An Indian Household
A poem about the Habitat of Deceit.
People often told me to keep an eye out,
for the world cradling my address,
is a place to beware.
“Be skeptical of the nice strangers”,
“Watch out for the dark alleys”,
“Don’t trust those who never moisturize”
(seriously though, why do y’all choose to be animals?)
Hyper-conscious of the outside and yet,
oblivious to the camouflaged perils
that have gradually unveiled themselves,
right within my typically Indian household,
the bona fide “Habitat of Deceit”.
Upon return from a sapping session of cricket,
on a sweltering, summer day,
all a boy fancies is that bottle of Sprite,
cold/clear/fizzy/acutely unhealthy.
I saw it from a distance, isolated on the wooden table,
and galloped towards its beckoning, without a care.
Unscrewed the rather flimsy cap,
and took that giant sip I yearned for,
that giant sip of…
COOKING OIL?!?!?
“WHAT THE…!!”, a stifled cry,
coupled with coughs and a viscous palate,
whilst spewing oil from the hole in my face,
at a rate comparable to Yellowstone’s geysers!
Needless to say, quite unsettling,
unsettling for an eleven-year-old,
but today, as a twenty-two-year-old,
’tis the dawn of cognizance,
of the philosophy Indians swear by,
“One thing…can be many things”,
the fiendish origins of this chicanery.
Humans have assimilated from the harsh lockdowns,
learnt about other people,
learnt about the environment,
learnt about Dalgona coffees,
and learnt about themselves.
I learnt something too…
a plain acceptance of the idea,
of more than three meals a day,
many more.
Naturally, I found myself at midnight,
dipping a hand into the cubical biscuit box,
expecting to land some fine, cocoa-filled goodness,
only to draw out a fistful…
OF STATIONERY AND SEWING KITS?!?!
A face perfectly evincing, “AGAIN?!”,
with thoughts as tangled,
as earphones when you need them most.
Because as far as I knew,
in the long history of mankind,
needles and erasers have never once been…biscuits.
Distressed at the mutation of this little box’s contents,
which once upon a time held,
what it ought to,
I ascertained another con,
another repulsive Indian household con.
Agh! How far does this subterfuge run?
I narrowed down the primary perpetrators,
of these acts of methodical hoodwinking,
to my birth-givers,
to the ones who were never supposed to.
I still remember the day my mother brought home,
an intricately woven, ivory-hued sheet for a bed,
for my bed, she promised!
Oh! Few things excite me more than sleeping on new, crisp sheets!
The night couldn’t come sooner.
I took a shower, and jumped into my pajamas,
whilst my mother made the bed.
“Go, brush your teeth”, she said,
as she always did.
I listened,
as I sometimes did.
On waltzing my way back into the room,
something sinister caught my eye…
an old, blanched blue, unremarkable cotton bed-sheet lay
over my silky, ivory-tinted aspirations.
“Why have you covered the new sheet, Mom?!”,
I screeched as I ran towards her room.
“It’s white, you’ll dirty it, always keep it covered”,
is the scandalous response I received.
Questions flooded the brain, as I trudged away slowly,
“WHY BUY A SHEET YOU’LL NEVER ACTUALLY SLEEP ON?”
“WOULDN’T EVERY SHEET GET DIRTY EVENTUALLY?”
“WHERE DID THE PERSON WHO INVENTED SHOWERS THINK OF THE IDEA?”
(I didn’t say every question would be pertinent)
A moment of lucidity followed,
as another core Indian philosophy,
disclosed itself…
“We do things for show and if they aren’t for show,
we’ll show them as such”.
Well, is this all there is?
The DECEPTION, the SHAMS, the SCHEMES?
Because here I am, aware,
yet unable…to stop these wicked machinations.
Parents lie to their children,
can be big, small, pretty, scary
(looking at you, creepy ass tooth fairy)
but the lies of Indian parents,
are the ones most artfully cloaked.
People often told me to keep an eye out,
for the world cradling my address,
is a place to beware.
They should’ve also told me,
to keep the other eye in,
to question the insidious ways
in which our very home functions,
our home,
the bona fide “Habitat of Deceit”.
