What I mean when I say I am cooking a poem

is that I am grinding masala, changing bed sheets, fixing a lunch for two, folding laundry, beating dust out of carpets on the terrace under the unforgiving May sun, smelling summer in the heart of a ripe old jackfruit, painting sunflowers on slow afternoons, waiting, willing July to pour outside my window with the melody of an Odissi dancer’s ghungroo each time her feet fall on the floor like thunder tearing clouds apart. I am always cooking a poem especially when I am watering the Rajnigandha plant, watching the neighbourhood boys hobbling around a football, their hoarse voices slowly disappearing as I get back to picking tulsi leaves for the evening chai and nursing a broken heart – mine, my friend’s, her mother’s, their housemaid’s. Us, women, with heartache and hurt, singing along Kishore Da’s songs emanating from the TV in between sips of adrak-wali chai. This grief-ridden house being purified of lies, loss of loved ones, infidels and alcoholics with rhythmic syllables and estrogen. And I am left wondering the need for camphor or even dhunuchi when our sisterhood is enough.