Response Poem 4 - Prabahan Shakya

"Grandfather, a handsome boy,

sauntered toward madness

into Srinagar's interior...

...In his cup, Socrates swirled."

- Agha Shahid Ali, 'Cracked Portraits'

My Grandfather was a stylish man.
He watched Raj Kapoor
Very early in his life
And decided hastily
That he'd keep his hair brushed back
Well oiled to his dark skin.

Napoleon on his lips,
he'd sit on a comfortable stance
and humour about how Nehru
would take a chicken bone
and yell Bone-apart(e)!

He taught history all his life
It was ironical hence when he began losing his memory
And the pain was that it was slow
That he would get to witness
As faces would remain while names disappear.

I dont remember him too well.
I arrived when his winter
had already begun.

I was twelve
and I was asked
to make sure he didn't fall off the chair.
I was fifteen
and I was asked
to see if he peed.
And I watched eagerly
and curiously
Who is this man we lost?

Aabu brushed his hair
The picture of Aata
on the principal's desk
smiles from the shelf.
Aata now needed his shoulder
to rest his head.
The brush strokes remained the same.

I sat on the ground.

Aabu would look at me,
she'd ask Aata to narrate
tales of our forefathers.
In pauses and stammers
came easy reflections.
The Ahoms came from a distant land
And so did his memories.

Aabu walked slow,
That's how things were in Shillong.
Now she paced a mile at four in the morning
and hastily picked the 'nuni'* in our backyard.
A prayer room emerged in a home
of recently initiated believers.
At some point in time,
She began donning
the vermillion.

She'd pray
so he'd remember
a little longer.

When asked the name
of his eldest daughter
he would tell mine.
My mother would suddenly
remember something
and rush
to a corner
covering her eyes.

My uncle bathed him that day
and helped his father
grab the edges of the bed
and left his head
back to his memories

arranged like a bar code,
distorted and separate,
yet clear and straight.

He turned on the radio,
And the channel played
"Jeena Yaha Marna Yaha"

And after years, he smiled
At the image of Raj Kapoor
he had memorialized,
and whispered "Ah, that joker".
My uncle left for a few minutes
and returned,
to find him go gently into the silent night,
on a breezy summer afternoon.

*Nuni- Assamese for Mulberry