Your Order will Arrive in Ten Minutes
What should we call the time between
바카라place your order바카라
and 바카라order will arrive in ten minutes바카라?
Is it the twilight hour
when a wife waits for the husband?
Is it oddity of a child to open
an unusually heavy lunch-box?
This dash, trash, tribble, quibble
tantrum of the stomach,
after office-hours, is a regular offender.
It is a quick tap on ether
to place the burden of hunger
on young boys. Boys who don바카라t reach home.
Perhaps, a school drop-out
who has postponed his own belly
to ride on contracts and maps.
Perhaps, an engineer who jumped
the signal to deliver fragrant, Moroccan chicken 바카라 warm and tender.
The sun never slumbered on their swift foreheads.
When I was young, I had a friend called Patience 바카라
I waited for letters from the postman.
I waited for sequined moons to stick to thin paper.
I waited after each storm, for mangoes,
to drop and sweeten the earth.
But now, nobody waits.
We are fast and free with wicked feedbacks.
Six hundred seconds 바카라 I scroll Instagram.
I read about a delivery-boy crushed under a bus,
add an angry comment on capitalism.
The doorbell rings.
A tepid face, etched with ten commandments
arrives and whizzes away, almost immediately.
My body becomes a bowl, fingers turn into forks
and the tongue 바카라 a spoon awaiting excavation.
Nothing but war-cries of intestines
involve the moment.
An hour later, reviews are scripted
by a miscalculated hand,
it has no memory.
I order 바카라dairy-free바카라 Ice cream.
Another boy. Another ten minutes.
Menu Card
The companion of bruised knees, did not matter.
I held a firm sight of tables occupied by familiar faces.
The profession of little fingers
waiting to gather their menu cards 바카라
a pocket size map of the wedding banquet.
Gold, pink, flaming-red, floral dreams,
hummingbirds swiftly alighting
on the bride and the groom who probably never met before.
A Bengali bhoj bari* patterned in nimble fonts;
radha bollobi*, alu daum*, mangsho*, macher chop*바카라
swollen bellies, loud belches
never troubled to hold such souvenirs,
but I, like a scavenger of memories
swooped under the tables to grasp folds of paper
before hungry women, swept the floor.
These days, rough palms don바카라t shiver,
they hold the elegance of curated buffets,
and global cuisines 바카라 a bee line radiance for low-fat hunger.
Paperless worlds 바카라 every delight frozen into pixels.
*Bhoj Bari (Bengali): A feast, typically a wedding feast organised at someone바카라s home.
*Radha Bollobi: A type of fried bread made with lentil filling inside
*Alu daum: A rich potato gravy
*Mangsho: Mutton curry
*Macher chop: Fish Croquet
Order Received, A Blitz Poem
Boy falls from building
boy reaches hospital
hospital holds a broken head
hospital declares him dead
dead was his mother
dead before he quit college
college was an empty bag
college without pockets
pockets of paper
pockets of earpods
earpods ride midnights
earpods hear a soul
soul alone not alone
soul with a furry friend
friend without a leash
friend with command
command of a German Shepherd
command of confused hunger
hunger against slowness
hunger for control
control lost on a delivery-boy
control panel out of order
order received
order is a box of blood
blood betrays body
blood breaks God
God is blood God is power
power of the rich
power of puppets
puppets dance
puppet-masters hide
hide the real joke
hide the hills
hills never sink
hills ignore shanties
shanties of the small
shanties without sunlight
sunlight steals insurance
sunlight ceases joy
joy of a balloon
joy of five-stars
stars cradle a boy
stars map a melody
melody of friendship
melody of a dog바카라s master
master with medicines
master wrapped in worry
worry fails a blurry ending
worry waits for a clear beginning
beginning바카라 ending바카라
*The poem is based on the tragic death of a 23-year-old food delivery executive in the city of Hyderabad, India. He reached a posh locality on the hills to deliver an order at 2 am in the morning. The owner바카라s dog attacked him. Afraid and panic-stricken, he jumped, slipped, and fell from the third floor. The owner admitted him to the hospital. A few days later, he succumbed to injuries. This is one among the several tragedies that end the lives of young delivery agents. We are joyfully giddy in the fast-paced, hustle of the city but someone pays the price of our convenience culture. The poem adopts the form 바카라The Blitz Poem바카라, introduced by poet Robert Keim.
A skirt, a blouse, a hairband
Those days we shopped only once in a year.
Autumn바카라s fading heat riding on the benediction of Durga 바카라
Pujo was a rebirth 바카라 my body바카라s liberation
from brother바카라s hand-me-downs.
There were no malls, no commerce
on ether, no approval in emoticons;
only, Ma바카라s madness and Baba바카라s salary.
Year after year, we walked
through the local market, bargaining for bearable,
yet, beautiful sarees, frocks,
hairbands and handkerchiefs;
frugality was respectable.
Aah! to feel like a child,
to know the crispness of clothes
soaking the incense, the musk of shiuli,
the mantras birthing anjalis, and the final light of the third eye.
Now, in a universe of instant possibilities,
closets spill and suffocate 바카라
the cloak of the earth withers away,
and for the millionth time,
the phone beeps 바카라 바카라your order will arrive today.바카라
(Jhilam Chattaraj is an academic and poet based in Hyderabad, India. Noise Cancellation is her latest collection of poems. Her works have appeared at Calyx, Room, Colorado Review, Ariel and World Literature Today among others.)
