Five Conversations I Can No Longer Bear to Have in Person: Annie Zaidi

Amrita-Sher-Gil: Village life. 1938. WikiArt


Annie Zaidi

i

Remember what a bugle meant?
Flags pennant colours

We grew up watching the same films
You know what I’m talking about: a battlefield
shields snug against shields, swords tingling
bones stiff with knowing they could lie bleaching
under a foreign sun and any loving yet to be done
was left too late

The king and his nearest kin, fighting men all
A bugle on someone’s lips waiting for the call
A sky purpling like a bruise, grass whispering
to bare ankles of kisses imagined
Men looking into the black eyes of the end
Then: now! aye, now!

Flags, stabs, missed throws then night’s relief
Sleep. Send for allies. Count the fallen. Weep

The fight was never equal but a decent war has rules
Dawn to dusk, that’s one. And none but men fighting
face to face dare speak of honour
A torn chest is battle, a dagger in the back is not

There was loot and rape but soldiers knew:
the spoils of war are not war
My friend, you say it is the same old thing
but we both know: with every battle, skirmish, coup

the soldier changes. The enemy is new

Come walk with me
Let us see what weapons they brought
Let us gauge how badly and who lost
this thing you call a war

Is this loss enough to settle the score
on your ancient ledger? Do the math
my friend and when you are done,
sound the bugle for battle’s end.

ii

There she is
Creeping around my backyard

Came indoors with her kittens once
Just like that!

Hangs around swatting at pigeons
Doesn’t bother the rats

I had to take rabies shots once
Five shots, and for what?
Trying to save her useless spawn

We’re not friendly, no
I see her crouched on my garden wall
Sometimes I hiss until she turns her head

She’s got her ways that I don’t like
but what the hey!
She’s got her life
I’ve got my life

My point is, the difference
between your politics and mine is,
the cat lives.

iii

I will not make the cut-us-and-do-we-not-bleed
argument (can you imagine the horror
if one of us failed to bleed from a cut?)

My argument is: we also bleed
when our own brothers cut us
And you bleed when your own
cut you (and quite often, they do)

iv

We have come to ask for your infant son
We need him to lay a new tar road
That’s how smooth roads are done
Good roads require sacrifice and
It’s only fair we all take turns
Agreed?

why/why not?

We hear the electricity department cannot
Function without petrol bombs being lobbed
Into lanes holding up so tight
No husband-wife can make love, or fight
Without hearing a neighbour sucking her tongue
In disbelief

The street is to burn like a box of matches
One house setting off the next
Thus, everyone pitches in
We were hoping your house could
Volunteer as the nerve centre to set alight
Our common discontent
Surely you have no objection?

what/why?

Would you send your sister please
Down to the corner where men compare
The circumference of chests and debate
Whether biceps are worth more than a spine
And whether you can define crime as that
Which was not covered up in time

why/why not?

So, then? How do you propose
To contribute to the nation?
Going about your business?
Waiting for a tax-deducted salary cheque?
Wearing the clothes you’ve always worn?
Eating whatever you can get hold of?

My friend! My friend!

This funny attachment to your own miseries
These charred remains of youth
Your desire to grow old
Your ability to reproduce
Keep fasts
Cook

Surely you know there is more,
Much more a patriot must do?
And if we do not volunteer you,
Then who?

(v)

Let us make a balance sheet.
First, we make two columns:

X Ancestors Y Ancestors
were from north or west of the Indus
who mated with eastern and southern people
who were perhaps overcome by force
your ancestors were ambitious, restless, but
they settled down, and were either unable to
destroy the people native to this land or were
reluctant to
the races slowly mingled and became
doctors, farmers, hunters, cooks, singers,
weavers, drum-beaters, saints. their words
are evidence that every heart beats
to the same drum
were from north or west of the Indus
who mated with eastern and southern people
who were perhaps overcome by force.
your ancestors were ambitious, restless, but
they settled down, and were either unable to
destroy the people native to this land or were
reluctant to
the races slowly mingled and became
doctors, farmers, hunters, cooks, singers,
weavers, drum-beaters, saints. their words
are evidence that every heart beats
to the same drum
broke temples that housed different gods
but also took from them new shades of faith
they built palaces and forts, ships and ports,
step-wells, temples and some mosques too
they learnt from new rival-allies new graces
of gate, dome, dress, song
broke temples that housed different gods
but also took from them new shades of faith
they built new mosques, and some temples too
and gardens, canals, tombs, forts, step-wells
they learnt from new rival-allies new graces
of pillar, dress, speech, song
waged war
a lot
waged war
a lot
had, then lost
empires
had, then lost
empires
wrote poetry, mused on nature
and the substance of divinity
wrote poetry, mused on nature
and the substance of divinity
made allies, if not friends, through women
and wombs, laid claim to land
and river and the pulsing strength of wrists
that could wring necks, if they chose to
made allies, if not friends, through women
and wombs, laid claim to land
and river and the pulsing strength of wrists
that could wring necks, if they chose to
died in wars they didn’t understand died in wars they didn’t understand
changed with time
sometimes they did time in refugee camps
often they spent hours waiting in line
for low-cost housing lottery forms
they suffered heat, cold, waves of nausea
and a terror of never being safe
they raged as new ladders disappeared
into the bog of ancient laws unyielding
as ice
often they tried to get away to a new
land where they thrived only to find themselves turning
into the wrong kind of other
changed with time
sometimes they did time in refugee camps
often they were welcome nowhere else
and so they huddled in mosques
they suffered heat, cold, waves of nausea
they tried moving somewhere safe but were met with
five seconds of silence across a phone line after they told the real estate broker their  family name
often they lay awake in bed and were shamed by how much they longed to be warmed by the touch of the other’s hand

 

these kings, those queens

yours and mine

pawns on the chessboard of time

knights falling off the high horse of fealty

going down in heavy armour into the red dust of a nation’s history

arms flailing like windmills trying to stave off

suspicion

 

soon

all argument will be reduced to broken tiles

all fortresses will be ruins for lovers to tangle in

all temples, mosques, chapels, monasteries will have no part

to play save that of a hospice

for bursting hearts.

© Annie Zaidi

 *********

Annie Zaidi is the author of Bread, Cement, Cactus: A memoir of belonging and dislocationPrelude to a Riot; and the forthcoming City of Incident. Her other books include Gulab; Love Stories # 1 to 14Known Turf: Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales, The Good Indian Girl and Crush. She is also the editor of Unbound: 2000 Years of Indian Women's Writing, and Equal Halves.
She received the Tata Literature Live Award for fiction (2020), the Nine Dots Prize (2019), and The Hindu Playwright Award (2018) for Untitled 1. Her radio script ‘Jam’ was named regional (South Asia) winner for the BBC’s International Playwriting Competition (2011). Her work has appeared in several anthologies and literary journals including The Griffith Review, The Aleph Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Charles River Journal, The Missing Slate and Out of Print.
She has also written and directed several short films and the documentary film, In her words: The journey of Indian women.

Annie Zaidi in The Beacon

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*