As An Indian Poem by Lovita Morang

as an Indian

Walked on Indian path
Breaking through
Hi
Hi
What’s the time
Three
Silence
Smiles
Where
Festival
Which festival
Film festival [images in my mind
moving back and forth
uma ganapati’s big bindi smiles at me,
next tabu in table,
smell of cordon bleu
my ill body nauseates,
I smiled on
Next jackie shroff 360’look
Afzal’s non-stop saire wait…
‘Mexican actress? ’ Voice was larger then Mike pandey
Mrinal sen as young as the old sea
‘O jungle queen
Lost in deep forest.’
Terror on the roar
Everything fade out to silence
Back
Blood beneath the path
I walked on Indian path]
O iffi goa
You are from korea, japan?
And you
Indian Indian from India
Tell me your country
[…]
Welcome to my home
I will give ticket to fly
Ticket very costly O oho ho thank you
I don’t have passport
Even I do not have passport
He looked
at me
But didn’t looked
into me

[I see into my indianness
Then back little into history-Tibeto-mongoloid
Mean Tibet and Mongolia
Altogether roots rooted now in India.]

You don’t need passport
To come to Arunachal Pradesh
Where it is
Near you
Good joke…You are joking
I said [unheard]joker
Comedy of confusion
Garbage
Grabs
flies
Crows
Crowds
Moving in two directions
Forward and backward
Flow contraflow
Events like
Contraceptive contest
Everything like tools, instruments
Train arrived he jumped in

A strange story goes on
Like a glorious procession of a sovereign human
To their co-existential essences

In the waiting room
Time paused
Creating another time
I close my eyes
I was in my school days
In white and blue
Uniformed
In loud pledges every one
‘I am an Indian
India is my country
Every Indian is
My brother and sister
I love my India…’

Echoing through the hills and mountains of patkai
And peaceful valley
Lay silent at country’s border

Another trains arrives