Featured Image by Siddharth Sapre

the kitchen in my ancestral home is my grandma’s fortress, 

home to the women and a guesthouse to the men

in my family. 

6:00 am knows my grandma’s morning face, 

her unpinned saree

and tangled grey hair. 

stored in the creases of her palms are untold stories of 

her very first try to make chai, 

her daughter’s neat braids,

her son’s clean uniform. 

and from her fingertips she weaves bedtime stories of

the good and the bad. 

 

a lone blue chair sits on the porch of my ancestral home, 

home to my grandpa and him only. 

he watched the evening Aslam bus arrive at our stop, 

reminiscing about the times he came back  after hours of being away. 

the wooden cupboard standing in his room, 

holds all his white clothes 

and yellowed papers that has worries spelled in ink. 

he kept to himself

but when the sun set, 

he retired into that very room,

whispering thoughts to Lord Rudra

taking form in his mind. 

By Shivani Anil