Geneva, Without Biryani
I open my cupboard,rows of olive oil, jars of mustard,but no spice that burnsthe way my mother’s kitchen did.
Here, hunger is polite,measured in francs,folded into pastries with no stories attached.
A city that smells of lake waterbut never of cumin.Even my longingis dressed in neutral tones.
They ask where I’m from.I say Geneva.They nod, relieved.As if hunger could be translatedinto a postal code.
But at night I dream of rice steam,of hands tearing frozen chappatis,of fire that leaves its mark on the tongue.
I am the non-biryani Genevois:fed,but never full.
Handoguri Ashes
The grain is small as breath,pale as ashwhen the husk burns away.
In Assam, we learnedto hold it like a promisetiny fists openingto scatter what our elders planted.
I left,and the fields turned into storiesmy tongue still struggles to carry.
Handoguri:you mean more than rice.You are the smoke rising from my throat,the ash that settles on my skin.
Here in another countrythe shelves are lined with polished grains,shiny, silent,no song of husk or soil.
I stir them in boiling water,watch them swell without memory.
What is a mealif it cannot taste like home?