Radio

A poem on missing home

My poem this week is on my grandparents, the significance of music in my family, plus the small colours of identity, culture and home. I call it Radio. Happy reading!

Radio

How do I get access to Hindi radio station here?

92.7 

When baba forgets to put on a belt,

Leaves the car while it’s still accelerating —

Monochromatic tunes of the past

that remind him of amma,

And the way she cut guava in four slices, pink salt sweat on the rims of this cardboard fruit.

The dial is broken, 

it’s silver came off years ago and now we keep placing it back;

Things in our house are semi-broken, always under the process of reparation,

Like our relationship with each other, 

ceaselessly mending.

Mangeshkar hums —

Naam Goom Jayega 

Chehra yeh badal jayega 

Meri awaz hi pehchan hai 

Gar yaad rahe..

Amma must have met her now, 

tried to sing those tunes back to her and laughed about,

the complications of love that remain undefined. 

If she were here today, she’d continue living in baba’s shadows, yet always blissful.

Now he listens to this song and remembers amma’s voice,

And I cannot find access to the Hindi radio station here,

The one that baba always plays. 

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