Tell me a story...

‘Maa, tell me a story naa’,
Four-year old innocence
Tugged petulantly at pleats
Of the yellow dhakai saree
Which blurred, then merged
With the damp blue patch
Cornered with spider-threads;
Drawing afternoon and sky.


So she began
Like a practiced teller
Of summer-noon tales,
‘Once upon a time…’
Raking brown leaves
That crunched beneath
Heavy-hearted steps
Waiting to be trampled.

Swallow-hopping the surface
Of several mossy green
Memory-waters, orange reverie
Flooded through sieve curtains,
Of another boy who had tugged
Saree pleats, braided hair
And entwined knotty fingers
In search of a story

‘Tarpor, then?’
Tiny fingers fingered
Hers, and so,
‘The prince fought
A terrible long war…’
So sense battled
Grey nostalgia
Flint-edged pain.


White-laced fantasy lined
Faithfully the edges of untruth,
While a black-night seered
Like chronic corporeal pain,
To blow tales away,
Faraway discordant played

A beauteous note
On a broken flute.

So lie won, and
She strung the tale
To a perfect finish,
‘And so the prince
Handsomely rescued
The frail nymph
And rode into
Happily ever after.’