IMOGENE’S NOTEBOOK
Where I’m From
A poem about India
I’m from
daffodils wishing they were roses.
Boys forbidden to cry
Girls not allowed to be out at night.
Wives eating last and alone.
Fathers toiling to pay
for a daughter’s wedding ceremony and gifts
(we don’t call it dowry anymore)
since the day she is born.
I’m from
Kalpana making it to outer space,
twice, without a safe return.
Farmers and engineering students
taking their lives.
Doctors stoned by families of their patients.
Husbands favoured over higher studies.
Obsession with fairness creams, inheritance
and weight loss solutions.
Worshipping trees, Sun, rivers and sky;
(Not cows, our cow is family and
beloved pets to our Gods.)
I’m from
A second helping of fish
curried in a zesty mustard paste.
TV serials with three thousand episodes
A family that tires but doesn’t quit.
Hard work and power cuts.
Temples, turmeric, flowers and fairs.
Laughter of children who have
less or nothing, yet content.
Much is changing at the turn of a breath,
as I write, my shrivelling mother is asking after
her six older sisters (they’re well).
Miles apart, my husband is laying the table
for the last meal of the day.
There’s food in the fridge; the music is on
There’s war and the politics of war all around us,
yet we are not burning with it.
This poem is a response to the prompt by Debra G. Harman, MEd., and modelled on George Ella Lyon’s poem Where I Am From.
Thank you for reading!
© 10th January 2024. All Rights Reserved. Anushree Bose
