most of what we call a legacy is an arm
adorned in bangles with a ladle
wrestling coconut and almondette
churning in milk pushing us inwards
backwards anti-clockwise in history
i wake up to sunlit streets and dirty walls
painted red with sweet betel
hoping to love something taste funnel cakes
but to love something also means to surrender yourself to the thought
*this is overstayed sweetness
melting in my mouth *
i love my country the way we slurp garlic tea,
gulping the bitter grief slowly, painfully
sometimes not at all into mashes of aromatic cardamom and tulsi
most of what we call a legacy is
clean streets and diet drinks
way past their expiry an espresso in disposable plastic and
countless brown men eating packed lunches
most nights on metro rides
i watch youtube videos of bland dishes and plating tricks
and lose myself in the triviality of Western
humour,
most likable of a memsaheb
and most nights my country is fire
and my countrymen wood
warming food over sikari and earthen stove
my descendants moved through landscapes
with nothing but hunger and a few tools
and it feels ungrateful to write angry poems
about our democracy but let it be known
that l am tired and drained
emptiness disguised as country colours,
and fake promises
all it takes to lose hold
is to see our leaders fine-dining with our people
and soldiers open fire on protestors, their eyes
dying, brimming with questions
about the hope partaken in one-time meals
and later cleansed with cow urine
most of what we call a legacy is the promise
of erasure our old ones speak of heavens, afterlives
of *amrit* and betrayal
and other forms of transcendence but
not inheritance most of what I want
is most of what we don't have; a kitchen and memories of scents
the recipes of my grandmother
the appetite for family dinners banters over leaf plates
most of what we call
a legacy is misremembrance of delicacies,
feelings and attachments
this is what they call irony
this is what they call food
most likely to be cooked burnt
and thrown away
as a matter of tastes and preferences.