Amita’s evocative poem explores how migration irrevocably changes one’s relationship with memory, time, and the self, for Different Truths.
An NRI, my label of
twenty-one years.
I visit home, the same old home.
But now,
Nobody circles dates or the days anymore.
Where once calendars hung, I find
just discoloured patches on the walls
They, like me, left behind marks?
I close my eyes, and recall—
I half-remember a ballpoint square.
An exam, a wedding?
No—maybe that day was my flight,
When I wore the sad shoes
for the heavy goodbyes.
Forgetting, for me, isn’t loud.
It’s how, in the kitchen, one forgets
The gas is on, and the milk spills.
I forget now if and how,
Mom scolded, screamed,
Forgetting the pre-digital world,
The rough winds cut off sound.
How the radio screeched.
My memory’s not a photo album.
It’s more like a drawer of odd socks—details mismatch.
Visuals blur,
and broken crayons from childhood at me glare.
The past doesn’t knock.
It just creeps in softly,
just a little, when I least invite,
I recall my father’s voice
Every morning, for Mom, he sang…
The past haunts; I quietly choke
I try harder to remember
But I fail to picture
My birthday—is it mine or
My sister’s handwriting.
When you migrate,
You carry the sound of the old swing’s creaks,
The whistle of the pressure cooker,
The smell of damp earth after rain,
The hum of the Gujarati bhajan
And the Navratri garba,
Sung by elderly ladies
For nine days, devoutly.
And twenty-one years later—
You realise in a choked moment,
What no one tells you
When you decide to fly away,
You carry more than dreams.
More than wings and feathers.
No one warns you,
That the wind is under your wings
Will change, the feathers fall, the dreams—
If realised, they lose their charm instantly.
You notice from a younger you are peeping out
of old photo frames,
Your smiles were accents of your heart,
Your laughter had a lilt,
And hidden under your bed,
Your old diary page
Did carry tear stains,
Sobs without sounds,
Do you now forget from what you flee?
Why did you fly to be free?
And your laughter, unwittingly, you left behind,
The one from before, carefree,
The sound of joy galore,
No, it never comes back, not anymore.
Picture design by Anumita Roy
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