Rachana Patni
(I)
Treacherous patriarchal veiled women
Who pickled customs, community, food, gods
Enforcing an identity dished out from memory.
Goddesses who embody beauty and embalm demons, riding tigers and lions
Saddling their throbbing thighs, in exquisitely rustling sarees.
No perspiration anywhere.
(II)
My grandfather, comfort seeking grand entrepreneur, blue-blooded deal-maker,
Better horse-racer. The prodigal son, frittered and won.
My grandmother, elegant daughter of a Rai Bahadur
Unused to being of use, getting jobs done by willing others.
My other grandmother, maker of large stacks of chapatis and
Chaser of monkeys who stole these to eat them on our terrace.
Her niece, who died young. And continues to visit my aunt.
Granting her special favours that make her beget a fan club of troubled folk.
My other grandfather, lending me his shoulders to
Peruse the sweet marts of West Bengal to slurp the right Rosogulla!
The greater grandparents who trundled across the country before it was India,
On a bullock cart, for better rice and fresh fruit, in enterprise and desperation.
We came from the dusty desert border where the sun set too late.
To a margin where the sun rose, paddy green, early enough to merit its own time zone.
I came further still, rooting with my love for Goa, trundling by ship and air, bag and baggage
To experience the abundance of the tropics, victualled in sleepy measures.
(III)
A few in every generation with mental afflictions, rhinitis, dandruff.
Neuroses, psychoses, diabetes, heart ailments, dermatological itch.
The animals on land and sea with the trauma processing toolkits,
The plants and trees with their hold on the ground, our cellular history.
Deadly desires that fabricated inheritance issues and left discordant legal legacies.
Rachana Patni works with the therapeutic and transformational potential of narratives in her one-to-one engagements as well as group retreats for corporate leaders. An alumna of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and the London School of Economics, she currently resides in Panjim, Goa. She is working hard on converting her PhD thesis into a book that others may want to read!
Banner picture downloaded from Unsplash.com