They don't know how to tell a story
They don't chew betel-nut, paan-leaves
Or sit on a mat
made from finely sliced long bamboo
While telling a story

I miss the patchy golden moon
Glowing
Peeping down
Smiling
smell of dry cow-dung
or jasmine
night-queen
mashed marigold leaves...
floating over the perpetual sound of a
Hand-fan made from
Four empty incensed sticks' packets
Stitched,
Fixed on a piece of bamboo stick
That can be moved round and round to
Huddle all of us near Grandma
For the air
story,
security,
cracked hands' caressing extended
to our prickly heat-covered backs.

Grandma! the most courageous woman in the world
From the hide-out of mango-ghost
To the witch in thick-leaved jackfruit trees
who cooks her meal on a human skull, sitting
on the space between two conjoined branches
She knows everything, everyone

From long-legged ghosts to
Head-less kabandha
And glowing ghor jeutee who lives
inside best pillar of your house;--
with the sternest face,
Faced she all

She sent them away
Sometimes, with a handful of mustard seeds
Or
The smell of burnt red-chilies
sown on smolders red
The small iron ring tied with thread around waist
(Stolen in a moonless Saturday
from fisherman's smelly net.)
Or escaped singing a song in front of foxes
Calling blacky ,ruddy--
that go bow-bow-bow
the shell of a tumbling giant gourd
she sat inside

There is so much to learn from Grandma
Especially the way of telling a story

They can't tell scary stories
the way Grandma tells
With a stern
Courageous
Omniscient

I-don't-care-anyone kind of face



Aruni Kashyap is a young Assamese poet at St. Stephen's College, Delhi.