Tabish Khair

Down the stairs of this house where plaster flakes and falls,
Through the intimate emptiness of its rooms and hall,
I hear your slow footsteps, grandmother, echo or pause
...

At one instant it seemed to be within my grasp:
Your love was a jewel I could reach out and feel.
It made me come alive as nothing had before;
I felt no need to keep it in a selfish clasp.
...

Listen to the song of the reed flute:
It sings of separation.
Torn from the leaf-layered, wind-voiced
Banks of the pond,
...

Grant me a little child
I can hide
When the mullahs come home to pray,
When planes are birds of prey.
...

She knows it's neither strange nor hard
To raise children on graveyards.
...

It hurts to walk on new legs:
The curse of consonants, the wobble of vowels.
...

ecause the east wind bears the semen smell of rain,
A warm smell like that of shawls worn by young women
Over a long journey of sea, plain and mountains,
The peacock spreads the Japanese fan of its tail and dances,
...

What could I do being what I was:
Saviour of old women, their killer too.
On my chest there sat a big dog;
...

Listen to the song of the reed flute:
It sings of separation.
Torn from the leaf-layered, wind-voiced
Banks of the pond,
It is joined to sorrow and joy
By a slender sound.
Who, asked Rumi, can understand
The reed's longing to return?
Let its raw lips rest then;
Let all words be brief then.

And I, O Believers, cried Rumi
(Having lost the man he loved),
I who am not of the East
Nor of the West, un-Christian,
Not Muslim or Jew, neither
Born of Adam nor Eve,
What can I love but the world itself,
What can I kiss but flesh?
Let my raw lips rest then;
Let all words be brief.
...

Because the east wind bears the semen smell of rain,
A warm smell like that of shawls worn by young women
Over a long journey of sea, plain and mountains,
The peacock spreads the Japanese fan of its tail and dances,
And dances until it catches sight of its scaled and ugly feet.

Because the koel cannot raise its own chicks —
Nature's fickle mother who leaves her children on doorsteps
In the thick of nights, wrapped in controversy and storm —
Because the koel will remain eternally young, untied,
It fills the long and empty afternoons with sad and sweet songs.

Because the rare Surkhaab loves but once, marries for life,
The survivor circles the spot of its partner's death uttering cries,
Until, shot by kind hunters or emaciated by hunger and loss,
It falls to the ground, moulting feathers, searching for death.
O child, my nurse had said, may you never see a Surkhaab die.
...

Down the stairs of this house where plaster flakes and falls,
Through the intimate emptiness of its rooms and hall,
I hear your slow footsteps, grandmother, echo or pause

As they used to through long summer afternoons spent within
The watered-down four walls of khus and fragile drinks
Of ice, mango or lemon, the circle of water-melon crescents.

Slowly you shuffle examining each new tear in the curtains
Which will have to be mended when the first monsoon rain
Provides a respite from sun, curtails the need for shade.

Slowly on arthritic joints you move from room to room
Marking the damage of the years, evaluating how soon
The past will collapse or how long the present last.

You never need glasses to mark the contours of your house
Though you can't see grandsons at a distance, once wore a blouse
Inside out. Nothing has changed, grandmother, no, not yet;

Though your collected steps never turn the corner into you
In a starched and white sari, the fragrance of soap around you.
And all the curtains have long been taken down.
...

(Based on H. C. Andersen's ‘The Little Mermaid')
It hurts to walk on new legs:
The curse of consonants, the wobble of vowels.

And you for whom I gave up a kingdom
Can never love that thing I was.

When you look into my past
You see
Only
Weeds and scales.

Once I had a voice.
Now I have legs.

Sometimes I wonder
Was it fair trade?
...

(Based on H. C. Andersen's ‘By the Almshouse Window')
She knows it's neither strange nor hard
To raise children on graveyards.

All you need
Is a terrible deed -
Then you bury the dead,
And forget.
...

At one instant it seemed to be within my grasp:
Your love was a jewel I could reach out and feel.
It made me come alive as nothing had before;
I felt no need to keep it in a selfish clasp.
I knew it was something no one could ever steal,
It had no need for locks; it was a magic door.

I sit here now and think of what I would have found
If I had walked the way my heart still bids me go
(The closest word I know is "paradise"),
But here my body's tied to a stake in the ground
Of many yesterdays and not one tomorrow,
And though it may implore and struggle, still it lies

In all the mud of language that turns doors to walls
And makes the best of truths, despite us, false.
...