03.14.01

it started as a cooking lesson. every indian girl needs to know how to make parata. it is soul food.

a girl and her grandmother, alone in a kitchen, speaking through recipes about sorrow and loss. that's the way it sometimes works when you've lost too much. it becomes too much to speak of outright. it becomes necessary to utilize every word as a potent metaphor, to tell stories of chapati flour that hint at the yearning and grief locked inside.

it started as a cooking lesson, but it quickly became a metaphor, a coded conversation, a communication of grieving. she, my grandmother, for all that had been lost in the translation of indian to indian-american, for all of the children who chose hamburgers over chana masala, and me, for all of the memories that i would never have, for the legacy inscribed on my skin that would never be decoded.

i don't know what it is that i am trying to tell you, but it sometimes chokes me. my grandmother, born and raised muslim, met my grandfather, a hindu brahmin, and they fell in love. there were prices to pay. when they married, my grandmother's family disowned her. her mother never spoke to her or of her again. they had to move to the states because nobody would hire a Hindu, a brahmin, besides, married to a muslim. it was unspeakable. and so they fled, taking their six children with them. they were forced to live on $7,000 a year. they were forced to do a lot of things, all of which were unspeakable, and my grandmother carries their weight like a millstone around her neck, a legacy that is hers alone.

i don't know what it is that i am trying to tell you, but it sometimes chokes me. it started as a cooking lesson, but became a eulogy for all of the stories that would never be shared, for all of the tears that were swallowed in the journey.

***

blood runs thicker than water

but you are stronger than blood

you wash over me until i am clear

like water, i reflect

a picture of you

and blood is thicker than water

but only plastic runs through my veins

my skin stamped with the color of dirt

rich topsoil or desert sand

in the mirror i see my color

a memory of blood

thicker than water

a language i do not understand.

***

xoxo,

moonbird

*i am leaving for a brief vacation, so this will be the last update until 3/19. i'll miss you!*

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