Suruma Writes On...

  ummumma's steel mug of chai was always more sugar than chai. like my words that are always more pauses than words. i carry their weight in me; a slouch from silence. Bismillah, ummumma mutters audibly when she gets to her chai. i swallow bismillahs along with mine. the embarassment of words minces with my bismillahs and alhamdulillahs. ummumma taught me to sweeten what I detested. the occasional milk, the chutney the shade of my skin colour crayon, the cough syrups thick and pink. and i, like the copious amounts of sugar ummumma compensated my distaste with, use pauses to sweeten the bitterness of words. on days the old oats container runs out of sugar, ummumma's steel mug sits in a corner of our kitchen, desired but untouched. When the silence in my sounds run out, I hope my words catch dust, dying slow deaths of unfulfilled longings - desired, but untouched.

my sister told me when I was seven that our occasional shawarmas from zam zam, the hotel across the masjid at the center of our city; the chicken that was stacked up and cut down, in the heat of a kiln, to the rhythm of the knives, the vegetables drenched in vinegar, shrunken, a pickle with the khubz; were all but deceitful lies. the perfect shawarmas, instead she said belonged to the arabis across the sea; in persia; as ummumma mistakenly calls the desert of many comings and goings; meat spiced right, charred, soft, its juiciness spilling over to the bread, tender.   my ustad just had me memorise new alphabets a day ago, alif, baa, taa, saa the perfect shawarmas, like the alifs and baas belonged across the sea, I was told. zam zam missed the hit of the spices, like i missed my jeem and saad my arabi was frail, but i learnt enough to know that with ز starts zam zam, the water that emerged in the harshness of a desert; the hotel near the masjid, modishly mispronounced 'sam sam' ...

  These days, I forget that I write, Until anguish reigns my body, Taking down all of it. On some days love feels like The relief of a glass of water in mid-summer heat. On other days, It looks like a wilted flower Drooping down, dead. And I, a bystander, Not knowing what to do, Watch it day after day, Until it falls down Unannounced. I might then think of burying it, On the shallow mud In my heart But what do I do with a dead flower in my heart?

  With broken shards, I know somebody, will build me a tombstone, in grey This rain that comes down in loud wailings is all thats left. I try to collect its sounds to write them down, an eulogy. How would you remember me if I were gone? My grey tombstone wouldn't mean much, but for the proof that I lie somewhere inside, hidden, alone, like I always do. Tombstones can't always tell between life and death. I'll write myself an eulogy instead, with the wailings of this rain, an apology, a non-apology. The constant stink of death inside, spreads with the breeze of this rain. Do sorry notes to yourself count after death? These wailings grow louder, and against the metal sheets on my rooftop, they seem like an earthquake. What sound does the rain make against tombstones that can't tell between life and death? I'd prefer my apology instead of the stone. An apology to my living self, from my dead. This rain will come again and drench the soiled paper of the apology But its ...

  There is a poem in my head which refuses to come out. I sit on an old dusty chair facing the tall trees that have grown densely like a forest behind my home and try to confine my thoughts on paper. I play a few old ghazals to clear my thoughts but realise that they become more muddled. Qafas udaas he yaaro saba se kuch to kaho Mehdi Hassan's voice runs softly on the radio, lamenting that the sad heart needs to hear of the beloved to find happiness. Ghazals have a way of pricking you. The radio keeps playing unmoved by the words, but the heart cannot. I stare into the trees to concentrate and let the poem out. Chale bhi aao ki gulshan ka kaarobaar chale Come, so that the garden may bloom again!

  What does a city taste like after a sudden retreat? Where does it go, disappearing unexpectedly? They say its sounds will come back chirping at your windows in mornings when you lie idle in bed. On evening walks in the terrace, listening to Roshe, it comes out as tears, longing to hold you close. In dusty books and clothes, that have turned a year without you knowing, it hides carefully. And then when you finally embrace it, the city behaves like an elusive young woman, longing to be with you, yet playfully putting its desire away. In small gallis and bylanes, in the pigeons that huddle together on traffic islands, in the butter chai that waziruddin ji serves in his small corner and the imam who lives in a cozy little archway in the old masjid without the roof, the city waits for you, yet does not show it. How do you behave to a city that isn't yours yet is yours? Everytime you walk away , you feel like leaving a home that you are bound to come back to. A home thats ...

Mourning a city may feel like the following. 1. It may smell like the candy aroma of the butter chai near Jama Masjid. The warm, cozy corner where the fair man in white kurta sits on top of a table, vending chai in a machine that looks so unfamiliar. 2. Or it may sound like the metro announcement that buzzes in your head when you lie on your couch at home. "This station is Moolchand. Doors will open on the left". 3. The hundred thousand gullies of the city of Jamia, that crisscross each other like an intricate, undecipherable map. The crowd that remains in constant motion across the lanes of Batla, scented with the aroma of food- DJ Shafiq's famous tikka, the soft tandoori rotis served with love in Bilal, the Muradabadi Biriyani served across the street, you pick. The tombstones in Jamia's big graveyard, like which, I've etched the remembrance of our love that bloomed in this part of the city. 4. The sound of azaan at Jama Masjid, which strangely rema...