Overcooked rice sprinkled with leftovers from yesternight

carefully crammed into her little lunch box,

spared no effort to embarrass themselves

among lip-smacking pickles and spicy Mughlai

from Devi's and Aisha's,

adorning the lengths and breadths of their classroom lunch table,

whose flavoured aromas sculpt another dimension

with no friendly facades to hide behind and smirk.

She lowers her head,

a matter of utter shame,

her Amma can’t cook.

Too much spice or too little salt, never too perfect,

for the taste buds had a tough time dealing with her mixtures.

A hair strand uncaressed for so long, that jumped to death

or a tiny pebble eloped from the ration shop, a souvenir unasked-for,

two meals a day provided a shelter home

for the undesired and the lost.

From braving the breadline

to breaking the bars to make it,

class, caste, gender, you name it,

Somewhere between leading dawn to dusk,

mining multiple jobs to make ends meet

and customary yielding to nocturnal liquor-scented slaps

and choke marks that cling like a tattoo

around her long scrawny neck,

day-to-day offerings in vain for their only child's sake,

Amma kind of forgot to tend to

frowns, giggles and get-together belly laughs

that forever mouthed,

"Amma can’t cook.”