Kamerden

Een kamerden was het enige wat we konden
vinden voor onze eerste tropische Kerst,
met van die superzachte naalden waar alles
gewoon van afglijdt als water van een eendenrug.
Het lijkt wel een metafoor, al weet ik niet meteen
waarvoor…

We hadden natuurlijk ook wel ergens een plastic
gedrocht op kunnen pikken, maar dat was ons
een brug te ver. Erg genoeg dat we het moesten stellen
met generische versierselen made in China, lichtgewicht,
want zo’n kamerden verdraagt niet veel, zoals u al wel
heeft gehoord.

De buren kwamen kijken naar onze échte Christmas tree.
Met een snoer rode lichtjes (voor amper vijftig roepies)
kon ie er wel door.
Je kunt ook watten gebruiken als sneeuw,
zei iemand, maar daar bedankten we voor.

Only in India 1.1

Image credit Zsolt Zatrok Dr. (freeimages.com).

 (latest version of a prose poem recently published on Medium…)

In India, in the rainy season, verdant medians become prime pasture grounds, and national highways are turned into bovine dormitories.

Think I exaggerate? Traffic obediently skirts a calf napping in its path and slows to walking pace behind a herd on the move – with or without a herder.

Cattle are never in a hurry, you need to learn from them. Admire the beauty of the brahma bull strutting his stuff on the left, while avoiding the black heifer resting on the asphalt to your right.

A day trip to the hills becomes a test of endurance as an “All-India Conference Of Cows” congregates at the crossroads (I thank my witty sister-in-law for that expression). We don’t lose our sense of humor on account of a few cows – not even a few dozen of them.

Then there’s pedestrians who cross the road as in a trance, and motorbikes coming at us the wrong way – without lights – after dark. Oncoming cars never dip their high beams.

Add to the mix a few buffalo, goats, and stray dogs – not to mention speeding buses that straddle the lane marker and overloaded trucks in danger of toppling.

Given enough time, one gets used to it all. Just don’t tell me that traffic is worse between Delhi and Gurgaon. You metro dwellers only have other cars to contend with.

 

Pottery

I’m a sucker for traditional, handmade things. And I’m attracted to everything blue. So when I recently ran into a blue-and-white Khurja pottery tea set at a craft fair, I bought it on a whim. The boxed set consisted of a teapot, creamer and sugar bowl, and six cups and saucers. The design was a curious mix of old and new, featuring square, upward-sloping saucers, and curved  “modern” handles that resembled the lifted pinky finger of a pretentious tea drinker on the lids of the teapot and the sugar bowl. To be honest I would have preferred the old-fashioned kind. That was, however, not on display. I also needed matching dessert plates and asked the gray-bearded vendor about them.

“This is the first day of the fair,” he said. “If you come back day after tomorrow I will have more merchandise, including quarter plates, coming in from U.P.”

I bought the tea set and kept it in the box until I would have the plates. Two days later I went back and bought them (and a lot of miscellaneous stuff from other vendors as well!). I was very happy with my purchase, although it was not dishwasher safe and possibly not great for the microwave oven, either. I was especially excited about having a nice, six-cup teapot again, because I had been looking for a while and had seen only boring Borosil carafes or very fancy tea sets trimmed with gold or silver in the market.  The four Indian web-based vendors I searched had not yielded anything exciting either.

Now I was looking forward to treating my guests to my “famous” homemade banana bread, with the tea being kept piping hot under my lovely, traditional Bhopali, beaded tea cozy. The next day I carefully unpacked and hand-washed my treasure. The teapot was last. As I started to dry it with a tea towel I found a hairline crack, barely noticeable. On closer inspection it turned out to run all the way from the bottom to the rim of the teapot, behind the handle. With great care I wrapped the pot in newspapers and hoofed it back to the craft fair at once (it was the last day by now). When I took it out of my tote bag to show the vendor, the lid’s handle was missing. It lay at the bottom of the bag. Listening to my tale, the vendor kept his cool and, peering at the crack, stated laconically, “It won’t break.”

“Not even if I pour boiling water in it? Sorry, but I have a hard time believing that. And now the lid is also damaged. This set is very fragile. Please, uncle, give me a replacement.” I called him uncle because he was older than I, which seemed to please him, but all the tea sets were sold and there was no spare pot.

“It’s true,” the vendor conceded, “Kaafi naazuk hai (It’s rather fragile).” He took my phone number and promised to call me when he came back to Bhopal. I asked when that would be. “Next year,” he said. I resisted his attempts to sell me assorted matching vases and serving platters and went home.

Let’s face it, I am a sucker, plain and simple.

Living with Nature

This collection of short to very short poems about the “wildlife” in and around my Bhopal house is a work in progress. I’m having fun with it. Hope you will, too!

LIVING WITH NATURE

Rats

While I was gone the rats had a feast

They tasted everything in my house, everything

but the food, hidden safely in my airtight pantry.

Some things obviously were tastier to them

than others: the grey rubber depressor of my toaster

bears the mark of a single tentative nibble while

the black plastic cover of the Borosil carafe lies

in crumbles on its glass bottom.

Clear plastic clearly was the favorite:

The dish detergent’s top gnawed clear off

Each one of my liquid measures can now be used as a sieve.

And soap! Cakes of Dove delicately decorated with a

fine ridge of rodent-wrought embellishment

The scouring sponge, on the other hand, abandoned after two bites.

The darlings also tried to mine the stuffing of the sofa

for nesting material it would seem, but didn’t get very far,

leaving just two modest cavities.

Mosquitoes

“Don’t worry about the mosquitoes that bite you at night,”

said my Delhi friend. “Worst thing that could happen is malaria.

But the morning mosquitoes are a different breed,

carriers of the dreaded dengue fever,

or dengu as they call it here.”

I take no risks, still I get bitten occasionally.

Spiders

Spiders big and small, the nightmare of my childhood

Here I’ve learned to co-exist peacefully with them

When I wake up with a red welt on my wrist

I hope it’s “just” a spider bite.

Crickets

Funny little creatures, black as night,

they slip in through every crack between door and jamb

and wander about the house as if they own it.

Taking care not to step on them,

I sweep them out gently when they get underfoot.

In return they treat me to serenades, morning and evening.

Wasps

Slender brown wasps are building their paper nest

in the kitchen’s extractor vent

I point them out to a relative, who shrugs

He calls them “bees”

No big deal, he seems to think, but I worry

about the vent becoming obstructed, about getting stung

while hanging out the wash to dry

Must do something, one of these days…

But what?

Frogs

A cute little tree frog came in through the bathroom window,

made its way down the stairs to the kitchen where

it cowered in the corner behind the refrigerator

I scooped it up and deposited it in the garden, where it belongs

Later I found a whole congregation of the orange creatures

sitting cozy in a forgotten bag of potting soil.

With silent apologies I had to dislodge them

to get some planting done.

Dogs

The pye dogs belong to no one and everyone

They keep the watchman company and in return

are suffered to sun their skinny bodies

in the middle of the road.

They’ve taught me to keep my kitchen waste indoors

– until the sweeper calls for it –

by tearing to pieces my garbage bag

in search of a bite to eat, spreading its contents

all over the tiny lawn.

Sometimes they howl at the moon in a choir

Sometimes they look at me with pleading eyes

My neighbor feeds them table scraps

I don’t, just yet.

Gecko

As I pull the curtain shut, one of its bronze stripes

comes to life and for a moment I fear I am

hallucinating. Thank God, it’s just a young gecko

joining the household as of today.

Kittens

Should I get a cat? Mehreen’s cat Buffy has four kittens

that she nurses on a shelf of the glass-front cabinet.

When visitors come she evacuates them one by one

(holding them, mewing, by the scruff of the neck)

to a quieter room at the back of the house.

Stink Bug

Disgusting as you are, I like you better alive than dead

I’ll try not to crush you, on purpose or by accident

Just hope you will not fall into the frying pan

and ruin my dinner.

Unknown Insects

 Have we been introduced? I didn’t think so…

What makes you think you have the right

to barge into my house so brazenly?

Crickets Redux

Crickets big and small

in the shower, on the wall

in the kitchen sink and under the bed:

be quiet already and let me sleep

or better still, go play outside.

***

BLUE EYES

(For Dianne, who cannot resist them)

The color of fjords, of cornflowers,
of forget-me-nots, of steel…
Oh let me drown
in the fjords of your eyes!

You may be a heel, a crook or
a cad, and boring as hell but
as long as your eyes are blue,
Baby, you walk on water.

***

ROMANTIC

Some have compared me to Juliet
but unlike her I’m very much alive;
I feel the pain of living, not
the sweetness of the poison sleep.

Juliet on the other hand, never had
to put up with Romeo grown middle-aged,
cantankerous; never had to argue
whether the goblet was half empty
or half full or who did more than
his or her share of the chores.
They’d have had a maid, of course.

Had they survived the tragedy
and made their life together,
it’s more likely that Juliet would
have died in childbirth or of some
dreadful medieval malaise,
leaving Romeo free to remarry.

But that would not have been
half as romantic.

***

ON THE CURATIVE POWERS OF HOT PEPPERS

A spicy poem for a cold day…

“Powdered capsicum, sprinkled inside the stockings
was a favorite prescription with Prof. Scudder for cold feet “ (Materia Medica)

I have these friends called Don and Melinda
who spent their honeymoon on a cruise ship
with other aficionados of the hottest hot.
Savoring a multitude of exotic dishes
at the captain’s table by day, they spent
their nights in fiery passion, inspired
by the devilish Scotch Bonnet, which they now
grow in their backyard and generously share
with me and others of their persuasion.

Hot peppers in any shape or form are good for you.
Anaheims are for wimps and
even a Michigander can handle a jalapeño
(especially one stuffed with cheese and fried)
and if you’re ever so slightly adventurous
you may graduate to the slim Serrano.
Should you find your energy flagging
or when you can no longer get it up,
try the mighty Habanero, but do not
let me repeat that, NOT,
incorporate it in your foreplay,
or you will rue the day…

Whatever you care to name it: chile, cayenne pepper
or piment oiseau, the capsaicin in it may cure
your asthma and arthritis, your blood cloths and catarrh,
your chilblains and your cluster headaches,
dyspepsia, depression, and even delirium tremens,
fatigue and fever, lumbago and rheumatic pains.
Just don’t get it in your eyes!
No need to worry about your peptic ulcer,
the capsicum has long been exonerated from that charge.

You may not care to know this but
Africans used to rub the powdered pili-pili pepper
onto the private parts of adulterous women
who, delicate membranes set ablaze, would run
to the nearest river and jump into the water,
oblivious of the crocodiles.
The men, as always, went scot-free.

***
This poem was first published in Hanging Loose magazine #84 (2004)