Maa loves staring like a child at the quirky-slimy-kamar of Katrina Kaif dancing
on the Kamli song
When tomatoes somersault in the mixer,
she peeks outside the kitchen window, and her eyes stick to women passing by the
house
just like the ladyfinger sticking on my skin.
Papa falls sick and throws double-theeka-masala serial drama
But she denies sleeping with him since
He smells so bad.
So, she would rather be searching for her hostel "best friend" on YouTube
Because she heard that except god everything can be found there.
Maybe even people's sweethearts or a married woman's lost lover.
But what a tragedy!
Her dear Seema is not on YouTube.
Seema was the one she shared chapattis, clothes, ghee, and bed with.
She says,
"We used to sit together on Sundays and stitch each other's first name
letters on undies so that nobody could steal them.
"
What a date!
Your lover stitching your first name letter on your undies from a thread with their
bare hands. Mundane but so intimate.
Maa is a sexy lover!
But maa was a gangsta too -
She dreamed of running away from hostel with Seema,
To become a nun with her forever and ever
Showing a bum to the hanging Jesus on the cross
To live together as wives of nobody but of each other!
She wants to be one of those Chikni chameli women
dancing on the 9xm channel on Sunday mornings
So on days I do her lip liner and
put on brown lipstick
We dance together on tharki songs
And ask papa to be the cameraman standing at a distance.
Some days, she calls working didis to sit with her
They share chapattis, gossip, and pain of tolerating useless husbands
She calls papa, and husbands like him —
"copy-paste of kachra"
Didis burst out laughing with tears in their eyes and say -
"Ours is also Kapy-pest of kachra"
So at night, before papa comes home, she sleeps early only after watching
YouTube shorts of women dancing together in the hills.
I wonder if she
dances, braids, and kisses women in dreams
Does joy count if it comes in a dream?
I see her diving in a world where
She digs for joy and laughter of women
Somewhere between dance and friendship of women,
she fabricated her life like a spiderweb around them
because she is a gangsta,
Who loves women ridiculously
throwing thumkas and stones at people
who can't see what she sees.
Harshita has completed their Masters from EFLU, Hydrabad and loves writing funny poems about the ordinary joys of life. You can catch them stalking women writers on the internet.
