A Ghazal for Train Journeys
blue, on the sleeper to Bombay, a commune
a family, four strangers, inhale the other, two days here.
the coolie’s red, three bags black shoved
locked, opened, watched, unwatched, faith’s ways here.
packets fizz out, chips, bhujia, pass around, chai
cold, watery, dipped biscuits dissolve, in warm grace here.
the couple met in college, Ashraf’s mother has backpain
Ippu’s wails pierce the wind, the train puffs, his tender gaze here.
nine pm, the middle berth straightens, from the upper she says,
“I’ll leave before you wake up”, the train rocks a cradle, sways here.
at Lokmanya Tilak, the morning wakes up, bags gather, track halts,
“come home to Parel one day”, a commune dissolves, in quiet embrace here.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Midsummer nights
are a white wet dream
pray, who likens
midsummer nights
dripping sweat
smeared over
floral bedsheets,
floral clothes,
floral handkerchiefs,
to love,
fanning
your body to sleep
with a glossy magazine
under faulty regulators
faulty air conditioners
faulty coolers
loud appliances
whir-whir-whir
waking up
at the third of the night
from the labour of rest,
to walk one crying child
sweat drenched,
on the verandah
wishing for air
while an old
Japanese fan
soothes the other
in vain
but puts only
your arms
to sleep
whoosh-whoosh-whoosh
water pumped
into tanks
into pipes
into buckets
into mugs
into clammy skin
at odd hours
pat-pat-pat
the only contact
with the man’s
short muscular body
glistening
from the damp
can be
standing near a bucket
pouring water
not in bed
with sticky bodies,
sticky bedsheets,
sticky breaths,
Shakespeare writes
of people who dream
on midsummer nights,
we have no time
for bullshit like that
what would he know
of our dreams anyway,
on midsummer nights
you dream
we die.
On Eid
I wake up with my hands to the tap,
hoping for red, crumbled mailanchi
on my bedsheet. In the basin, like black debris,
it dissolves, my hands turn an orange-red,
in small circles on my palm and hoods on my fingertips,
by afternoon it reddens
like a summer mango ripening,
shimmering like manjadi seeds under water,
dry creases, lines on my palm
like betel-stained lips, ummumma’s.
I hold out my hands, and turn it, and twist it, and turn it,
and look into the red in my morning eyes, in the mirror,
in the sun, in my mother’s eyes,
my nose to my palm, I smell it
mother smells it, my cat smells it,
the mutton slow cooked on the stove smells it,
my new Pakistani kurta and blue musallah smell it.
On Eid, I wake up with my hands to the tap,
praying for
ripened mangoes,
manjadi seeds, betel lips, circles, lines, creases
red.
Jasmin Naur Hafiz is an editorial assistant at the Economic and Political Weekly. She was a Commonwealth Scholar at the University of Oxford. She lives in Kerala and enjoys music, writing, and the sea.