Page 36 - Poems

to mine ears is sweet, sweet music, old and well-known,
the cadence, the chromatic cusses hearkening
to a lost forefather: Chettakal (scumbags, pack
of scoundrels), ippum aarkum veetti kéreettu
(so, anyone can barge into my house today)
enthu thinnaam, enganné pedukkaam
ennu polum theerumannikkaamennaayi
(to decree what I can eat, even how I pee).
Aark ariyimaarrunnu ithaayirikkum
ezhuvathu varsham swathanthram (who’d have known
seventy years of independence would lead us here)?
Paratta thayolikal (unrepeatable
expletive)! His younger, milder replica – son,
sibling, clansman? – broaches, Ennum beef-barotta
Madras Caféyill poyi kazhikkamello
(We’ll go for beef-barotta to Madras Café,
shan’t we, every single day) Parisillu
olladutholum divasam (of your stay here
in Paris)? Scant comfort, the elder’s grunt implies
though the joyous glint in a spent iris belies
the phonic discontent: Delhininnu, moné,
Paris veré ennum iniyum beefinu
veraan pattumo (Will we travel to Paris
each day, my son, from Delhi to eat beef)?
His wife, meanwhile, inscribes the epitaph: Étho
oru drohi nammuda éttavum
ishtapetta koottan paapam aannu keri
prasthapichittu athu-ban cheiiyyum (any
lowlife can just defame your favourite food, claim
it a mortal vice and proclaim a ban):
enth ellippamanu, ellé, swantham
naadiné, veediné, illathakkan oru
nimisham porum (it only takes an instant,
with such ease do they unmake your home/land, your haunt.)

At Pont Marie, they disembark – gathering ire
and ache with scarves, coats, brolly and (more visible)
baggage – to salute Notre Dame, her nine bells and
gargoyles, before heading Gare-du-Nord-wards where plates
of fiery beef-barrotta await, limitless
here, and licit. At Pont Marie: ripples of tongues –
Polish, Arabic, American, Mandarin,
Tamil, Spanish, Korean – suffuse the amber-
tinted air. A giant Eiffel Tower lurches

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