Suruma Writes On...

A sinister looking cat; black Lived in my suitcase On odd winter nights. On even nights, I'd straighten My suitcase; a golden brown ; Heavy from the chips I had brought from home. The night after I found the cat Sleeping on my bed next to my head, I bolted the room And sealed it from him. How do I let a cat steal my thoughts, Staring at me  from my bed, While I sleep? But on other odd winter nights I'd still forget to lock the room And the hostel cat Would sneak in for the heat Of my suitcase. The next day I decided To prepare my dead suitcase Into a living room for this cat Which must have had mutliple names In the history of her hostel life. I removed the packets of chips And the few unwashed clothes inside. For want of old clothes for comfort, I placed the soft posters and The slogan printed fabric I had collected from the protests Around the city, on one side And a few newspapers, On the other. The cat sneaked in one odd night, And

I have an unwritten letter kept safely inside my book, with the violet flower I picked for you from my garden. Have I told you that I like the colour violet? Every night I dream of posting my letter to you with the flower, which would have wilted by the time it reaches you, like the grief of this wait. An occasional postman bringing a magazine whose subscription is a forgotten affair, only for these summer rains to drench it's glossy front cover, reminds me of you. The roads look like an unwanted carcass and the only sign of life is inside the heart. How do I put that life into a paper and send it across to you through channels that are long dead? The flower keeps wilting day by day and I let it be. The next time we meet, it would have dried up like flakes of brown paper. My violet would have vanished. Will you accept a wilted dead flower from me then? 

In one corner of this land, I've built a room; that smells interchangeably of coconut oil and white shampoo, of my sweaty palms and feet and of yardley powder packed in lavender coloured tins long lost. My room feels like ummumma's soft white muslin shawl, and her corner near the kitchen, the dark brown cot, a table fan, a trunk petti, shelves of unused glassware and a red carpet hanging from a steel rod near the ceiling, like a curtain never seen. It smells of the red sandstone walls towering over my head in beautiful patterns, intermittent with white marble, in the masjid whose name is love. Of my creaky bed pulled close to the window, half of its body under the shelf on the sidewall,  cramming under which numerous Dilli winters passed by; the pictures on the wall, the balcony that had turned a shade of dark brown, painted with dust and the occasional cat that lived inside my suitcase. It tastes of the rooms that changed cities, in desperate attempts to seize all of