time I shower,
and let hot water drip over me,
slowly, luxuriously but humbly (if it were possible)
asking forgiveness for my sins
I feel selfish, wrong even,
doing everything I was told to refrain from,
(you know, wasting water).
I’ll paint it for you. Think:
lathered soap,
slowly, like in the movies,
background music, candles and all,
or think.. a pears…sunsilk.. dove..any soap ad,
slowly, like in the movies,
‘lag ja gale se phir’ in the background,
warm oil micelles sifting down my scalp,
not too much make-up on,
just the right amount,
hair a little messy, but all the loose strands
strategically placed in the right area
(remember, it is a painting for you).
the artist? just a person having a leisurely self-indulgent shower with lag ja gale on repeat.
so snap out of it – there is soap in my eyes and I’m holding my breath because of the water pouring down my nose.
this is a treat. my treat.
a treat I solemnly enjoy,
or hesitatingly help myself to
(sometimes even twice a month)
when I forget what my skin feels like,
in my cubicle, at the grocery store,
on tired legged evening walks by the nearest pond,
on random-hour-tank-top-runs,
in binders, bras, boxers, underwear from 2 years ago
at restaurants,
or alone in my room.
popularly a prize, a piece to critique, an item to consume
romantically, a place of worship, a temple, a shrine
but mostly, selfishly, utterly, maybe even maniacally,
mine.
Lata ends at ‘phir’ once again*
hairs bunch together, clung to my legs and arms
the scent of stubborn coconut oil lingers
“no one will find out”, i tell myself
a poem betrays me.
*geddit?
last updated: 7/12/24
weather forecasts
I tune into my weather app like the daily news,
equivalent to a teenagers carefully curated instagram account,
or text messages from a beloved, far away,
the first thing I check in the morning.
religiously, and sometimes doomlessly,
hopping from clouds to crescent orange moons,
rain drops to snowflakes,
wind chill to accidentally changing my settings to fahrenheit,
sunshine to celsius, humidity to driving difficulty (I don’t drive),
from corporate how about this weather?
to my sisters’ is it snowing there?
to my roommates’ how cold is it out?
I scrunch my brows,
praying I look curious,
as if
I did not know to bring gloves,
as if
my just-a-little-warm-but-not-too-warm-leggings
was merely a coincidence,
as if
I do not secretly envy the weather,
wishing I were her,
to bring sunscreen, Havana hats,
and extra water for,
to keep warm,
shelter, and stock up on food for,
to log hourly, weekly, monthly,
high tides, low tides, no tides.
to neatly graph precipitation for.
to predict;
jealous I cannot broadly classify
into spring, summer, monsoon, winter,
jealous I cannot predict.
I don’t know, I say, let me check.
versions
I find myself enunciating my name in empty rooms often,
mourning the ease I once felt in saying it out loud,
my R’s roll, and my name morphs into a tongue twister only I can hear,
Trisha. T(h)risha. Thr-(ee)-sha. Trisha.
take your pick.
I think of all the ways I’ve ever said it, my name,
and its variations when it is echoed back to me
with anger, frustration, lust, love, sadness, curiosity,
I add it to my mental deck of flash cards,
maybe this is what my name is supposed to sound like
*T*risha is the version ma (translation: my mother)
uses when she is upset with me,
T(h)risha is the version I grew up with.
eighteen years later,
‘Trisha’ was claimed into my existence.
code switching, I guess?
fast forward – it’s now:
my flash cards are fading,
and my fingers shuffle as I try to tell them apart,
a card is picked, not by me,
a new one is added, not by me,
a version of me is chosen for me.
saturated in comfort, and maybe a hint of relief,
I acquaint myself with versions I’ve never heard of before,
while silently discarding a few,
and holding hands with some from several years ago.
Zukkini Salad 