Laxmi, Lachchmi (my grandmother)

She was a simple soul
No, she never cared about
things that are not worth caring about
For instance, she never cared about cricket,
or tv serials, or movies
And dismissed all that with a one liner
"yo laambe laambe chehre"
These long faces..
For somewhere inside she knew
that faces are better.
they are not like the diplomatic faces on the television...
that faces are better, like, like
those of her children...
'Sham, Fulad, Raj, Munna and Lala'
like, like..
those of her grandchildren,
maybe like Manu's face,
which was sweetest to her..
on whose birth she had danced and sang,
while beating spoon frantically on the plate...

And what about her grip?
the way she clutched her grandchildren's arm
and dragged them back to house
in the fear that they may get lost
Manu hated it,
for how could he know that it was out of sheer love!
how could he know that this lady, his grandmother
had lost so much in her lifetime, that losing was
a nightmare to her!
She who lost her father's family to plague,
And then many of her children at birth..
how could she manage to lose Manu...!!!

Wasn't she a saint?
Her tragedies and then, her devotion to God,
her singing of 'Bhootan ke dere mein, bhaj le pyare, tu sahara'
'where I am trapped in this pit of ghosts, it is you god, who will get me out'
every morning.....
She knew a secret, deep inside that this modern generation doesn't
(though she knew nothing of cricket scores, and once when Manu tried to explain her cricket, he came to the point of forgetting himself)..
just one rhythm, like Meera's can take you across..it is all that matters
nothing else does....

And what about her cloth and cotton parrots?
Can any living artist suffuse so much love into his art?
the love that she suffused into the parrots she made for Manu..
Art is for love, not for diplomacy,
yes, she knew that too!

And her tale of Hallaq Kuttaq
Wasn't that masaledar??
Manu loved that
and went around the streets repeating it..
'Hallaq Kuttaq it's your turn,
Let your tail put put burn!'

She didn't know how to read and write
She couldn't write her name for that
'Laxmi...(Lachchmi as it was pronounced)'
And when somebody teased her regarding that
and said that you should learn..
Her response was epic
"Baawli na hoon mein...gadanjoge, khapparbharne, daatwe, jaadwe..."
'I am not so mad as to learn now...then some excellent abuses'

She was a simple soul
So simple that she considered her village as the whole universe
Was there something beyond 'kharkhoda' her village?
No, just forbidden zone..
She didn't know much about what was outside,
but didn't she know a taste of the inside?,
that is lost to people now...

By - Manan sheel ( Manu of the poem)

this poem is about my grandmother..we don't know when she was born..nobody recorded the dates...but we know she was lovely and saintly...