‘The rivercold of ancient waters’ – Two poems by Srividya Sivakumar
Photo: Karan Madhok
‘In my seditious soul, sparrows flit in and out of red-tiled houses. A dry river watches my family offer prayers. A kitten scares my aunt senseless.’
Fifteenth
I do not have a freedom poem, a liberation lovesong, an emancipation piece.
My nails are permanently crusted with the red soil of my city. With the tender green leaves of mango and the rice flour of floor decoration.
My colours are the reticent white of the jasmine, the violet of the kurunji and the particular orange of the kanakambaram.
My fingers feel the uneven ridges of sugarcane, the smooth hardness of terracotta and the heaving flanks of a bull at rest.
Under my feet, the large stones of a temple courtyard. The rivercold of ancient waters. The shellsand of a rebellious sea.
In my ears the jolt of thavil. The sonorousness of the shruti petti. The deliberate joy of dappan koothu.
The nongu seller's sales pitch. The one with the tender coconut hearts. The deaf-mute flower seller who takes by the kilo.
My tongue senses the bland warmth of white rice. The earthen gold of my mother's coconut sweet. The smooth groove of pickle and ghee.
In my seditious soul, sparrows flit in and out of red-tiled houses. A dry river watches my family offer prayers. A kitten scares my aunt senseless.
Elsewhere, a hot tar road leads to a beach and newspapers of peanuts. It ends at a truck with frying fish and laughter. At a house with cold floors and warm curtains.
My English loving tongue savours the -zha and the rasam. It sings classical and coke studio. It tattoos kolams and unalomes.
But I do not write. Of politics and prisons. Of cold indifference. The shrill voices of superiority. And the justification of wrong.
Instead I drape a deep grey saree. I stand before a few primary colours. My veins tightly pressed against his. We mingle, red-blooded revolution.
Occipital Stroke Observations at Ramzan
My father dreams in Urdu.
He asks how to read the English paper—right to left, he starts.
Co-mmand.
ees.
After the fact, he has forgotten:
The days of the week.
The word for sugar. And water.
Where he lives. What he ate in his last meal.
The family cat and the dog.
His friends from a few years ago.
The names of his daughters.
He uses words to fill in the spaces in his speech.
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At 77, my father has discovered, ‘appalling’.
His eight degrees look on from the walls, waiting patiently
for him to catch up.
***
Srividya Sivakumar is a poet, columnist, and TEDx speaker. She has two books of poetry, The Blue Note and The Heart is an Attic and is the co-editor of The Shape of a Poem, the Red River Anthology of Contemporary Erotic Poetry (2021). Her column, Srividya Speaks Poetry, currently appears in the online literary journal, Narrow Road. Sivakumar was shortlisted for the WE Kamala Das Poetry Awards 2020. She is on Instagram: @rumwrapt.
