Salt-traced words, a womans voice from a decorated high ledge, assert decolonial memory and fierce resilience through ancient indigo patterns, defying borders.
Ajrakhpur (2001)
Work on it today,
sell it morrow.
Add some more Madar seeds,
make Gaalicho shine below indigo kakar,
place central geometrical trefoil,
gleaming Razzaq directed
as was draped by priest-king
excavated at Mohenjo-daro.
ensure 7-9 pH
modent kala cotton cloth
one in Hardo and other in alum
add variations,
for we lack skills in
digital marketing.
A makeshift hammock for baby Lekhmi
guided his imagination.
I
(i.b. Reena Saini Kallat’s Saline Notations)
And she imagined herself
drawing an alpana outside her home
releasing salt with restraint
shaping infinitesmal words
she mugged
before dropping out of school
for marriage
as she knew how to sign.
She made the Kachchh-ua
II
Noe che,
“Mi Mae pi.”
Sa ro,
Loo he
bo di.
Kae cho?
Mu so,
do di.
III
Sgrr, sgrr, seurr
wouack, sthwack
chwack, schwing
shczm, shczm
oar aside
Lo! Née
drop id
in quotes and jutes
Ru kappa
Chha mu
So so
He hu.
IV
You try it, I said
It is an
Idiolect
/micro-dialect
:hurried,
prescient,
precocious and
upturned
like the tip of a mojadi.
V
cradled
its stiff spine in her palms
and heaved herself up
over a decorated ledge,
to recite a rhyming couplet
after a year…
Yamini Dand Shah A literary researcher, working as a Research Repository at the Asian Heritage Foundation, an Advisor for publishing houses and Board of studies for English Literature and has Co-Curated, Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (Literature) in 2019. Editor of the biography ‘Life on the Edge’ by Paperwall. Poetry segment has the following contribution: READ (Poetry of Dissent from the Margins), Being left behind (Open your eyes Anthology), Phases~Unstory (The Odd Magazine), Bent (Shethepeople.tv), Talking about being boundless (longlisted for U.S. Consulate Poetry Tournament and part of Living Waters Museum exhibit) and a poetry collection ‘Abstract Oralism’ on Kachchh, to be out soon.
